The front cover of the August issue of the Burke’s Backyard Magazine comes with a bonus free packet of ‘Burke’s Backyard Italian Tomato’ seeds. Voted the Best Tasting Tomato by a 22-member panel of Australia’s leading gardening, horticultural and culinary experts, the Burke’s Backyard Italian Tomato is a form of the Rouge de Marmande. It is a large-fruited, ribbed variety that will grow well in cool or warm districts.

Sowing Seed

At this cool time of year in temperate gardens, most gardeners raise their tomato seedlings in pots and transplant them out into the garden in late September. Tomatoes are frost-tender plants, so your main concern now is to avoid the effects of severe cold weather, and a moveable pot gives you the best control over growing conditions.

Your tomato seed-raising pot could be any clean, small pot; a used seedling punnet is okay, as are compressed peat Jiffy Pots. Fill the pots with seed-raising mix, make a dent in the surface about 3-5mm deep, add a tomato seed, then cover with mix. Water lightly and keep the pot in a warm, sheltered spot. Depending on the temperatures, the seedlings will pop up anywhere between 10 and 14 days, but around 10 days is average.

If you’ve sown several seeds in the one punnet, thin them out so there is about a 3cm gap between each little tomato seedling. When the seedlings have reached about 8cm tall, they are ready to move out into a sunnier spot (this is called ‘hardening them off’). When they’ve reached 10-12cm high, they are ready to transplant into the garden.

Further information

Burke’s Backyard Italian Tomato seeds are free with the August issue of the Burke’s Backyard Magazine, available at newsagents and supermarkets for $5.50. The August edition also contains an article with full instructions on tomato cultivation.

Seed raising mix costs approximately $6-$8.

Copyright CTC Productions 2003