Supported Employment > Seawinds Nursery > Operational Procedures – Seawinds > Seawinds Tomato Procedure
Authorised by Seawinds Nursery Manager
Issue Date: 30 October 2023
Tomatoes
Seawinds has an excellent reputation for producing the best tomato seedlings in Portland during spring & summer. It is important to provide a selection of tomatoes with different growth habits because they are the biggest seller at the Spring sale and gardeners enjoy a wide variety.
Two types- Bush & Indeterminate (climbing).
Bush types usually set fruit around the same time which is why they are often used for sauce making. Sauce making tomatoes also have less seeds. Bush types are also recommended for people who want to grow their tomatoes in pots. Indeterminate tomatoes will continue fruiting over an entire season.
Different varieties include:
Early- Burnley Gem (bush), Stupice (climbing), Oxheart (climbing), Rouge de Marmande (climbing).
Saucing - Roma (bush), San Marzano (climbing), Amish Paste (climbing).
Cherry - Tommy Toe, Black Cherry, Golden Nugget or Honeybee, Jaune Flamme.
Big - Beefsteak (climbing), Mortgage Lifter (climbing).
Popular- Grosse Lisse (climbing), Money Maker (climbing), KY1 Scoresby Dwarf (bush), Burnley Surecrop (climbing) and Black Russian (climbing).
Novelty (sow less of these varieties)- Green Zebra, Rainbow, Indigo Rose etc.
•The first sowing of tomatoes should be completed by the last week of July. Sowing half trays of each seed will give you time to see if the seed (carried over from the previous season is still viable or if you will need to either sow heavier or buy in new seed.
•Succession sow half size trays two weeks later and again in full size trays the following fortnight. This will stagger out the sizing to allow for weekly transplanting and hopefully avoid too much of a glut.
•Prick out tomatoes and transplant them directly into a labelled tube. Using a code on the tube help for identification e.g., R (Roma), BS (Beefsteak), BUR (Burnley Surecrop), BG (Burnley Gem), GL (Grosse Lisse), TT (Tommy Toe), etc.
•Trans plant the tomatoes DEEP into the punnet,just below the first set of leaves, to ensure a strong root system.
•Water in well and keep in water trays to make sure they don’t dry out. Tomatoes don’t like overhead watering, so where possible, water from beneath or hand water directly onto the soil.
•When signs of fungal disease appear, make a fungal spray with 1 teaspoon each bicarb & a neutral oil and a squirt of dish liquid mixed with 3L of water.
•Feed them fortnightly with a liquid fertilizer such as Powerfeed or Charlie Carp.
•Keep varieties together to keep track of transplants and to avoid over/under stocking varieties.
•Keep in a polytunnel until the last frost has past. Remind customers that want to buy directly from the poly tunnel that they will need to “harden off” the tomato before putting it directly into the ground.
•4-cell & 6 cell large purple punnets sell well in bulk of the popular varieties e.g, 6 x Grosse Lisse or a mix @ each of the cherry type tomatoes or a mix of all varieties.
•Pot popular varieties into larder sizes to sell as advanced. This is helpful if there is a glut of one variety or it is coming to the end of the season.
•For Spring Sale, it is safe to say that you can have hundreds of popular varieties available, and it still might not be enough. Don’t forget that the season will continue beyond the sale and traditionally gardeners in Victoria used to plant their first tomato at Melbourne Cup. Last year people were still looking to buy tomatoes in January, which is a bit late to get maturing fruit. It is advised that there is no more sowing of tomatoes after October and just sell out what you’ve got left through the summer season.