Heritage tomato champion, Lucy Hutchings shares some of her tips
Iam a huge fan of heirloom tomatoes because they offer such a tantalising array of colours, shapes and sizes and the flavour they deliver is off the charts. We have become so used to uniform red and round tomatoes on supermarket shelves and through hybrid (F1) seed varieties, yet there are so many more exciting options also available.
Why grow something that’s readily available in the shops when there’s a much more colourful, wider-world of varieties at your home-grown disposal? From tomatoes as big as your head to currant-sized gems, with such varying flavours and all generally no more difficult to grow than more familiar brands.
What does heritage or heirloom mean?
The terms ‘heritage’ and ‘heirloom’ are one and the same. They are open pollinated varieties that have been around for 50 years or more. These wonderful varieties reproduce in the way nature intended through natural pollination.
