LOVE APPLE

Ian
Could you tell me the best time to start growing tomatoes indoors please? Thanks D.M Buncrana.

Reply
If you had a heated greenhouse then the seed could have been sown as early as late December. These would have given you a June crop. Most of us however will plant the seeds in early March for planting out in April. The first fruit will be ready for picking in July. Tomatoes reached Ireland about 400 years ago. And like a lot of things, were regarded with extreme suspicion when first seen.

They were grown as ornamental oddities rather that for food. The old name of Love Apple suggests that they were a forbidden fruit and there was some thing unwholesome and unpleasant about the plant and a connection with the devil. The Latin name is lycopersicon, which means wolf- peach and refers to the fact that the fruit was considered to be inferior to the peach as a fruit, which doesn’t seem to be a very fair comparison! If you’re anything like me though, you would be lost without the tomato for cooking.

Horticultural.