We have tomatoes - 07/07/26 - Ty Mawr Market Garden

News from the farm

07/07/26

We have tomatoes!

I think for most gardeners, the start of tomato season is a significant moment in the year. The journey starts back in March when you first sow the seeds. They're quite a demanding crop to grow, they want consistently warm temperatures to germinate, plenty of light to stop them getting leggy, they don't want to be exposed to frost when planting out, and even now they're fully established, they demand a lot of time, trellising, pinching out and now harvesting twice a week. But all that work is so worth it.

We've got 3 beds of tomatoes this year, split into the main types of cherry, salad and beefsteaks. We're growing a total of 14 different varieties, some we've grown before and know we love and then some new ones. We want a diverse mix, full of flavour.

We'll seed save from the best plants so year on year we'll be breeding our own tomatoes that do well in our environment. We'd love to hear which ones end up being your favourites.

Aubergine & Spring Onions

Elsewhere in the polytunnel, we're starting to pick the aubergines. We'll be alternating these around the boxes each week so sometimes you might get aubergines, sometimes peppers, for example.

We did some experimenting this year with interplanting our aubergines with other crops. Some more successful than others. The beetroot / aubergine combo hasn't worked so well - we think the beetroot just shaded out the aubergine plants too much so we'll have to adjust the timings if we want to do this again.

But spring onions / aubergine have done very well. We try to put spring onions in any gaps we see; not only does this mean we can grow more food per bed but bringing in another crop of a different plant family brings more diversity to the life in the soil.