In recent years I have given up growing large fruited tomatoes in the Southern Highlands, as it is often too humid and the growing season is not long enough or hot enough to get a decent crop. I finish up with buckets of green tomatoes that I have to convert into green tomato pickles and at this stage I have enough bottles of the stuff to last a life time or two.

So over the last few years I have concentrated on growing small fruited dwarf varieties such as Tommy Toe, Yellow Pear, Sweet Bite, Red Fig, Yellow Current and Valentine. These dwarf varieties have a shorter growing season and ripen even when the temperatures are not overly warm. This year I also picked up a packet of an heirloom variety I have never tried before called Thai Pink Egg and I have been pleasantly surprised by this wonderful productive plant.

Their germination rate was excellent. I started them in pots indoors, and then planted them out in a bed that I had prepared by digging in plenty of cow manure, chook manure and blood and bone. I mulched them well with sugar cane mulch, watered them a couple of times with Seasol to get them established and have done nothing else to them. The mulch was thick enough to allow them to ramble over the ground without the fruit touching the soil and rotting, so I haven’t even needed to stake them. I did cover the crop with a frame and netting to stop the birds from helping themselves.

Now we have had plenty of rain this season so it is not surprising I didn’t have to water them, but with all the rain and humidity I would have expected some of the plants to have suffered from disease problems and fruit splitting. This has not occurred; instead I have wonderfully healthy bushes that have produced a huge crop of delicious small egg shaped pearly pink fruit that taste delicious.
This variety apparently evolved in Thailand so it is obviously suited to moist and humid conditions, but being productive in our cooler temperatures has been a real bonus.

So I will be saving seed of my Thai pink egg and planting it again next year!
If you get a chance to pick up some seeds of this variety, give them ago and hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised as well.

Happy Gardening,
Kathy

Are you picking plenty of tomatoes this season or have they been a bit lacklustre? Show me your cropvia Facebook! or  email through your questions or leave a comment below!