Sat here with the FA Cup on in the background, I am seed shuffling. Seed shuffling tomato seeds. I have now got 12 baby seedlings, sat nervously on the window sill. I am hoping to sow some more in the coming weeks, The plan, is to have tomatos and chilli peppers in the poly tunnel.

So far, I have sown a money maker, true black brandywine, purple cherokee, yellow stuffer, marmande, and cream sausage. A few of these are heritage varieties, and some of them the big beefsteak variety. They are also a diverse range in terms of their colour spectrum.

Last year, Marmande were lovely. Just a bit green. They have a lovely knobbly surface that you just don’t find in the supermarket. I also had purple cherokee. Again, this was a productive cropper. There were tomatoes, big ones too. Smudges of purple. rather than fully, failed to move much from green.  The tomatoes that we see in the supermarket, are those beautifully round, smooth, spherical creatures. Yet not all veg is smooth, uniform and standard. The vast majority of it, is actually wonky. Yet we don’t buy it, and it sadly goes to waste.

Having rooted around the seed stashers, I have located my tomato seeds. Once more, I am trying to select the varieties that I would like to sow.  Have already sown a few yellow tomatoes, but there is a yellow brandywine that I quite like the look of. There is already a pinkish one, that rules out the pink brandywine. There is something definitely more solid about a beefsteak tomato. The plants are different too, in terms of the leaf shape and they get quite tall.

I have quite a few tigerella seeds, freebies, I think. Might try these to see what kind of fruit they are, beyond their novelty stripes. It is a heritage variety, interestingly. Lastly, there is Roma VF. Meant to be good for sauces, so we shall see as to how productive it. Most likely going to be used just like a conventional red tomato.