This is a special occasion for us. To get the first red ripe tomato on the 16th of December!

We have had a ripe tomato before Xmas before, maybe a couple of times in the last 5 years, but usually either just a day or two before Xmas or more likely in the week before New Year.

This is very early for us. I did buy 6 seedlings from the nursery when we returned from Korea in October and planted them out under our temporary closhe to beat the frosts and get them started extra early. See a previous posting;

Back Home in the Garden   Posted on 24/10/2018

I have since planted another 20 plants, the most recent as recently as last week. I want to have plenty of fruit for making tomato passata in the summer. We are down to our last 4 jars from last summers harvest left in the pantry now. We’ll just make it through the year. perfect!