The Tomato Lab

The Tomato Lab Welcome to The Tomato Lab, where you can find the perfect tomatoes to suit your growing space, big or small. www.thetomatolab.co.uk

Check out the website too, for growing tips, general tomato discussion and the seed shop!

I grew some really fantastic hearts, pears, plums and pastes this year. It's very difficult to pick favourites, but I'm...
31/10/2026

I grew some really fantastic hearts, pears, plums and pastes this year. It's very difficult to pick favourites, but I'm going to try, for you!!

Vivat Victoria - Variety by Sofia Saakova. Large Oxhearts with the deepest maroon flesh and beautiful dark striped skin. This is a purple of distiction, and fantastic rich and sweet-savoury flavour, with plenty of umami.

Malachite Elf / VD21 - a regrow this year, and I trialled it outside. These are a delicious tricolour heart, red, green and antho striped exteriour with green, yellow and pink flesh. They are sweet and fruity with some tang to make your mouth water. And bonus! It did amazingly well outside, it was really prolific, and I would have still been picking them today if the storms last weekend hadn't knocked the plant over!

Striped Roman - this is an old favourite of mine. Really unusual, pepper shaped, bright red and gold striped fruits hang in clusters on a plant which takes some time to get going, but from mid-season onward it really pumps out these fruit. They are a paste type, but the flesh isn't too dry so they can be used for fresh eating too. They have everything you would want in a red tomato. That old fashioned, well balanced red flavour that I can't quite describe without saying "tomatoey". They make a great salsa!

Onyohsatgos (Watermelon) - these can vary in shape, with most of the later fruit having a tendency to heart-shaped. What a tomato! The dark bronze skin hides the most fantastic surprise inside, because this is a tricolour! These are so tasty, I can't wait to grow them again next year!

Kubinskiy Petukh - These are SWEET! Another elongated fruit, with gorgeous striped skin and dark, rich flesh, but these are so sweet you could close your eyes and not know it was a tomato. Think dark berries and smooth texture. Very few seeds in the fruit, so they also make an amazing sauce.

Sofia's Sweet Caramel - has to get a mention, because it is just the most fantastic tomato. Light, sweet and fruity flavours, and maybe the most beautiful colours you'll see in a tomato.

Sofia's Ginger Comet - this is such a favourite with me. The fruits look magnificent, but the real joy is in the tangy, sweet and fruity flesh, which just melts in your mouth, and tastes absolutely like mango! I look forward to these every year!

Queen Aliquippa and Queen Aliquippa Black - a pair of pear shaped varieties, from the same breeding line (although it is suspected that a naughty bee might have interferred to create the black variant!) These have contrasting flavours but both have incredible sweetness and depth of flavour, with the green being more fruity and tangy, where the black variant is more smoky and rich.

Honourary mention has to go to the extrmemely beautiful Fiery Turban, Sunny Truffle, Dark Lord, Riddle of the Strawberry Waterfall, Everett's Rusty Oxheart, Firebird's Feather (ooh that was really delicious too...) Boar's Tooth, Victoria Smile... Oh there's just so many really great ones! If I haven't mentioned them here, it's because I ran out of room! Check out the section for Hearts, Pears and Plums on the website to see more of them!

Dwarf Walter's Fancy - a true edimental!This is a magnificent, low growing plant producing really good sized beefsteaks,...
30/10/2026

Dwarf Walter's Fancy - a true edimental!

This is a magnificent, low growing plant producing really good sized beefsteaks, which ripen late in the season. The flavour is fruity and tangy, they have a nice zing to them as well as plenty of sweetness. But with those leaves, who even needs the fruit?! I'm kidding, but you can easily forgive it being late ripening, because it is just so pretty to look at! I actually planted it in a decorative raised bed this year, with flowers and herbs, because I wanted to be able to appreciate its beauty every day. The potato leaves are heavily rugose, and the strong, three-toned variegation stays just as intense, all season long.

Compact dwarf plant whch stays around 50-60cm

Blue Cream BerriesA variety originally bred by Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms. These plants are huge, strong indeterminat...
29/10/2026

Blue Cream Berries

A variety originally bred by Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms. These plants are huge, strong indeterminates. Mine got to over 3m in the polytunnel this year! It produces long, uniform trusses of cream coloured cherry tomatoes with antho shoulders. The flavour is fruity and tangy, with well balanced sweetness. They are juicy and satisfyingly firm, meaning that they don't split easily, and keep well on the counter. Plants show good disease resistance, and will continue setting and ripening fruit in low temperatures, until stopped by frost.

🍅💛🍅🧡🍅 Selection Packs 🍅💚🍅💜🍅I love making selection packs for people! If you find the amount of choice on the site a bit ...
27/10/2026

🍅💛🍅🧡🍅 Selection Packs 🍅💚🍅💜🍅

I love making selection packs for people! If you find the amount of choice on the site a bit overwhelming, or you are just starting out, why not choose one, or several, of these? 5 varieties for £18.99 (average 10 seeds of each variety). I offer

The Novice Selection
The Cherry Selection
The Hearts Selection
The Antho Selection
The Beefsteak Selection
And various colour selections

Pictures are for illustration only, varieties will vary.

And the 10% off code is still valid to the end of the month! Just add AUTUMN26 at checkout!

What have been your favourite large-fruiting varieties this season? (I promise I'll do smaller types later...)I have lim...
25/10/2026

What have been your favourite large-fruiting varieties this season?
(I promise I'll do smaller types later...)

I have limited myself to one variety per colour!

Red/Pink - Abanillas. Huge meaty beefsteaks with a really complex, heirloom flavour. An heirloom with a real story, and the look of a really old variety.
Red Striped - Ok maybe that doesn't count as a different colour but I couldn't leave out my darling Legs Diamond! The most tomatoey tomato I have ever eaten. Rich, complex and bright with well balanced sweetness and acidity.
Orange/Ochre - Ochre Veil and Ochre Symphony - A pair that go together because they are essentially the same variety, only that Ochre Symphony is the non-antho variant. Both are extemely beautiful, although I think Ochre Veil steals the prettiness points for me. The flavour is tropical fruit and sweet, with a hint of mango. Really buttery, silky smooth. juicy flesh and heavy producers.
Yellow - Yellow Brandyw**e - huge fruit and really productive all season, with delicious flavour typical of the brandyw**es
Yellow/pink Bicolour - Lucky Bling. Variegated PL foliage is gorgeous, but the flavour of this one is absolutely outstanding. Fruity, punchy and bold.
White - Ongweh Ias. Just another level of flavour, bold and fruity, but not overly sweet. These taste like they have been pre-salted, somehow!
Green/yellow/pink Tricolour - Triumph of Sofia. This is so beautiful, with the green and yellow striped exterior, streaked with antho, and a gorgeous sweet pink heart in the middle, surrounded by green and yellow flesh. So sweet, fruity, tangy, truly delicious!
Green When Ripe - Malachite Box. What a fantastic tomato. A really heavy producer of big, juicy beefsteaks with that sweet and tangy flavour that you onlu get from a GWR tomato. These are one of the best greens I have ever had (although I must give an honourary mention to Aunt Ruby's German Green, because that was a big surprise this season!)
Green/Red/Brown striped - Girl Girl's Weird Thing! An excellent large tomato, with stunningly metallic green stripes on the skin, and tonnes of flavour.
Purple/Brown - I couldn't leave out Blue Baltic W**e, could I? Deep purple, huge oxhearts, with antho ripple patterns on the skin, and a stunning, meaty and rich interior. The flavour is like dark fruit and red w**e. Umami and rich, with buttery smooth flesh, these are absolutely delicious!

This one was a pleasant surprise, late in the season. This is Dwarf Mahogany, a variety developed through the Dwarf Tom...
24/10/2026

This one was a pleasant surprise, late in the season. This is Dwarf Mahogany, a variety developed through the Dwarf Tomato Project. It originated from a cross made by Petrina Nuske Small, the parents were Wilpena x Cherokee Purple. Knowing that Cherokee Purple was in the pedigree should have given me a clue about the quality of the flavour, but I guess I forgot! The plant was strong, grew to around 1.10m in a 15lt bucket, and set a lot of fruit. But then it seemed to stall. The fruit just sat there, green, for what felt like weeks. In the end I got so busy with processing seeds for other varieties that I forgot about it. But then, in mid September, when everything else was coming to an end... Ripe Mahogany tomatoes! I was pleased, of course, because I wanted to have them in the shop, but I didn't have high expectations on the flavour. The fruits were mid sized, oblate slicers, and they hadn't developed green shoulders at all, which I usually take as a sign of good flavour development (there's a scientific reason for that. There's an article I posted a few months back). So I brought them indoors, and gave them a few days on the counter to finish ripening fully.

When I sliced the first one open, I was met with a fabulous matrix of juicy, rich, chocolate coloured flesh and green gel, with plenty of seeds (a bonus for me!). These are silky smooth, with the quality of flavour you expect from Cherokee Purple. That rich, sweet and tangy punch, followed up by a hint of umami darkness and savouriness. A really beautiful tomato inside and out, and one that I would encourage anyone to grow, especially if you want something later to extend the season.

Dwarfs are particularly good in open locations where they are sturdier in the wind and the rain. They do well in pots or in the ground, they don't need pruning, and can do without too much support. This one is the looser type, so does benefit from a cage or a couple of canes.

As I am sitting here, willing my last Ongweh Ias tomato to ripen, it seems like a good time to remind you about all his ...
23/10/2026

As I am sitting here, willing my last Ongweh Ias tomato to ripen, it seems like a good time to remind you about all his other fabulous varieties! There is definitely something in here for everyone, from the intensely tomatoey Cuautli Salubong to the tangy, fruity Soika Gakwa, or the bright, sweet and fresh Queen Aliquippa. Many of these have been designed with disease resistance in mind, and will grow well outdoors or in a polytunnel in the UK. Full reviews and explanations of the names and meanings are available on the website on Ongweh Ias' page under "shop by breeder".

Don't forget to add code AUTUMN26 at checkout for 10% off!

23/10/2026

The last Ongweh Ias fruit of the season!

Lemon Tree I thought I would share this heirloom with you, that really does produce fruits that look like lemons! I rece...
21/10/2026

Lemon Tree

I thought I would share this heirloom with you, that really does produce fruits that look like lemons! I received seeds from a friend about a decade ago, and last grew it in 2020, so I thought it was time to give it another grow this year. It is difficult to find any history on this one, so if anyone knows about the origin, I would be delighted to hear about it. Plants are regular leaf, dwarf, growing up to about 1.20m and semi-determinate. They set fruit at intervals up the stems, but do all seem to ripen in a short window. Fruits are firm fleshed and keep well on the counter, having thick walls and low juice. They are genuinely citrussy, in flavour as well as looks, making them excellent for fresh eating in salsas and salads. Very productive, and a short season plant.

Ripening green tomatoesThere is a lot of talk about this at the moment, understandably, so I thought I would show you wh...
20/10/2026

Ripening green tomatoes
There is a lot of talk about this at the moment, understandably, so I thought I would show you what I like to do. Although the red ones at the top are Burpees Longkeepers, the majority of what is in this bunch are normal tomatoes, picked green (not at first blush. Green). At the end of the season, I start taking out my plants systematically, as the plants begin to look spent, struggling, or starting to show signs of fungus/bacterial disease. It is inevitable in our climate, as temperatures drop and humidity rises, and leaving the tomatoes on the plants often renders them inedible.
There are lots of ways to ripen green tomatoes, and none of them are wrong. Personally I don't like to add bananas, or other fruit, because they tend to go off and damage the tomatoes. I don't have space to lay they all out like apples. I choose to string mine up, as if they were longkeepers, because it maintains good airflow and stops them bruising. Having them hanging in the kitchen means I can inspect them easily, they look lovely, and they ripen slowly extending the season well into November.

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The Willows, Oddpenny Farm
Crudwell
SN169SJ

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