VEGETABLE SEEDS Aubergines Beans - French Beans - Runner Beetroot Broad Beans Broccoli & Rapini Brussels Sprouts Cabbage Cauliflower Carrots Celery Chilli Peppers Courgettes & Summer Squash Cucumbers, Gherkins & suchlike things Fennel Flowers Grains Herbs Kale Kohl Rabi Leaf Greens for Cooking Leeks Lettuces Melons & Watermelons Mustard Greens ( for cooking) Onions - spring sowing Onions - overwintering Onions - special types Oriental Greens for cooking & salads Parsnips Peas Pumpkins & Winter Squash Radishes (salad, & cooking types) Root Parsley NEW Salad Vegetables Sweet Corn Swedes Sweet Peppers Tomatoes : Bush Types Tomatoes : Vines - Cherries Tomatoes : Vines - Larger Tomatoes : Bulgarian Tomatoes : New Centiflor types Tomatilloes & Groundcherries Turnips Unusual Tubers: Oca & Yacon

~ OUR BULGARIAN TOMATO TRIALS ~

In 2007 Frederick Denny sent us a whole collection of tomatoes he had found in the small village he had moved to in Bulgaria.
He asked around for local varieties that people were saving at home,
and tracked down old gardeners who were maintaining traditional strains in their plots.

The seeds arrived carefully wrapped in small sachets made from old newspaper:

and we grew them out in 2008 and 2009 as a preliminary trial.
Since then we have produced some of the better ones for you to try at home and we offer these here.

If you like them do save your own seed as we're not sure when we'll be able to offer them again.

All the tomatoes on this page are tall vines, not bushes.

'Ruby'

Beautiful red tomato from Bulgaria. Seed grown for us this year by our friend Ian Hearn, who runs an organic box scheme.

Order ToRU - 20 seed [OG2] £1.95

'Cuban Flower'
A traditional variety from Bulgaria (although obviously originally from Cuba!), this is a fantastic large beefsteak tomato.

We had some trouble with the name for this one, as when we first tried to translate it from Cyrillic it came out as 'Cuban Destroyer' , which surely couldn't be right for such a nice tomato!

However Frederick emailed us back to say he thought the name was in fact written differently and we are now sure it is in fact 'Cuban Flower' , which is, after all, much less alarming.

The original was also found by Frederick Denny. Very rare, may never be available again - keep your own seed if you like it.

Order ToCu - 20 seed [OG1] £1.95

'Rali'
A very attractive tomato from Bulgaria: mid-to-late season, making large numbers of big, smooth and perfectly spherical fruit.

The vines were particularly vigorously green and healthy in our trials, with a high yield.

Again, very rare, you must keep your own seed if you like it as we don't know when we will be able to grow it again.

SOLD OUT FEB 2012

Old, old unnamed Bulgarian tomato

An ancient, traditional variety from Bulgaria. Much respected, but no-one seemed to know its name. It was just known as the very old, old tomato.

The plants grow about 5 or 6 large fruit on each truss, each weighing somtimes 1lb or more.

Order ToOO - 16 seed £1.95 [OG1]

Long Pink Bulgarian

A traditional variety , with tall vines that make pink tomatoes the shape of a goose egg. From the name, we were expcting them to be a bit longer and thinner than this, but all the plants were the same, so it must be right, and it is a very fine tomato.

The picture was taken with our old camera and it hasn't really shown the colour correctly - the tomatoes are really noticeably pink.

The original seed of this one were given to us by a Bulgarian legal student at a party. We dont remember much more about them, as it was quite a good party.

Order ToLP - 16 seed £1.95 [OG1]

Baba

These are nice cooking tomatoes & make particularly good rich sauces as well as being good in salads.

Order ToBa - 18 seed £1.95 [OG1]

Pointy Heart

The red tomatoes are fat, with an elongated heart-shape and a drawn-out pointy bottom end, and are particularly good for cooking.

Order ToPH - 16 seed £1.95 [OG1]

Farm cat not included :-)

Saving Tomato Seed:

Here you can seed the seed and juice squeezed into a jar & let ferment for 3 days (no more, no less!)

Good seeds sink and bad ones float.

(And, yes, it is supposed to be mouldy & smelly)

Water is added and poured off several times to clean them, the seed is rinsed in a sieve and put on a plate to dry.

Detailed seed-saving instructions are included with your seeds, so you can do this yourself.

And of course this is only possible because these are all real, non-hybrid varieties.