tomatoes . maltese baked rice

Tips on growing tomatoes. The ever loving hugely versatile tomato. One of the most popular plants in your summer garden. And a bonus recipe.

When I went to live in the USA at the tender age of 16, my mother wrote to the head of the household in Illinois (25 years later she became my mother-in-law) that as long as there were tomatoes, eggs, cheese, and butter - I could make anything. I arrived in July - there were tomatoes in the garden.

But Mum did not take into consideration that the butter, cheese and eggs in the USA, in the 70s, were very different from the food we had in NZ. In fact, the butter substitutes and cheese products were not even food, and the eggs had the palest yolks ever. The 70s was a hairy period for food and I struggled to cook like I did at home. Now we can get all kinds of good food in the USA - especially if we support a small farmer.

But homegrown and sun-ripened tomatoes are the same wherever you are. And you can grow them too. Even in the 70’s my sponsor family Dad grew the biggest tastiest tomatoes.

So let’s talk about tomatoes. How is it that they are in nearly every cuisine I have encountered.

I’ve been studying Maltese recipes these last few weeks and was surprised to learn that even though every other recipe had tomatoes in it, the actual fruit didn’t reach the islands until the 1600s. And they frequently they turn up in old Maltese sauces and stews. The tomato began far away, in South America, grown by the Aztecs and other Indigenous peoples of Mexico. In the ancient Aztec world, they were cooking up those tomatoes long before the Spanish arrived. When the Spanish explorers carried seeds back to Europe in the early 1500s, people thought the tomatoes might be poisonous, (being part of the nightshade family and having taken no notice at all of the Aztec menus) so the plants sat around in gardens looking pretty before some brave soul took a bite out of one, then brought them into the Mediterranean kitchens; first Spain, then Italy, and eventually Malta.

From there, the tomato kept travelling. It reached Australia with the early settlers in the late 1700’s and spread quickly through the colonies by the 1840s. A few years later, it crossed the Tasman, brought by missionaries and settlers, and by the late 1800’s, the good old tomato was already thriving in New Zealand gardens and prominent in my old family recope books.

In just a few hundred years, this bright, wandering fruit made its way from the Andes to almost every kitchen on Earth.

David, one of my favourite writers here at SubStack, a New Zealander, and an artist, wanted to know my tips for growing tomatoes.

I love requests. Feel free to send me any questions or requests. Thank you David.

There is no single way to grow tomatoes in your garden. And every gardener will swear by their own methods. So share. Our common age old objective is food in the kitchen - however that looks for you - I will offer a few of my tips. Add maybe add yours too, in the comments.

🌿Compost is a tomatoes friend. So, if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, get to work on your compost for next spring. Because good fertile well composted ground grows the best vegetables. And If you are in the spring of the Southern Hemisphere, get ready to plant!

Tomatoes are fairly easy to grow, very forgiving, and a sun-ripened tomato from your own garden is its own heaven.

Tomato Growing Tips:

🍅Choose the tomatoes you love to eat. The ones you will freeze and the ones you are going to make into sauce. I grow lots of cherry tomatoes to freeze whole, one beef steak for sandwiches and a few dense medium sized tomatoes for sauces.

🍅Choose your spot well. A healthy tomato plant needs lots of space and all day sun.

🍅Wait until the weather (and the soil) is warm - plant into soil that is above 18C/65F.

🍅Dig the hole, add a handful of compost, a sprinkle of lime around the lip and a small bucket of water, for the best start.

🍅Pound the stake down against the side of the hole. You don’t want to jam it through the roots later. Plus tomato plants get heavy - use a good strong stake.

🍅Plant the tomato plant deep, tucked close into the stake. Prune off the first pair of leaves and plant up to the second pair of leaves - it will grow new roots along the buried stem.

🍅Prune and train frequently. Each of those lateral shoots will develop into secondary branches, which can quickly crowd the plant if not managed. I prefer to encourage a single, strong central leader, the main stem, which is supported by the stake -before allowing any lateral growth. To maintain this upward momentum, I remove the side shoots that emerge from the leaf axils (the junction between the main stem and a mature leaf) - pruning hard for a couple of months or so before I get distracted and the plant takes over. If you have time keep training and tying up for most of the summer. Tomatoes grow fast. You want lots of fruit.

Many gardeners also take off the first blossoms. Personally I can’t bear to do that as I am in a race to get tomatoes on plates by Christmas. Greedy! And impatient!

The right image has side shoots and the left image has a clean stem. Good

🍅Feed lightly once a month with fish fertilizer; either pour around the drip line or spray the fertilizer onto the leaves: on cloudy days only. Or evenings.

🍅Once established, water deeply a couple of times a week, not too often (depending on the weather) - steady moisture keeps them strong. Too much watering might result in a calcium deficiency. Water in the early morning or evening.

I know this sounds fanciful but plants adapt to your watering rhythm so try to keep to your routine. I water every other evening here in Melbourne where the soil is porous and sandy. Then fertilize every third week. In Illinois I water twice a week where the soil is deep and loamy and seldom fertilize at all as we have the very best cow manure compost there.

So find your sweet spot and stick to it. Plants love routines too.

🍅If the ends of flowers blacken and rot or leaves turn yellow, it’s most likely a calcium problem. From over watering. So. Slow down the watering, mulch well, add a sprinkle of lime, and pour on eggshell tea (and throw in the crushed eggshells for a slow release of calcium).

🍅Calcium needs magnesium to move - (again with the food/mineral pairing) so a dash of Epsom salts now and then keeps everything flowing.

🍅❤️But in the end, a good compost made from lots of leafy greens is the very best for tomatoes. It will keep all your problems at bay. So side dress with compost occasionally across the summer.

My son in Wellington side-dresses his tomatoes with sheep shit pellets. You can buy them in bags in NZ. Wonderful stuff.

So. Gird your loins. Buy a couple of your favourite tomato plants from Bunnings. Get healthy ones. And buy a bag of compost as well. Dig a hole in a sunny spot down the back and pop that plant in there.

🍅You can also grow tomatoes in pots but as Mad commented yesterday they are not quite as tasty as tomatoes grown in your local soil. If you only have a sunny balcony I suggest growing cherry tomatoes. And water daily - watching for mineral leaching. Pots need fertilizing more frequently too, of course.

🍅The hardest part of growing tomatoes is the waiting. 😃

Edit: an added tip from Mad. ⬇️ Very important so I brought it up out of the comments and left it for you here:

. 🍅 Don’t grow tomatoes in the same place every year or you will get blight ;-) Mad.

And I am a horror for planting too close together. But with any luck we will be eating tomatoes by Christmas and the picking well into next Autumn.

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Here is the next Maltese recipe I want to make ⬇️ - baked rice with tomatoes and ground beef. It is comfort food. And I am still using canned tomatoes until I can get some tomatoes from my new garden into the freezer.

Adapted from this book. Every kitchen Mama makes this dish slightly differently.

What is your favourite recipe with tomatoes. A thick tomato Sauce? Charred in a pan with sage? In a sandwich with bacon and lettuce? Caprese salad?

I say yes to all of the above.

I look forward to making this on my cooking night tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes!

Ross il-Forn (Baked Rice)

Serves: 4–6

Prep: 20 min Cook: 1 hr

Ingredients

• 3 tomatoes or 400g tinned diced tomatoes

• 500g minced meat (beef/pork mix)

• 3 tbsp olive oil

• 1 onion, finely diced

• 2 garlic cloves, chopped

• 100g bacon, thinly sliced

• 2 tbsp tomato paste

• 500ml chicken stock

• 1½ tsp salt

• ½ tsp each dried mint & oregano

• Pinch saffron threads (optional)

• 350g long-grain rice

• 2 eggs

• 100ml milk

• 60g parmesan, grated

• 3 tbsp breadcrumbs

Method

1. Sauce: Sauté mince in 1 tbsp oil until browned; set aside. In same pan, cook onion, garlic, and bacon until soft. Add tomato paste, tomatoes, stock, salt, herbs, and saffron. Simmer 10 min, then return meat to pan. Cook 10 min more and cool.

2. Rice: Boil rice until three-quarters cooked. Drain and rinse.

3. Combine: Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F). Whisk eggs, milk, and ⅔ of the parmesan. Stir rice into meat mixture, then add egg mix.

4. Bake: Pour into buttered baking dish, top with breadcrumbs and remaining cheese. Drizzle with a little oil.

5. Bake 20–30 min until golden crust forms but rice remains moist.

Look what else I am picking!

Rhubarb.

Delicious.

Have a gorgeous day/evening.

Take care and talk soon.

Celi