Tomato swarms and flocks plus cover crops

Some innovative tomato varieties and how to create you own swarm, flock or population, (and I'll whisper this) tomato blight and some amazing cover crops.

Last Sunday I attended the Tomato Fest at Trill Farm Garden, an organic holding just outside Axminster in Devon run by Ashley Wheeler and Kate Norman. It was a super day, the sun shone and everybody enjoyed walking around the farm garden and eating great food.

Tomatoes in one of the polytunnels - its difficult to see but the tomatoes were secured to the wires by some nifty metal clips

Now who has heard of a swarm of tomatoes.…

I went on a tour of the market garden led by Ash and at the start, he introduced some of the varieties grown on the farm and my interest was immediately sparked by the mention of the term swarm – not in the context of insects but of tomatoes.

Swarm is not a word I have associated with tomatoes before, and Ash used it to describe some of the amazing tomatoes he was growing, bred by Casey Piscura of Wild Mountain Seeds, in Colorado USA, including ‘Oh My Hybrid Swarm’.