Pomidor Tomato Seeds

Pomidor Tomato is the everyday red tomato everyone loves at the table — smooth, rounded fruit that ripens to a glossy classic red and carries that familiar juicy flesh with a balanced sweet-tart flavour and fresh garden aroma. It is a true all-rounder: slice it raw into salads and sandwiches, simmer it down into a rich red sauce, or cook it into the tomato-based stews and shakshuka that fill the Egyptian kitchen. As a warm-season, frost-tender crop, it rewards a sunny spot with generous harvests of versatile, kitchen-ready fruit.

Planting

Start your seed indoors roughly 5 to 8 weeks before the last spring frost, then move the young plants outside only once frost danger has passed and the soil has warmed, since this is a warm-season crop that is killed by frost. Sow each seed about 0.6 cm deep in a sterile, soilless seed-starting mix. Keep the mix warm at around 24 to 29 C and the seeds will sprout in about 7 to 10 days; a heat mat helps hold that temperature until the seedlings break through. In Egypt the most productive window is a late-winter to early-spring planting (around February to March) once frost risk passes — start seed indoors about 5 to 6 weeks earlier, in December to January. In the cooler Nile Delta and around Cairo, hold off until February or March to avoid frost injury, with a secondary planting in September or October. In hotter Upper Egypt, lean toward autumn (October to November) and late-winter (January to February) plantings to dodge extreme summer heat while making the most of the mild winter. Once true leaves appear, thin or move seedlings to about 5 cm apart, and harden the plants off over about a week before they go outdoors. Set transplants deep so only the top 2 to 3 sets of true leaves sit above the soil — the buried stem grows extra roots. Space plants about 45 to 90 cm apart in the row with roughly 90 to 150 cm between rows; bushy types can sit closer while vining types need the wider spacing. Give them full sun: at least 6 hours of direct sun a day, ideally 8 to 10, in a warm, sheltered spot.

Fertilizing

At transplanting, use a starter fertilizer with an NPK ratio under 10, and go easy on nitrogen — too much produces leafy plants that are slow to set fruit. As the first fruits begin to enlarge, side-dress with nitrogen; alternatively feed about 3 to 4 weeks after planting with a nitrogen and calcium source such as calcium nitrate (15.5-0-0). If you are growing in containers, feed every 10 to 14 days with a high-potassium liquid feed once the first fruits start to swell.

Care

Keep moisture steady and even — about 2.5 cm of water per week from rain plus irrigation — and avoid swinging between wet and dry, which causes fruit splitting and blossom-end rot; container plants may need watering every day in hot weather. Watch for common pests such as tomato hornworms, aphids, flea beetles, cutworms, Colorado potato beetles and whitefly, and for diseases including early blight, late blight, Septoria leaf spot, bacterial spot, tomato viruses and grey mould, along with the disorders blossom-end rot (linked to calcium and uneven watering) and fruit splitting. Harvest once the fruit reaches full size and the colour starts to change or is fully coloured, leaving the stalk attached for the best flavour; first ripe fruit usually comes about 52 to 90 days after transplanting depending on the type. Any green fruit can be ripened indoors at around 21 C.