Dutch Tomato Seeds 10 Seeds

Dutch tomatoes are loved for their smooth, perfectly round and uniform fruit that ripens to a glossy deep red. The flesh is firm and meaty with a balanced sweet-tart flavour and a clean, fresh aroma, which makes the slices hold their shape beautifully on the plate. This is the classic all-rounder tomato: thick enough to slice for sandwiches and salads, juicy enough to cook down into a rich sauce, and attractive enough to serve fresh straight from the vine.

Planting

Tomato is a warm-season, frost-tender crop, so start the seed indoors about 5 to 8 weeks before transplanting outdoors, and move plants outside only after the danger of frost has passed and the soil has warmed. Sow each seed about 0.6 cm deep in a sterile, soilless seed-starting mix. Kept warm at roughly 24 to 29 C, the seeds usually sprout within 7 to 10 days; a minimum of about 18 C is needed for germination, and a heat mat helps hold the temperature steady until the seedlings emerge. Choose a full-sun, sheltered spot that gets at least 6 hours of direct sun a day, ideally 8 to 10 hours. Space the transplants about 45 to 90 cm apart within the row, leaving roughly 90 to 150 cm between rows; vining types take the wider end of the range, while bush types can sit closer.

Fertilizing

At transplanting, use a starter fertilizer with an NPK ratio under 10 and avoid excess nitrogen, since too much produces leafy plants that are slow to fruit. Once the first fruits begin to enlarge, side-dress with nitrogen to support the developing crop; a nitrogen and calcium source such as calcium nitrate (15.5-0-0) about 3 to 4 weeks after planting is another option. For plants grown in containers, feed every 10 to 14 days with a high-potassium liquid feed once the first fruits start to swell.

Care

Give tomatoes steady, even moisture of 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 daily watering in hot weather. When you set the plants out, plant them deep so only the top 2 to 3 sets of true leaves sit above the soil, because the buried stem grows extra roots, and harden the seedlings off over about a week first. Watch for common pests such as tomato hornworms, aphids, flea beetles and whitefly, and for diseases like early and late blight and Septoria leaf spot. Harvest when the fruit reaches full size and the colour starts to change or is fully coloured, leaving the stalk attached for the best flavour; the first ripe tomatoes usually arrive about 52 to 90 days after transplanting, and any green fruit can be ripened indoors at around 21 C.