TOMATO FEVER

A tomato-growing frenzy hit my office this week. Colleagues who have never grown a single vegetable are joining the club.

Better get this replanted, staked, watered and fed

Instead of filling the world with more chocolate bars, some clever local school fundraisers are selling mature-for-this-time-of-year tomato plants.

One green-fingered woman was ahead of the game and filled her greenhouse with hundreds of seedlings, spurned from a tried-and-tested Italian cherry tomato seed.

Luckily for Coogee Public School, they have the right contacts. My TV station colleague Jane has been shipping into our office as many tomato plants as she can carry. By lunchtime she's all sold out.

I'm trying to get a wee competition up - see which person in TV-land can grow the best crop of tomatoes. I'll even offer these tomato growing tips I recorded last summer.



A gardening columnist recommended planting tomato seeds a few months back, in order to have a crop in time for Christmas. Well, my babies only hit the dirt a few weeks back so I doubt I'll make the deadline.

My own very young tomato seedlings, planted a few weeks ago in egg cartons

 However,  thanks to Coogee's very smart school fundraising scheme, we may just get there.