Selbourne producers Neville and Annette Reed have always had a passion to promote seasonality.
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The owners of Tasmanian Natural Garlic and Tomatoes have always focused their farm on the natural seasonal availability of their product.
However they also value education and are always looking for ways to value add their product, particularly in the “off-season” for the fruit and vegetables.
“There’s always something going on,” Mrs Reed said.
“We’re at the point now where people come to us all year round and want to share some part of their garlic or tomato journey.. Right now is seedling time so let’s talk seedlings.”
Tasmanian Natural Garlic and Tomatoes will hold its first seedling sale at the end of the month, with more than 100 varieties of heirloom tomatoes available to purchase.
“It makes sense. It fits very well with our focus on seasonality and on taking our customers through that process,” she said.
The Reeds started out in the tomato and garlic business six years ago, in a long-running attempt to find that one little thing they could do on their 40 hectare farm to fit alongside their other jobs and the needs of a family of five.
Mrs Reed is a teacher by trade and has also founded rural medical charity Rural Help @ Hand that tries to bridge the gap between medical staff and farmers.
They started out with a small garlic trial crop of 7.5kg.
“We didn’t know anything about garlic. We had no idea what cultivar we were growing,” Mr Reed said.
Their entry into the tomato business was equally blind.
“We answered an ad from a seed distributor looking for people to grow tomatoes for seed. We thought why not? We’d never grown a tomato from seed,” he said.
In that first season they learned that they could grow good garlic and that tomatoes come in all different tastes, colours and varieties.
“We thought they were all red. We were totally clueless. Our client sent us 40 small packets, each containing 40 seeds and basically left us to it,” Mr Reed said.
“Now six years down the track, the kids have left, we’ve bought a business, we both farm full-time, our tomatoes and garlic have made it to one of the world’s top restaurants and we still love sharing our passion for two products we strongly believe in,” Mrs Reed said.
Tasmanian Natural Garlic and Tomatoes will hold its inaugural seedling sale on October 23 at 338 Four Springs Rd, Selbourne.
The gates will open from 10am until 3pm. For more information contact Annette Reed 0438 009 522 or email info@tngtcom.au