Red Tamarillo – 10 Seeds

Red Tamarillo Seeds. The tamarillo is a small tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Solanaceae. It is best known as the species that bears the tamarillo, an egg-shaped edible fruit.  It is also known as the tree tomato.

The plant is a fast-growing tree that grows up to 5 meters. Peak production is reached after 4 years, and the life expectancy is about 12 years. The tree usually forms a single upright trunk with lateral branches. The flowers and fruits hang from the lateral branches. The large leaves are green, simple and perennial, and have a strong pungent smell.

The flowers are pink-white, and form clusters of 10 to 50 flowers. They produce 1 to 6 fruits per cluster. Plants can set fruit without cross-pollination, but the flowers are fragrant and attract insects.

The fruits are egg-shaped and about 4-10 centimeters long. They have dark, longitudinal stripes on the fruit, before maturing. The flesh has a firm texture and contains more and larger seeds than a common tomato.The fruits are very high in vitamins and iron and low in calories. The flesh of the fruit is tangy and variably sweet, with a bold and complex flavor, and may be compared to kiwifruit, tomato, guava, or passion fruit.

Tamarillo Culinary Uses

• The flesh of the tamarillo can be eaten fresh or made into a range of sweet and savoury dishes and condiments.
• Tamarillos are tangy and usually sweet, with a bold and complex flavour.
• The fruit can be stewed to use on cereal or as a pie or crumble filling, added to stews and casseroles or made into a delicious chutney, which is especially good with chillies.

Growing Red Tamarillo

Indoor Sowing:  Spring – Cold Stratification and then sow seeds.

Direct Sowing: Late Winter and Early Spring.

• In spring, place the Tamarillo Seeds in a freezer for 24 hours to speed up germination.
• Then sow the seeds about 10mm deep in a tray of fine soil, in a warm propagator between 24-29 degrees.
• When the seedlings are about 5cm tall, carefully transplant into 7-10cm pots.
• Once the seedlings have grown to around 20cm tall, transplant again into a larger pot.
• It should remain in this pot until the plant is strong enough to be planted in the garden and when there is no risk of frost.
• The roots are shallow and not very pronounced, therefore the plant is not tolerant of drought stress and can be damaged by strong winds.
• It can be successfully grown in containers.
• Tamarillos need to be planted in a warm, sunny and sheltered site.
• The roots absolutely hate wet feet, so the soil should be very free-draining.