Named Australia’s best-tasting heirloom tomato in the Diggers Great Tomato Taste Test, Black Cherry was described as a “stand-out” in the cherry tomato category.
Black Cherry has been crowned the best-tasting heirloom tomato in Australia by a panel of gardeners and food industry members who gathered recently at Heronswood House and Gardens for the Diggers Foundation’s Diggers Great Tomato Taste Test.
Diggers Club and Foundation CEO Tim Sansom said more than 65 heirloom tomato varieties were judged in three categories: beefsteak and saucing, cherry, and salad. The panel included Blayne Bertoncello, from O.MY Restaurant in Beaconsfield; gardeners Jane Edmanson, Costa Georgiadis and Phil Dudman; VicHealth CEO Sandro Demaio; and three participants in the first Diggers tomato taste test in 1993: gardening writer Peter de Waart and Diggers Club and Foundation co-founders Penny and Clive Blazey.
“The best-tasting tomatoes are often the smallest, and Black Cherry was a stand-out in the cherry tomato category,” Mr Sansom said. “They are highly productive, easy to grow and work in salads, lunch boxes and as garden snacks straight from the vine in gardens around Australia.” Sweet Cassidy won the salad tomato category and Nonna Pepina the beefsteak and saucing tomato category.
Mr Sansom said the competition was as much about preserving the diversity of tomatoes as it was about crowning a winner. “These heirloom varieties represent an important cultural heritage that we’re in danger of losing if we allow supermarket hybrids to totally take over. The Diggers Foundation is preserving biocultural treasures like heirloom seeds to ensure they don’t disappear. By growing and saving seeds of these precious heirlooms, we can make sure that they will be accessible to future generations.”
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