Certain dilemmas have intrigued humankind since time immemorial. Some of the most common ones are: what came first — the chicken or the egg? Are we a product of Darwin’s theory of evolution of natural selection, descending from common ancestors, or what we believe based on the books of Abrahamic religions? And finally, one that will be discussed in this column: is tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

Based on what I was taught during my intermediate in Karachi and what I learned from botany textbooks, tomatoes are fruits. Any edible that may contain seeds — and it is, in essence, a mature, ripened flower ovary — should be considered a fruit. However, as it is globally used as a part of almost every cuisine, salad and condiment, the tomato is counted as and sold alongside other vegetables.

This debate over tomatoes caused considerable headaches to revenue authorities in the United States, which wanted to tax tomato harvests being sold as vegetables. In 1893, the US Supreme Court decreed that tomatoes would remain a fruit, but they would be considered as a vegetable for legal and taxation requirements.

However, as it happens, tomatoes are actually berries. Yes, you read that correctly. Any single fruit that contains many seeds should be classified as a berry. It warrants mention here that, according to this definition, a strawberry is not a berry at all. We will delve into that further in future columns, focusing on the growing techniques of the strawberry.

Tomatoes have a long and intriguing history — from their debated classification to their role in cuisine worldwide…

WHAT’S IN A NAME

Scientifically known as Solanum lycopersicum, the tomato belongs to the nightshade family, namely Solanacae. It has had other names through history, with wolf peach, gold apple, love apple and poison apple being the more famous ones.

There are many types, kinds, colours and variants of tomatoes as well. The next few articles will focus on the basic variants of red tomatoes that you may regularly purchase from your vegetable sellers and use to prepare curries and gravies for meals.

Even then, there are two major types that you buy here in Pakistan — the determinate and indeterminate tomatoes. For now, we will focus on the determinate variety of tomatoes. Later articles will elaborate on how the determinate variety of tomato is different from other varieties. For now, we will focus on how one can easily get the seeds, sow and grow tomato plants.

The determinate variety of tomatoes grow on a bush rather than on a vine. It is a seasonal variety, which is not available throughout the year. The seeds for the determinate variety can be purchased from seed-sellers or one can dry off the pulp present in the centre of the tomato to segregate sun-dried seeds.

Interestingly, one can even take out the entire pulp and place it directly into the planting pot without drying off the seeds as well, to watch a number of seedlings growing together in a few days. Seeds of tomatoes are small, flat, disk-shaped and brown in colour, if extracted at home. Seeds that are purchased from sellers are usually treated and coated with a fungicide and get the same colour on them.

Ideally, seeds are sown during the temperature range of 18 to 25 degrees Celsius. In Karachi, the seeds were historically sown in August. But with the change in temperatures and frequency of heatwaves in the city, the optimal month to sow seeds has shifted significantly to mid-October.

When sowing the seeds, the potting mix should include nursery soil devoid of any stones or pebbles. The soil should be watered beforehand, to ensure that the light-weight seeds do not get dispersed from their original sowing position due to watering later.

If the pulp is being directly put into the soil, then the pulp should be roughly divided into small blotches or patches, with the help of a toothpick or any other stick. This way, the germinating seeds would be less clustered and could be easily separated.

The seeds — purchased either from the market or sun-dried — can be individually sown in a dedicated cup or seedling tray. If you use a four-inch pot, the seeds can be sown with a gap of one inch in between.

The seeds should then be sprinkled with a fine, thin layer of compost.

The pot or seedling tray should now be covered with a plastic bag or placed under shade. This will ensure maximum moisture retention. In this way, seeds and soil would not dry off before germination.

Please send your queries and emails to doctree101@hotmail.com. The writer is a physician and a host for the YouTube channel ‘DocTree Gardening’ promoting organic kitchen gardening

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 2nd, 2025