Ho Ho Ho. Funny stuff Finbar. Funnier still, I haven't had a single bird peck in a tomato this year. Don't know if it is the dopey cat that lives down in the patch all day, or the bountfull harvest of grapes nearby, that they have been getting into.

Mantis *wondering why the chooks dont like the grapes, they are a bird aint they. And is a bit worried about the Jack Russell pooch that has taken to eating fallen apples*

Aesop should have planted a fig tree to lure the birds away from his tomatoes! Mine are unnetted and the birds haven't shown any interest at all. The McLaren Vale harvest has started now so the blackbirds and starlings have gone to slurp shiraz, leaving the sparrows and honey-eaters to fight it out over the figs and peaches they can reach through the bird nets.
Finbar, the Pink Gaetano have been wonderful, most of the fruit have been about 200-250 grams, great colour and texture and delicious, wonderful in a salad - which I have been enjoying for lunch most days over the last week or two. If I had a digital camera I would post some pics. The bush is incredibly prolific and is proving to be the most disease resistant this summer.

Thanks, mudlark

Glad you like PG! I think it stacks up pretty well against a lot of the good quality pink beefsteaks, if not against the big guns.

Is this the same Pink Gaetano that is listed with Eden Seeds? Did they come from you Finbar? Or is it just coincidence that they have the same name?

Well, bugger, first bird peck in a Brandy Boy today. Checked the grapes and there are none left hmmmmm. Spoke harshly to dog, and scolded the cat.

Mantis *thinking, birds are over rated*

Ray, they're my Pink Gaetanos. I sent some seeds down to Peter in Tassie to grow. He obviously saved seeds and passed them on to Eden. I emailed Eden with the variety's interesting history but didn't hear a word back.

There are folks here who would enoy hearing about Pink Gaetanos interesting history...

I learned Italian for 15 months (before my teacher nicked off overseas with her boyfriend! *still spewing*) Her father came to Australia from Calabria in the 1950s. He'd grown tommys in his backyard in Calabria for eons, as did his neighbours. He brought seeds with him and continued to grow his tomatoes in Melbourne. When my Italian teacher discovered I grew tomatoes, she told me about his favourite tomato and got seeds from him for me. He'd kept the seeds pure in Calabria and in Melbourne.

It turned out to be a dark pink beefsteak averaging between 250g and 350g with varying degrees of ribbing. And a deliciously rich, very juicy tomato. On a par, I think, with most of the well-thought-of dark pink beefsteaks, but not up to the higher standards of Marianna's Peace, Sudduth, et al. The plant is RL, prolific, vigorous, and happily sets fruit through Sydney summers.

My Italian teacher's father didn't know the name of the variety. He couldn't even remember how he came by it. He and his Calabrian neighbours just grew tomatoes, swapped seeds, and had done so for as long as he could remember. By this stage, when I entered the picture, he'd been growing it for over 50 years.

So I did some research. Carolyn, on the Tomato forum, hadn't heard of any native Italian pink beefsteaks. I couldn't find reference to any either. Known native Italian beefsteaks are all red. So there's no knowing whether it's a native Italian variety, or from somewhere else, or the result of an accidental or deliberate cross in a Calabrian backyard, or what. Although it grows true to type, so any cross that occurred must have been grown out and stabilised. The identification problem, of course, is compounded by the fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of dark pink beefsteaks that basically all look alike.

Anyway, it was nameless. My Italian teacher's father's first name is Gaetano, so I named it after him. He was thrilled.