Tasty tomatoes

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By Catherine Chambers — freelance writer

Growing your own tomatoes is a fun and easy way to teach children about observing plants and to illustrate where our food comes from

The following activities involve growing your own tomatoes and cover life processes, healthy eating, data collection and recording, monitoring, measuring and calculating, observation, art and fun! They can be achieved in groups or on an individual basis. The tomato plants will need care over the summer break.

Tomato facts

The tomato fruit belongs to the plant family Solanaceae, Genus Solanum (a genus is a closely related species). The tomato has hundreds of different cultivars (a cultivar is a variety created from a natural species).
The tomato belongs to a family of South and Central American fruits and vegetables, that includes sweet peppers, potatoes and tobacco (‘tomato’ comes from the Aztec ‘tomatl’).