Fat Tomato

27/08/2026

Fat Tomato is heading to for the first time!

Although perhaps it isn’t quite our first time…

Long before Fat Tomato officially launched, spent many years at – working behind the scenes, cooking, MCing and joining conversations about food, hospitality, tourism and Irish producers.

Those years, and many of the ideas, conversations and friendships that came with them, helped feed into what would eventually become Fat Tomato.

So it feels rather special to return this Sunday with the Fat Tomato hat firmly on – and a little taste of our Wexford garden coming with us.

We’ll be making two appearances at Theatre of Food on Sunday:

🥤 1pm – Rehydration Station
Sharing some of our fermented drinks and the garden ingredients and flavours behind them.

🎙️ 3pm – Foodhaus Podcast
Joining a conversation about the past and future of Irish growing – something very close to our hearts.

A first Electric Picnic outing for Fat Tomato, but one with fairly deep roots. 🌿

If you're heading to Electric Picnic this weekend, come along and say hello.

25/08/2026

What does an Irish hedgerow taste like?

Blackberries. Bullaces. Haws. Elderberries. Rosehips. Sloes. Crabapples.

Last autumn, we brought them all together to make our new Hedgerow Butter – and then we waited. It has been quietly maturing, giving those deep fruit flavours and gentle spices time to mellow, soften and come together.

Now, almost a year later, we're finally ready to share it. Despite the name, there's no butter in a fruit butter. It's an old-fashioned way of preserving a harvest, slowly cooking fruit for hours until it becomes naturally thick, smooth and intensely flavoured.

Ours combines wild hedgerow fruits with our Bramley and Blood of the Boyne apples, from the garden brightened with organic Verna lemons from our adopted trees along the Mediterranean through the CrowdFarming platform. Organic star anise, clove and a little Wexford Sea Salt bring warmth and draw out the flavours of the fruit.

The result is silky, deeply fruity, gently spiced and tart – a little jar of the Irish hedgerow captured at its most abundant.

It joins our Hedgerow Jelly – two very different ways of capturing the same fleeting harvest. The jelly is clear, bright and delicate; the butter rich, smooth and deeply concentrated.

Spread it on warm toast or tea brack, pair it with farmhouse cheese, or serve alongside roast pork, duck or venison.

Some harvests are worth waiting for. 🌿

Available from our online shop and selected independent stockists around Ireland.

21/08/2026

🍎 Blood of the Boyne.

With a name like that, you might assume this beautiful apple originated here in Ireland. The story is a little more interesting. Blood of the Boyne has been grown in Ireland for generations and became particularly associated with the Boyne region and County Meath. But it is now considered to be the same apple as Devonshire Quarrenden – an old variety dating back to at least the 17th century.

Small, deep crimson and sometimes with pink-tinged flesh, it's a sweet early dessert-eating apple with a flavour of strawberries. Usually ready from September, it's an apple to enjoy fresh as it doesn't store for long.

Except this is no ordinary growing year. After weeks of heat and very little rain, we're already picking Blood of the Boyne here in Wexford. Some are making their way to our Honesty Shop, while we're keeping a few back for some of our one-of-a-kind condiments, gifts and drinks.

Stories like this are part of what makes growing old varieties so fascinating. Plants travelled. Names changed. Varieties found new homes and became part of the food and growing traditions of different places.

Irish Seed Savers Association do remarkable work conserving, researching and sharing Ireland's heritage apple varieties, helping ensure that apples once grown in particular counties, farms and gardens aren't simply lost.

We grow Blood of the Boyne alongside a growing collection of old and unusual apples here at Fat Tomato. For us, growing them is about flavour, certainly, but also keeping these varieties and their stories alive – and encouraging more people to discover and grow them.

Blood of the Boyne is certainly a good place to start. 🍎

19/08/2026

🐌 Fat Tomato is now one of the first Irish members of Slow Food Farms – a new initiative from Slow Food International.

And perhaps not quite the sort of farm you imagine. When we hear the word farm, we tend to think of acres of land, fields and machinery. But Fat Tomato is a tiny hillside garden in Wexford.

Yet within that relatively small space, we grow over 500 varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs and edible flowers every year – many of them heritage, unusual and open-pollinated varieties you simply will not find in a supermarket.

We've always believed you don't need lots of land to grow an extraordinary diversity of food. You need good soil. The right seeds. Patience and time. An understanding of your microclimate. A willingness to work with nature rather than against it. And a vision for what you're trying to create.

For us, that has never simply been about growing for yield. It's about biodiversity, protecting heritage varieties, growing for flavour and reconnecting people with where their food comes from.

Slow Food Farms is a new international network committed to agroecology, biodiversity, healthy soils and food that is good, clean and fair – so we're incredibly proud that our little patch of Wexford is now part of it.

For Anthony, it also brings things full circle. He's been involved with Slow Food for many years – hosting events in Ireland, speaking on panels and travelling to Italy and further afield to meet growers, producers and cooks, exchanging ideas, seeds and knowledge along the way.

Much of that thinking found its way back to this hillside. Today we save seed, grow organically without synthetic chemicals, encourage biodiversity and preserve what we can't eat fresh, capturing particular varieties and harvests to enjoy long after their season has passed.

The seasons and their harvests should be savoured and celebrated, not rushed.

And we're only at the beginning of what we hope Fat Tomato will become.

Because perhaps a farm does not have to be enormous to make a difference. Sometimes it starts with a bundle of questions, a handful of seeds, a small piece of ground, time and a bigger idea of what that place might become. 🌱🐌🍅

14/08/2026

The garden seems to have forgotten what month it is. 🌱

After weeks of heat and very little rain, some things are racing ahead while others are taking their own sweet time.

The grapes are ripening a bit too quickly. Cucumbers and courgettes keep on giving. Onions and garlic have been lifted and are drying for the winter months ahead. Tomatillos are growing better outside this year than in the polytunnel, while our chilli plants are loving the intense heat. Elsewhere in the garden, apples are already swelling beautifully, with the trees naturally shedding some fruit as they put their energy into what remains.

And the tomatoes? We're still waiting for the glut to share with our honesty shop customers. 🍅

There's plenty of fruit on the plants, and we're picking some, but the great wave of ripe tomatoes we associate with August hasn't quite arrived. A reminder that sunshine and heat do not necessarily mean everything ripens faster – particularly when temperatures inside a polytunnel become too high.

Living on a hillside looking over the valley presents its challenges, and it has been an unusual growing year here in Wexford. Long dry spells, intense heat, empty water butts, precious little rain and a lot more watering than usual from the deep well we're very lucky to have.

But perhaps that's one of the most interesting things about growing food. Nature doesn't work to a production schedule.

One crop races ahead. Another pauses. Something you expected in September or October arrives in August, while something you've been waiting for since July makes you wait another week.

So we watch, water, harvest what is ready and let everything else get there in its own time.

06/08/2026

What are we up to in the Fat Tomato garden this August? 🌿

August always feels like the garden is trying to give us everything at once. After weeks of dry weather, a little rain has freshened everything up; the tomatoes are finally beginning to ripen, and every trip into the garden ends with another basket of fruit or vegetables heading back to the kitchen.

But while we're enjoying wild strawberries, cucumbers, courgettes and the first heritage tomatoes, we're also sowing for autumn, winter and even next spring. That's the rhythm of gardening in Ireland — one season is still in full swing while the next has already begun.

In our latest garden update, we're sharing exactly what we're sowing, harvesting and working on this month, along with practical ideas you can try in your own garden.

Whether you're growing in a large vegetable plot, a polytunnel or just a few pots by the back door, we hope it inspires you to get outside and enjoy August.

Read the full post here:
https://www.fattomato.ie/grow-cook/what-to-sow-and-grow-in-august

We'd love to hear what's growing in your garden this month.

Discover what to sow, grow and harvest in August in Ireland. Follow what's happening in the Fat Tomato garden, from heritage tomatoes and summer fruit to winter brassicas and autumn salads.

04/08/2026

🍑 A rare harvest, captured in a gift box.

For just a few weeks each summer, our Peregrine and Johnny Brack peaches ripen in the Fat Tomato garden. Grown under cover in our polytunnel, they're one of the smallest harvests we produce—and one of the most eagerly anticipated.

Because peaches don't wait, we preserve every last one at their peak, transforming them into a collection of small-batch pantry favourites to be enjoyed long after the season has passed.

Inside our Peach Gift Box, you'll discover:

🍑 Peach Honey Jam
🍑 Peach BBQ Sauce
🍑 Peach & Vanilla Syrup
🍑 Peach Spice Chutney
🍑 An illustrated keepsake sticker

Presented in our signature black gift box, it's a celebration of one fleeting ingredient, grown for flavour and made by hand in very limited quantities.

Available now while this year's harvest lasts.



peaches, heritage fruit, preserves, artisan food, Irish produce, seasonal food, gift box, Wexford, Fat Tomato, small batch

26/07/2026

🌼 Courgettes are one of the most generous plants in the garden this time of year.

Most people know the fruit, but almost every part of the plant is edible.

We harvest the male flowers for salads, stuffing and frying, leaving the female flowers to be pollinated and develop into courgettes. The tender young leaves are delicious wilted with plenty of butter or olive oil, garlic and a generous grating of cheese.

Young courgettes are wonderful raw too – shaved into ribbons and served with fresh herbs such as marjoram, oregano or thyme, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, flaky sea salt and crumbled feta.

Every courgette begins with pollination. Watch closely, and you'll often find bees moving pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers, turning today's blossom into next week's harvest.

17/07/2026

🍓 There are strawberries, and then there are wild strawberries.

Tiny, intensely fragrant, and bursting with flavour, they're one of summer's greatest treasures.

At Fat Tomato, we grow three varieties of strawberries outdoors, but it's our Queen of the Valley alpine strawberries that make our Wild Strawberry Rose Cordial truly special. Once found in hedgerows and woodland edges across Ireland, these tiny berries may be small, but they pack an extraordinary depth of flavour.

To make the cordial, we've paired them with fragrant old rose petals from the garden, Ostara strawberries for freshness and bite, organic Verna lemons sourced directly from small Mediterranean growers, and a pinch of Wexford sea salt to create something that's delicate, floral and quietly complex.

Enjoy with chilled sparkling water, topped with sparkling w**e, drizzled over ice cream or summer desserts, or generously poured over natural yoghurt and fresh fruit.

One of the most delicate flavours of the season, captured in a bottle.

Seasonal. One-of-a-kind. A little goes a long way.

15/07/2026

🌿 What does summer smell like?

Some people remember summer through photographs. We remember it through scent.

🍅 Tomato leaf tar lingering on your fingertips after pruning.

🌿 Basil picked moments before dinner.

🌾 Freshly cut hay drying in the summer sun.

🍑 A peach warmed by the afternoon sun.

🌱 Freshly cut grass.

🌿 Mint crushed between your fingers for an ice-cold drink.

🔥 A barbecue shared with family and friends.

🌹 Roses as they burst into bloom.

🌧️ Rain falling after a long dry spell.

Certain scents have an incredible ability to transport us back to a place, a person, or a moment in time.

👇 If you could bottle just one smell of summer, what would it be?