Guernsey Tomato

Some say it all began with the tomato…  Guernsey’s horticultural origins go back over 200 years when the first greenhouses were erected. Locals dabbled in grape growing but it wasn’t until the advent of the humble tomato that things really took off. In the mid 19th Century Guernsey’s growers were quick to respond to news from medical practitioners that the decorative plant was not only edible but good for your health, and by the 1870s the tomato had overtaken the vine in the island’s glass houses.

The ”Guernsey Tom” dominated the island’s growing industry throughout the 20th Century, with special tomato trains laid on at Southampton and Weymouth during peak periods to cope with the influx. Guernsey became a “glass island”, with 7% of its total surface area under green house by 1950. By the 1970s hundreds of acres of glasshouses were dedicated to tomato growing, with nine million trays per annum exported.

Sadly, increased competition from Dutch producers and changes in the British railway system eventually made the export of the tomato less profitable