Kitchen Garden Forum

I bought some (non-organic) tomatoes recently and they were covered with a white powder which I obviously washed off before using them. The powder was very fine and one could feel rather than see it. Presumably it has something to do with preservation. But does anybody know what it is?

Because we have to buy so few vegetables, I try to get organic ones, but this time of the year organic tomatoes are difficult to come by.

Dear Monika, i haven't got a sensible answer, but i hope they weren't part of some drug smuggling plot.

its possibe its just salts out of the water they were washed in, or from irrigation water . do you know where they were grown?

Hi Monika,
If the seeds are coated with anything it would tell you on the packet. The vendors are bound by law to state on the packet if the seeds are coated with any chemical.
I cannot explain the white powder but if you are in doubt or at all worried I should Email the company who supplied seeds.
JB.

Dear Johnboy, i think Monika is on about actual tomatoes and not seed.

You are right, OH, it's the tomatoes rather than the seeds I meant. I like your drug theory!

Hi Monika,
Oops!
Whatever made me think it was about seeds I have no idea. Come to think of it I seem to have no idea a lot of things lately! Too much on my mind.
I still have no idea.
JB.