Ivor Markman

 

Six months before Ammie Pringle had her second child, she gave up her job as a high school teacher, and decided it was time to find some money-generating hobbies.

After a lot of thought and research with husband Scott, she took her savings, bought a tomato tunnel and erected it on their farm, Kelso, just outside Adelaide in the Eastern Cape.

“We decided we're right on the (main) road, close to the market. There’s a huge market here because we've got Fort Beaufort, Bedford and Adelaide close by.

“It's my sideline, my little hobby,” she said.

The couple decided as just about everyone eats ordinary table tomatoes, that would be the way to go.

Ammie truly believes her tomatoes are very special saying she always puts quality first.

“I guarantee that once the tomatoes are picked, they are delivered the same day or the very next day. We do not refrigerate our tomatoes so they are very fresh, they have a long shelf life.

Ammie refuses to fiddle with the tomatoes.

“If I have a bad crop, I don't try and enhance it by injecting hormones,” she said.

As her tomato crop is very small, she is unable to supply shops outside her immediate area.

“It's obviously too far for us to travel to Port Elizabeth, so you have to come to Bedford, Adelaide or Fort Beaufort (to purchase some).

Her crop is a labour of love. Ammie personally picks and sorts the entire crop and is very selective.

Any tomatoes she is not 100% satisfied with is destined to the seconds bin.

“I sort each one out with my own two hands, that is my quality control and it works, I have never have complaints. In picking season I can go up to a ton a week,” she said.

Ammie plants two crops per year using hydroponics.

“I plant them in sawdust and the nutrients come through the water,” she said.

There are pieces of string hanging from support structure inside the tunnel.

These are to ensure the plants grow upright.

All the suckers are removed so the plant doesn’t bush and the plant has only one long stem.

This makes it easier to pick the plant and at the same time it increases the plants capacity.

Ammie says she has learnt about tomatoes through reading and talking to other farmers.

“Well, I went to see some people, I’ve read about it, I've made lots of mistakes and I've learnt from our mistakes.

“I invested quite a lot of money that I saved from teaching (but) I made it back in less than a year,” she said.

Obviously not all tomatoes are perfect and because of her strict quality control, those with blemishes are not sold to the shops.

Instead they are used to make tomato and sweet tomato chili jam.

“Sales were a bit slow at first but the tomato jam is very popular,” said Ammie.

Because of the limited quantities her popular products are only for sale in the Adelaide and Bedford area.

Ammie got the tomato jam recipe from her mother-in-law who got it from a good friend of hers.

“It's quite quick, it takes about an hour. If it's hot in summer, it's not really pleasant but on the other hand it makes you stand still and think about things,” she said.

But tomatoes are only one of Ammie’s hobbies.

She also makes wooden picture frames.

The family company has a logging operation.

One day, while visiting the mill, Ammie noticed all the off-cuts lying around.

“That bothered me a lot. I thought well, I'll make frames from them.

“So I have taken the off-cuts. I've got somebody to cut the corners for me. Then I put them together and do all sorts of paint effects on them.

Ammie saw a magazine that had a feature on distressed picture frames.

“At the moment people love the distressed look, with the paint literally peeling off,” she said.

So she started sourcing planks and making picture frames.

Much to her delight the framing is going great guns at the moment and Ammie is delighted the environment will benefit from the recycling.

“Instead of chucking the planks away, I'm using them again,” she said.

“Everyone should recycle. We recycle in our house. We recycle all our waste, we recycle the wood which is rotting away and people are hanging (the frames) in their houses.

“My mom wants to paint everything, she can't believe people are actually hanging (these frames) in their houses.

To increase her sales, Ammie has a photographer friend supply her with prints which she then inserts into the frames.

Then I sell them with or without the prints,” she said.

 

Text: Copyright Ivor Markman