Tomato

A tomato is a food item that heals 2 Hitpoints when eaten. Its main use is as an ingredient in other foods; tomatoes are needed to make garden pies, vegetable battas and cheese and tomato battas , and egg and tomato (used as the topping for egg potatoes ), as well as ugthanki kebabs and all pizzas.

Players can store five tomatoes in a basket. One basket of tomatoes is required to pay a gardener to watch over growing yanillian hops or a growing oak tree, and three baskets of tomatoes are required to pay them to watch over a growing cadava berry bush.

Players can use tomatoes in a Compost Bin to make compost. However, using only 15 tomatoes in a batch turns them into rotten tomatoes instead.

Obtaining tomatoes
Players can grow tomatoes by planting three tomato seeds in an allotment patch at level 12 Farming. They can plant a marigold seed in the flower patch to help protect the tomatoes from disease, or pay the gardener two sacks of cabbages to ensure they grow.

A tomato spawns in the Bandit Camp in the Wilderness, and in Aggie's house in Draynor Village. In issue 1 of Postbag from the Hedge (dated 26 September 2005), Aggie claims to have created the tomato accidentally whilst trying to summon a lesser demon. It is unclear whether she is referring to the particular tomato in her house (explaining why it keeps reappearing), or is claiming to be the origin of all tomatoes. In any case, her claims cannot necessarily be taken too seriously, as she also says that tomatoes "do sometimes bite"; there is no evidence of this in the game.

After completing the Fremennik Trials quest, members with level 2 Thieving can steal tomatoes from the vegetable stalls on Miscellania and Etceteria, or simply buy them from the greengrocer there. They can also buy tomatoes from the food shop in Port Sarim, or (depending on their progress in the Recipe for Disaster quest) from the Culinaromancer's Chest in Lumbridge Castle.

Players can purchase tomatoes at the Farming shops after another player has sold there, but this is rare since those shops cycle their player stocks rather quickly. Note that since the Grand Exchange update, the Farming shops sell tomatoes at GE prices (when they have tomatoes) but will pay players only a starting payment of 9 coins for a tomato, assuming the store has no tomatoes in inventory - the payment per tomato goes down gradually as the inventory increases.

Players can also gain tomatoes by talking to the Recruiter in West Ardougne; the nearby men will throw tomatoes at him, and players can pick these up from the ground. This is a very slow method for obtaining tomatoes though, and other methods are greatly preferred. .

Trivia

 * It is interesting to note that the examine text says, "This would make good ketchup". There is no such thing as ketchup in RuneScape.