The Carrot Tops Allotment Blog!

Gardener’s Delight! My favourite variety of tomato to grow. They produce tomatoes that are plentiful and sweet from the summer all the way through to the early autumn.

Gardener’s Delight is a cordon variety, which means the plant will perform better when pruned. This means cutting the tops out when the plant reaches a certain height and taking away some of the bottom leaves – this will also help your fruit to ripen quicker as they’ll be getting more access to sunlight and also the plant will put more energy into producing fruit throughout the season.

We have Germany to thank for Gardener’s Delight, specifically, Paul Tellhelm who first bred the plant 1950 and called it Benary’s Gartenfreude, Hochzucht. Ten years later, the plant made it’s way to Wisconsin, USA and was sold by the Randolph Jung of Jung Quality Seed company. The seed become known as the Jung Sugar Lump and for good reason – they sure are sweet!

Back here in Blighty, Gardener’s Delight has become THE tomato variety for amateur gardeners because of how easy it is to grow and the rewards you get from it. It’s even earned the RHS Award of Garden Merit. This particular give off a lovely fragrant and that smell always takes me back to my childhood as I used to pick these tomatoes in my grandmothers greenhouse and have them for breakfast.

Germination is expected within two weeks and I’ll look to spur these on in 2″ pots before I plant them outside.  In the past I’ve fallen into the trap of sowing too many than I can manage, so I’m hoping that my strategic sowing method (which is to sow less), will pay off.