Gardener's Delight Tomato Seed Germination and Growing Thread

Discussion in 'Edible Gardening' started by JWK, Mar 29, 2018.

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  1. JWK

    JWK Gardener Staff Member

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    This thread is to exchange ideas and post our experiences of trying revive that good old favourite Gardener's Delight.

    Over the past few years many of us have noticed that the taste of GD has dropped from being amongst the very best to bland and not worth bothering with.

    Some of us have old seed packets and it is our hope to germinate a few, grow them on and see if we can revive the good tasting strain once again.
     
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    • JWK

      JWK Gardener Staff Member

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      A lot of information is over on the main Tomato Growing Thread, here are the relevant posts:







       
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      • JWK

        JWK Gardener Staff Member

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        • Redwing

          Redwing Wild Gardener

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          Good idea @JWK to have a thread for this. I will report the progress with my old seed.
           
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          • Scrungee

            Scrungee Well known for it

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            I'm posting some of my old seeds to JWK, and sowing some myself, but still have some left. If anybody else wishes to participate, I probably have enough seeds to send 10'ish x 2005 plus 10'ish 2007 to 2 others free of charge (we have plenty of stamps). 'PM' if interested.

            EDIT All taken.
             
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              Last edited: Mar 29, 2018
            • Fern4

              Fern4 Total Gardener

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              • Fern4

                Fern4 Total Gardener

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                I'll pm you :thumbsup:
                 
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                • JWK

                  JWK Gardener Staff Member

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                  • Ezzie

                    Ezzie Gardener

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                    Hmm, my goodness! No pressure then ... but I do enjoy a challenge.
                     
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                    • JWK

                      JWK Gardener Staff Member

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                      No pressure Ezzie :)

                      We did something similar a few years ago with Manx Marvel, a few of us grew them as the seed supply had practically run out. If you're growing tomatoes anyway it's not a lot of extra work - honestly :)

                      It's good to have different members doing it scattered around the country to hedge our bets.
                       
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                      • JWK

                        JWK Gardener Staff Member

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                        Can't wait to taste a proper tomato again so really looking forward to this experiment being a success. The winter has been long and my supply of dried tomatoes is running low. Roll on the summer!
                         
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                        • silu

                          silu gardening easy...hmmm

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                          Scrungee is kindly sending me a few seeds so we'll see if GD decides to put up with being in the frozen north!....in a greenhouse I hasten to add:fingers crossed:
                           
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                          • Fern4

                            Fern4 Total Gardener

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                            Also getting some seeds from our Scrungee so we'll see how they get on in the rainy north west. They will be going in a blow away and I'll try them outdoors....so let's hope I can get them to germinate! :fingers crossed:
                             
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                            • pete

                              pete Growing a bit of this and a bit of that....

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                              Would be interesting if someone was to root a few cuttings from a plant and grow them under different conditions, maybe outside/inside, soil /grow bags, different liquid feeding, etc.

                              I think until you compare the actual same plant, rather than a seed grown version you're not going to get a true comparison.;):smile:
                               
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                              • Freddy

                                Freddy Miserable git, well known for it

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                                Just a thought.
                                First of all, I won’t be growing any, but it strikes me that it might be useful to compare some of these older seed grown plants with some fresh seed grown plants? I reckon it would help dispel any expectation bias.
                                 
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