Seed Potatoes for Sale- Are they Having a laugh?

[DrPhill]

Corn stuffed venison!
Shame I don't eat meat. Mind you I am tempted to make an exception for pigeon stuffed with brassica and peas.

 

[whiskywill]

You may not be a gardener Steve - but you are a foodie so I recommend you just grow 4 sungold tomato plants this year. Then lets have this conversation again in September because I predict you will be an enthusiastic convert. Your taste buds won't know what's hit them

Try Gardener's Delight. They must be the tastiest tomatoes ever.

 

[whiskywill]

When I am asked how to tell when is the best time to pick black currants my stock answer is 'the day before the ******* birds eat them all'

That's interesting. I have never had trouble with birds eating my blackcurrants but lose the redcurrants every year as soon as they show any sign of ripening. This year they will be netted as soon as the berries form.

 

[Rorschach]

You may not be a gardener Steve - but you are a foodie so I recommend you just grow 4 sungold tomato plants this year. Then lets have this conversation again in September because I predict you will be an enthusiastic convert. Your taste buds won't know what's hit them

Try Gardener's Delight. They must be the tastiest tomatoes ever.

Gardeners delight, bloody awful things!

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

I have to agree, I've grown GD several times and although it does crop well and is pretty resistant to Blight etc....it's not anywhere near as sweet as Sungold.

 

[Rorschach]

I have to agree, I've grown GD several times and although it does crop well and is pretty resistant to Blight etc....it's not anywhere near as sweet as Sungold.

Yep they look good etc and crop well as you say, but flavour wise they are very poor indeed, much more akin to a supermarket tomato.

A good cropping but tasty large red tomato is Shirley, still not a patch on a sungold but not bad at all. They are more susceptible to blight we have found though. We used to grow a few shirley and then the rest were sungold, this meant we had some large tomatoes for sandwiches etc. The shirley though would often pick up blight later in the season and then pass it on to the sungold. Now we just grow sungold and we have been mostly disease free, at least for the vast majority of the growing season. Once they start getting overcrowded at the top of the greenhouse disease is pretty much inevitable, but by then the crop is mostly done anyway.

 

[MarkDennehy]

I think it's false economy growing your own potatoes nowadays

You say that now, but you won't be saying it when you're two spade depths down breaking your back rotating the clay so you have any chance at all of growing a carrot longer than your thumb
Can't say I've ever grown spuds purely for the taste, it's always been because they break up the soil nicely. Mind you I only had a small plot in the back garden, rather than a proper allotment, so you'd never get more than a few sunday roasts worth out of the plot. But the peas and beans and carrots and chillis, you got enough there (or they tasted good enough) to make it worthwhile.

 

[MarkDennehy]

Yep they look good etc and crop well as you say, but flavour wise they are very poor indeed, much more akin to a supermarket tomato.

We're all a bit far north to get really nice tomatoes though, unless you're doing it under glass and even then it's not really guaranteed.
But if you remember to salt the tomatoes before eating, that can help with the flavour a lot.

 

[bugbear]

I live in a rural-ish area. Most greengrocers used to sell seed potatoes during the planting season, so this goes back a long way.

Modern times mean the greengrocers are long gone, of course.

BugBear

 

[whiskywill]

I have to agree, I've grown GD several times and although it does crop well and is pretty resistant to Blight etc....it's not anywhere near as sweet as Sungold.

I didn't say they were as sweet as Sungold, just that they are a very tasty tomato, and I do find them to be rather sweet. It's just a matter of different taste experiences and preferences.

Gardeners delight, bloody awful things!

No need for an outburst of bile and filthy language. :shock:

 

[Rorschach]

Have you grown other varieties? Normally I find people who grow GD have never tried much else. There are much better varieties out there in my opinion. If it makes you happy then great but I do hope you will try others.