Gardeners Delight Tomato
More and more people are trying to grow tomatoes at home whether it be for you the adult, or their children to enjoy learning about growing produce or as a little family competition to see who can grow the best produce at home. Gardeners delight tomatoes are one of the most popular tomatoes to try and grow as these can be grown in the greenhouse and outdoors.
Gardeners Delight tomatoes are ideal for the expert gardener and the amateur gardener because they are that easy to grow you certainly won’t be having any issues growing these and you will get a great harvest from them all the summer right into autumn.
Gardeners delight tomatoes are a popular choice to grow and eat as they are super sweet they are tiny and can be eaten as snacks when you feel peckish or they can be put in a lunch box to accompany your packed lunch for work or for the children.
Gardeners delight tomatoes are a cherry type of tomato grown on a corden plant. A corden plant means that it grows better when you prune the side shoots out on the plant as it grows. The Latin name for gardeners delight is Lycopersicon esculentum.
Find out about different tomato varieties here.
Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book
Are you starting an allotment or planning on growing your own fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a kitchen garden? If so we highly recommend the book Allotment Month By Month. This does exactly what it does on the cover to help you with what you should be doing in the allotment and kitchen garden each month. Below you can see the link for Amazon where you can purchase the book directly. This book is extremely popular with all allotment holders as you will read in the reviews:-
You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.
How to grow Gardeners delight tomatoes
When you are looking at growing fruit or vegetables (whichever you think a tomato is) it is usually a great idea before growing the tomatoes to know where you will be growing them in the garden. You need to know that you have the right conditions in your garden for growing them. Having the best growing conditions will help you get a better gardener’s delight harvest and crop from the plants. The best place to grow your gardener’s delight tomatoes would ideally be in a polytunnel or a greenhouse as this is a great ideal spot. Tomatoes are being more and more adapted to be grown in the UK conditions. Gardeners’ delight can be grown successfully outdoors and you should get a decent crop from them. In this guide, we will provide a step-by-step guide on growing Gardeners Delight tomatoes successfully from seeds right through to harvesting the tomatoes from the plants. Follow this guide and you will soon be eating the delicious sweet tasty tomatoes.
When to sow, plant and harvest gardeners delight
Knowing the correct times to sow, plant, and harvest your gardener’s delight seeds is a good start to getting great tomato plants. Below you will find a guide to the months when you can sow your tomato seeds. Try not to start them off too early as this can affect the plants. The tomato plants will soon catch up when growing through the summer.
| Sow | February to April |
| Plant | May – June |
| Harvest | July to October |
Best place to grow gardeners delight
The best place to ideally grow gardeners delight tomatoes is in a polytunnel or a greenhouse as this space is a lot warmer for the plants which will help the growth of the plants and help ripen them. If you grow them indoors you certainly will be picking hundreds of tomatoes from the plants. Your friends will certainly love you for them as you will end up giving lots away. The gardeners delight tomatoes will grow outdoors as long as they are in a sunny position.
The best soil to grow gardeners delight in
The ideal soil that gardeners delight need to be grown in is compost. This will have all the right nutrients in it for a great harvest until the plant dies back in October. Compost is certainly the better option than planting straight in the soil as you will need to add organic matter to help feed the plants.
How to sow gardeners delight tomato seeds
When it comes to sowing gardeners delight tomato seeds it could not be any easier. We also include a video below to help show you how to sow the seeds.
To sow the gardeners delight tomato seeds here is the step-by-step guide: –
1) You will require a seed tray with holes in the bottom for drainage.
2) Put a layer of compost in the bottom of the tray.
3) Sprinkle the seeds along the top of the compost.
4) Cover the seeds with another layer of compost
5) Sprinkle the compost with water – do not overwater just enough to soak the compost. Use a watering can with a sprinkler on the end.
6) If it is cold in your greenhouse cover with a layer of cling film this will keep them moist and also warm – this will help with germination
Planting your gardeners delight tomatoes
Tomatoes do not take that long to germinate – usually, this will be around 14-21 days. Leave the plants growing in the seed tray until they get quite big – big enough to handle (usually around 8cm). When the tomato plants are big enough to handle without the chance of snapping the stem they can be transplanted to bigger individual pots.
You will require plant pots that are at least 8cm tall. Carefully transplant the gardeners delight tomato plants into the new plant pots in fresh compost. Give the tomato plants a good watering then keep watering them every other day so they do not die. Keep your plant pots in a sunny position – ideally in a greenhouse or polytunnel where it is warm. One little tip is to always pot up a few extra plants just in case they do not take or they get eaten by the slugs. You can always give them away if you have too many.
When the gardeners delight tomato plants reach around 15cm they can be transplanted to their final destination. This is a grow bag or a bucket with holes in it. If you are using a grow bag you can usually fit around 3 plants in each grow bag. If you have not got grow bags you can use flower buckets which you can pick up from Morrisons or Asda for free or extremely cheap. These can then be filled with multipurpose compost. Just remember to drill holes in the bottom or they can get water logged.
You can watch the video below showing how to transplant tomato plants into plant pots.
Looking after your gardeners delight tomato’s
When you are growing any type of tomato variety they will require lots of love and attention from you – this will encourage them to give you back lots of crops which you will hopefully have too many and end up giving away to family and friends.
One of the main jobs for looking after your gardener’s delight tomatoes is probably one of the hardest which is to remember to water them. You could end up watering them every single day. They certainly like to drink a lot of water. This will obviously help them grow and make the fruit swell. If you forget to keep watering them and then all of a sudden start watering them again when it has fruit on them it can actually cause them to spilt. Tomatoes are like regular water not infrequent. On hot days, they may even want water in the morning and at night.
As your tomato plants grow they will get a lot taller and when the tomatoes start growing on them they can become heavy. Support them by placing a cane at the side of the plant and fastening the tomato plant to the cane to keep it in one piece, you would not want the plant snapping and losing all your tomatoes.
As the tomato plants grow you will see side shoots growing on them like mini tomato plants, just keep snapping these off it so that it does not become busy and that it grows taller instead of concentrating on growing the tomatoes.
Harvesting your gardener’s delight tomatoes
The best part of growing gardeners delight tomatoes is then harvesting them. IT will be great at first then you will be wondering who you can give them away to as you will have loads. When one turns red on the tomato plant they will all start to turn red as they let out a scent. Pick the tomatoes off when they are fully ripe. Do not leave them on too long or they could go soft and split. If the tomatoes are not ripening leave a banana skin nearby as this helps ripen them.
Purchase Gardeners Delight Tomato Plants and seeds
Here you can purchase your gardeners delight tomato plants and seeds. We have found the best-priced ones online which we recommend to you. You will have great success with these.
You can find lots more tips and advice on growing fruit and vegetables here
Gardeners Delight Common Questions and queries
How do you care for gardeners delight tomatoes?
The best way to care for your gardener’s delight tomatoes is to keep pinching out the side shoots that grow on the plant so it grows nice and tall and focuses on growing the tomatoes. You can also feed it once a week when the flowers start to form on the plant.
Gardeners Delight Tomato Hanging Basket
Gardeners delight cannot be grown in hanging baskets. You are best getting a tumbling tom for growing tomatoes in hanging baskets.
What type of tomato is gardeners delight?
Gardeners delight is a cherry-type tomato. They are a cordon variety of tomato plants.
Do you pinch out Gardeners Delight?
The simple answer to do you pinch out gardeners delight tomatoes is yes. This is because it is a corden tomato and not a bush variety of tomato plant
How tall do Gardeners Delight Grow?
Gardeners delight tomatoes can grow to a massive 2 meters tall in the right conditions obviously when it gets to the height you want you can cut the top off the plant.
Is Gardeners Delight a bush tomato?
Gardeners delight tomato is not a bush tomato it is a corden tomato plant.
Do you need to stake out Gardeners Delight Tomatoes?
You will need to stake out gardeners delight tomatoes with a can as mentioned above they grow to around 2 meters tall which is 200 cm. This means the plant can get top heavy and could snap so staking out the plant will help prevent it from snapping.