Family: Solanaceae
Tomato ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ (Solanum lycopersicum ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’) is an intermediate (cordon) tomato that produces these wonderfully glossy red fruits. These tomatoes are a bright and cheerful, pillar box red; ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ is a proper red tomato!
In the UK, from February to April, ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ tomato seeds can be sown inside a warm glasshouse, polytunnel, conservatory, or on a particularly bright and sunny windowsill.
When sowing tomato seeds and growing seedlings on, it’s important to be able to provide your plants with sufficient light (ideally from above), as bright light is needed to produce strong stocky plants and prevent your tomato plants from becoming leggy. I’ve tried growing tomatoes in shaded conditions and it just doesn’t work; the result is thin plants that sprawl towards the light. When deciding where to grow your tomato plants, look for a bright and sunny area and sow your tomato seeds inside a glasshouse, polytunnel, or conservatory, if you can.
If you have sufficient space, ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ tomatoes will thrive in the warmth and the protection of a glasshouse, polytunnel, or conservatory; these tomatoes can spend their entire lives in a warm, sheltered environment. However you don’t have to have a glasshouse; once all risk of frost has passed, (which in the UK would be from the end of May until the middle of June) ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ tomatoes can be grown outside, in gardens or allotments. ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ tomato plants will flourish outdoors, planted in beds and borders; they’ll also thrive grown in raised beds or containers.
This year, I sowed ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ tomatoes inside my glasshouse. At the end of May, when all risk of frost had passed, my ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ plants moved outside to my garden, where they flourished. I will definitely grow this cherry tomato again; ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ produces very handsome red cherry tomatoes with a deliciously sweet and tangy flavour.
There’s absolutely no need to use peat to grow tomatoes. Top quality tomatoes are grown in peat-free composts. Tomato plants flourish grown in containers filled with peat-free composts or planted in a bed or border that’s mulched with peat-free compost.
I bought my ‘Irish Gardener’s Delight’ tomato seeds from Real Seeds.
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