The perils of buying tomato seed

[Odsox]

I grow several different varieties of tomatoes each year and as my memory is not what it was, I tend to be a bit anal when it comes to labelling. This year I'm growing Gardeners Delight again, but the fruit is striped and I guarantee that it's actually Tigerella (which I'm also growing this year). So I blamed my stupid memory and wondered how on earth I could have made such a labelling mistake.
So when I received Dobies June Newsletter a few days ago, it all fell into place, it's NOT MY FAULT.
Well it is my fault I suppose, I should have known better than to buy seed from overpriced T&M, whom I've had problems with before.
One thing's for sure, I shall know better next year.


Extract from Dobies Newsletter ......
"It’s all system go at the Dobies of Devon trial grounds this month with a packed programme of trials under way. Many of the trials are of new items that we are thinking of adding to our range but we also carry out trials on well-established existing products to ensure that the seed performs true to type.

An example of this is the much loved Tomato Gardener’s Delight. Last year there were many complaints in the industry (but not here at Dobies) that tomato plants sold as being Gardener’s Delight were not fruiting true to type.

Sadly it seems that some suppliers were selling the cheapest tomato seed and simply calling it Gardener's Delight. Unfortunately, this type of issue is fairly common and is one of the reasons for our constant trialling.

We were able to prove that having trialled 5 different Gardener’s Delight strains ours was and is true to type."

[Green Aura]

What on earth is cheaper than Gardener's Delight? We get a free packet every time we buy a magazine!

What are Tigerella like? I've looked at them but never bought them.

Just hope the Silver Fir comes true - you 'll be getting our seeds back end - the plants are very pretty.

[Odsox]

What are Tigerella like?

Apart from being stripy ?
They grow well and the fruit is medium sized, about 1.5 inches for the biggest ones, and they have a nice sweet/acid taste.
One thing about them, the last time I grew them they lasted till February in my frost free conservatory.

Just found that it was 2009 the last time I grew them ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... 12&t=17800

EDIT: If you want to try some I'll make sure to save some seed for you, I'm growing "proper" Tigerella as well as this Gardeners Delight Tigerella possibly maybe.

[Green Aura]

Please. We'll do a proper swap order at the end of the season to make it worth the postage. I fear I'm in debt already.

[diggernotdreamer]

I can't say I have had this problem with tomato seeds, but usually I buy mine from Real Seeds or have saved seed from my years of being an HSL member, but I have had it with flower seeds, not being the right colours or even not even being the thing they were supposed to be. I read that there is a worldwide problem with all this cheap seed being bought by seed merchants and it turns out not be what it is supposed to be, bit like the amazing rose seeds you can buy on Ebay, slightly suspect.

[Odsox]

Now that the first two are totally ripe I can tell that they're not true Tigerella. The stripes are just visible but nowhere near as pronounced as true Tigerella, so I assume they are a cross between Tigerella and (presumably) Gardeners Delight.
Of course, when we do a taste test it might turn out that they have a better taste than GD and the better size of Tigerella, in which case it might be worth saving seed and see if it breeds true.
But I doubt it

[ina]

But wouldn't it be boring if everything turned out the ay you expect it to?

[Odsox]

Well yes, up to a point. When I pay money for goods I expect to get what I pay for, not to be palmed off with something totally different.

On the other hand, last year I bought some purple cauliflower seeds from Real Seed Co and one of those was a real oddity. It was not purple for a start and more of a tender stem broccoli than cauliflower. The flower shoots were massive with smallish heads and the stems remained firm when cooked. The flavour was wonderful and the texture was very nice, so I didn't mind not getting what I paid for in that instance.

[ina]

What I really don't like - there's often plants (especially tomato) for sale locally, at the news agents, for example. They never know what variety it is - as if it didn't matter at all! And knowing that a lot of people absolutely love stuff like moneymaker, I simply won't buy the cat in the bag... No matter how much I'd like to support small local producers. Even when I bought a pumpkin plant at a "proper" (small) garden centre in the area, the label just said "pumpkin", and staff didn't know any more about it, either. Sad.

[Green Aura]

I've noticed that for the first time this year, Ina. We went to a garden centre in Inverness and bought two aubergine plants - one a named variety (can't remember what it is, never heard of it before) and one labelled "Aubergine".

I assume it's a Black Beauty" as that seems to be the main type for home growing (I'm not sure why because the little egg size ones grow much better, for us anyway).