Looking for some information and history on this variety. Got some seeds from Farmer Shawn as part of Carolyn's final seed offer. Wondering if it is worth growing for 2021.

Garden.org has it as indet RL slicer, but that doesn't really tell you much.

Unfortunately nothing returned from the SSE search but I don't think that includes back issues. Anybody here have access to back issues? [mention]Ginger2778[/mention] maybe or [mention]MissS[/mention]?

Seems like a good reason to grow it out and report back!

Ah, a bit more from posts on TVille. This was from Jeannine Anne:

"Carolyn. Madame Jardel's Black was found in an old ladies French garden by a gardening type tourist a few years ago, Madame had grown them for many years but had no name for them. She gave the tourist a few tomatoes and she saved the seeds, grew the tomatoes and shared ther seeds with the UK Heritage Seed Library. They were offered as one of their freebies with membership a few years ago, I have grown them twice"

There are some photos in this thread, it looks quite pretty: http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.p ... els&page=2 -- slightly lobed red. EDIT: I actually think that the pics are of Queen of Hearts, not Madame Jardel's.

Madame Jardel's Black was offered by Secret Seed Cartel several years ago. (The seeds are no longer offered). I believe that the above description by Jeannine Anne was a quote from that site. They are a RL black tomato with supposedly very good flavor of French origin. I have looked at my seed catalog and I did not purchase this variety when it was offered. I must say that anything that I have purchased from the Secret Seed Cartel has been very, very good so if it were me I would go ahead and grow this one out without much hesitation at all.

I've been collecting French heirloom seeds for growing out in the next year or two, so I'd personally be interested in some of these if you decide to grow it.

Thank you for the info! I read that some were having troubles germinating them. Seeds are from 2016.

Joesondo wrote: ↑Mon Aug 17, 2020 10:34 pm Thank you for the info! I read that some were having troubles germinating them. Seeds are from 2016.

That's got some age but it's not terrible. I was successful at germinating some of Carolyn's seed offer of a different variety from 2015. So give it a shot! My germination rates were good and I didn't do anything super special.

I grew it and can report back now. I have a feeling that Madame Jardel's Black is really Purple Calabash. I grew Purple Calabash about 10 years ago, and it's very similar. Even the flavour is similar. Both varieties have that sharp, tinny, metallic, almost sour flavour.

Joesondo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 10:32 pm … Both varieties have that sharp, tinny, metallic, almost sour flavour. …

I've tried Purple Calabash. I describe that flavor as acrid, if yours tasted like mine. I think it's mostly just where the blossom scars and such are where you get that taste. If you skin it, it might lack that flavor.

Someone in the MMMM swap has been requesting Madame Jardel's for about 5 consecutive years, now. Hint Hint Hint Hint