Oh, god, yes - the bugs, the gnats, the flies (ew, all the flies) and the black rotting blech... the drippy stinky mess. I figure the only good from it is I might get volunteers next year. *sigh* Well, I'm shooting for a combination approach. I cut out all the rotting junk, including too-soggy leaves and branches. I think they'll make it, but be a bit scraggly on the bottom thirds. I'll live with that. I have a bunch of Cherokee Purples setting that might make it through. I'd love that - I've not gotten one off it all year, and if it continues I'm chucking this experiment as a loss. I *do* have more cherries coming along nicely, and the last I have is Celebrity. That's been the biggest mess, but the tastiest, most perfect tomato otherwise... I'm really hoping for recovery here. (I made awesome pizza with these sliced on top, with eggplant and fresh herbs and ricotta and alfredo sauce... OMG. I made lots of converts that day.) I've not got much... but I was really hoping to try my hand at saucing this year, I only tend to go through spaghetti/pizza sauce in small doses and wanted to can my own in smaller portions. :P I don't know now if I'll get enough to make it worthwhile. I can't imagine having so many quarts of sauce done - I haven't made any! (Although I only have my few plants... and that does put a dent in supply. :) ) I really appreciate the notes on green salsa - I don't eat salsa myself, as a rule, but I know several who do. If nothing else at least all my greenies won't go to waste. :D Thanks!! ..anyone have a recipe *recommendation*? ^_^;

A twofer for Ami and Big Daddy True Ami that most of Reinhard's releases he sends to Manfred who offers them off Reinhard's webpage, but there's a few of us, I'm one of them, who have known Reinhard for many years so each year I send him the best of my grow outs and he does the reverse, and sometimes he asks if I can find this or that for him and I've been able to do that as well. But since Reinhard gives the seeds to Herr Hahm there should be no differences in seeds from Herr Hahm as opposed to Reinhard himself. I must ask Reinhard when next I e-mail him if Manfred does any seed production from the seeds that Reinhard gives him, which is something I don't know for a fact. B'c if there is then I don't know as I can say that the two sources would be eqivalent. Big Daddy, since Sungold F1 doesn't split that badly for me , and since I've only grown BSS last year and got no splitting in a rainy year, I don't have a definitive answer. LOL But I have one re Maria and Serena and my feeling is that Maria is still very young and Serena is quite a bit older, so Maria has many years to still win Wimbledon again, and Serna doesn't. I'll be glued to my TV this week watching all the matches, that you can believe. LOL Carolyn

You need to determine what your friends did with the plants after you gave them away. If they just popped them in the ground with no prep or TLC, one fruit or none would be expected. Tomatoes need just a little care, and I can tell you from experience that if they are just thrown in the ground or ignored, then they are not going to do anything. When I first moved here, I had no time to set up a garden the first year and threw some plants in the ground only to get one tomato and 6 poor plants. Now the same area gives me 100's of pounds of tomatoes and other veggies every year. Don't blame yourself or your offerings.

Sungold F1 plants don't have any special requirements for growth beyond what you'd use for any other tomato. I can't really tell how big your seedlings are now, but at the 1-2 true leaf stage it's best to take them out of the seed starting mix and transfer them to a small pot/other container or many of us transfer our seedlings to individual plastic cells that are part of an insert that goes into a standard nursery size tray. If you have just a few seedlings it might be best to just transfer them to a Dixie cup, 8-12 oz, with holes punched in the bottom for drainage and let them grow in those, individually until putting them outside in your new raised bed which I assume you're going to fill with some good growing material for tomatoes and other things you might be growing. When you transfer the seedlings from the starting mix be sure you plant them deeply in the Dixie cup, or whatever, so that the stems are buried and there's just a tuft of foliage left at the top. If I've missed something please just ask me again here in this thread. About cutworms. To date, and that's about 2500 different varieties grown, I haven't found any one variety that's especially susceptible to cutworms. Lanky, spindly plants are always preferred by them but if the stems are strong they can't gnaw them down b'c a cutworm has to encircle the stem before gnawing and it can't do it if the stem is nice and thick and strong. So to prevent cutowrm damage it's best to make a physical barrier and that means placing a twig and plastic soda straw or some use nails, right next to the stem to prevent the worm from being able to encircle the stem. Using collars of any kind doen't prevent the worms from coming up from the soil inside the collar in my experience. Carolyn, who is just a bit concerned about getting those seedlings to the 6-9 inch size to transplant outside rather late, I would think for your area. Most others I know already have their plants outside in your gardening zone area. But if others in your area are at the same stage you are, well, just go with the flow. ( smile)