Seed sources are complicated and so are the reasons a person might choose seed from one company versus seed from another company. Many of the large corporate retailers buy some if not all their seed from exactly the same seed wholesalers, so what you get from one of them is likely the exact same thing you'd get from another of them. (And, in general, those large wholesalers are growing the seeds overseas where costs are substantially lower.) So, for example, under that scenario Seed Company A, Seed Company B and Seed Company C are offering you the same exact seed grown in the same fields under the same conditions and processed the same way. Why, then,do some companies have a better reputation than others for seed germination and for seed growing true-to-type? Because they all have their own ways of shipping, handling, repackaging and storing seed. Perhaps some of those ways are better than others and consumers see it in higher germination rates for example. So, if a consumer has been happy with seed from Company A, they'll keep buying from them. But if the have a negative experience, they may switch to Company B or Company C. With OPs, it is a little different. The more common OPs are available through large wholesalers, but many of the less well-known OPs also are often grown by the smaller companies or by contract growers hired by the smaller companies. If you are a very experienced heirloom tomato grower who knows the orginal seed source for a specific variety offered by a specific company, you may choose to order that variety only from that company because you know the seed came from someone like Craig LeHoullier. For example, both Craig LeHoullier and Carolyn Male have supplied Mike at Victory Seeds with his initial supply of some specific heirloom tomatoes they have been instrumental in saving/sharing. So, if you've grown Cherokee Purple from Victory Seeds, you can feel confident that it is the 'real deal' and not a similar but less impressive variety because you know Mike originally got his seed from Craig and has been keeping that line going. I'm sure Jay can tell you of specific varieties from specific retailers that the tomato afficianado crowd believe is 'the real deal' versus an identically named variety from another retailer that does not seem to be true to type or to produce fruit of the same quality. As with everything else, word gets around. Sometimes when a person is disappointed in a particular variety, someone will ask them about their seed source and may be able to steer them towards a supplier whose seed performs more like one would expect. That's why you'll see someone say something like "I'm only buying this seed from Company X from now on"....because experience has taught them that there is a difference in the seed from Company G and Company X. Some retailers repackage the seeds into their own packets instead of having a wholesaler pack it in their packets prior to shipping. There's a small margin of error in repacking and I think that's where most seed errors occur....when something like Brandywine Sudduth is mixed up with regular Pink Brandywine or something. Only a diehard tomato fanatic might notice the difference, but I guarantee the diehard fanatics WILL notice the difference and will spread the word. Sometimes I have grown Cherokee Purple [and I'm just using it as a example because there does seem to be multiple 'strains' (not true strains) out there--the original and the imposters] from two or more sources side by side and felt like I had two different varieties. The one I choose to go with in the future will be the one that performed most like I know Cherokee Purple should perform. We often see more seed mixups from some of the smaller retailers and I think it is because they are receiving and repacking seed from multiple sources and the more the seeds are handled, the greater the likelihood of human error. Sometimes a young seed company grows too rapidly and expands too quickly and their initial reputation for having pure seed that produces true-to-variey types can suffer accordingly. Sometimes a seed company that growns much of their own seed and contracts out the rest may have a quality issue for a year or two and that really hurts their reputation. I always try to give a company like that another chance because anyone can have an occasional screwup. I don't like to judge specific seed companies on their performance in the distant past because maybe they've fixed whatever was wrong and everything is fine now. However, if I get bad seed from them 2 years in a row, I'm less likely to order from them in the future. It depends, though. If a seed company had a major issue in a given year because their seed warehouse caught fire during shipping season, that's more forgivable than if a seed company seems to have problems every single year. If they have problems every single year, then maybe you lose confidence in them. It also matters if they take complaints seriously. Some seed companies are very diligent about replacing seed that underperforms. Others are more casual about it. I understand both approaches. The companies that are diligent about replacing underperforming or incorrectly labeled seed know that their reputation is stake and most of them go above and beyond to make you happy. However, it also is all too common for people who are new to growing from seed to blame the seed company for their own mistakes, and seed companies know that. Thus, some of them are slower to react to complaints because they know many cases of consumer unhappiness occur because the consumer is a greenhorn who's causing their own problems. I know some people who absolutely will not buy from some sources because of past bad experiences, and I know some who buy exclusively from a couple of sources. I try to spread my consumer dollars around because I like the idea of many companies competing for our business and succeeding. One of the worst things that can happen in the seed business is for consolidation to occur repeatedly leaving the control of the seed supply in the hands of just a few firms. Healthy competition for our seed business is good for all of us. If you watch who we order seed from, you'll see pretty quickly that the same 10 to 20 firms get most of the business from the experienced growers here and that's because, based on past performance, they've earned that business. Dawn

Jay, Interesting review. You grew lots of plants that I have never heard of but sound interesting. Some of your list is also on my 'always grow' list as well. It amazes me that your plants still look nice and are still producing when mine have been gone so long. Although all plants always seem to thrive on the many spring showers that we have, I think it adds to the blight issues on tomatoes. My plants don't last nearly as long as yours. This year, I didn't start watering my garden plants early enough and some suffered from neglect. Since I rarely water 'in ground' in a normal year, I just didn't realize how dry they were. By the time I started to water, they already had issues. I have read several years now about the commercial types of tomatoes and I think you sent me seeds for one, but I have not grown it yet. I am going to add either the Campbell or Heinz one next year. Are those plants small enough that you could crowd them a little? I had lovely tomatoes this year, but they all had a lot of juice and I need a good, heavy producer that is a little drier. One batch of salsa that I made this year was just too thin. I labeled it as such and plan to use it in cooking. I used a pint of it this week for some Spanish Rice and it was great, so it won't go to waste. Almost all of my tomato plants were pulled early, but a few survived because they were just in out of the way places. Of those, Sioux seems to be doing the best. It has received some water because I water the peppers that are close to it. I think it might be a good one to leave in the garden for a later crop in my climate. I may consider starting it a little later and putting it in where I take out spring crops. It seemed to tolerate the seriously hot and dry summer that we had this year. I will certainly have to plant Royal Hillbilly again because it produced the largest tomatoes I grew this season. I didn't take it out, but did cut it back drasticly. It is still alive but I don't know if it will produce again. Besides your tomato plants looking great in late August when mine are long gone, I did notice a couple of other things that were different. Did you plant more than one kind of cowhorn okra? I planted the cowhorn like the package I sent to you and mine is ten feet tall. It produces mostly on the top and I have to grab the plants and pull them down so I can cut it. Your cowhorn appeared to be short and bushy. In fact, I planted mine near a walkway thinking it would be easy to pick from there and instead I have to shove it away to make it down the path. The taste is great but my location choice was poor. I think I will work on the soil along the north fence line so I can plant this at the very north end next year. The other thing that I noticed is your Black Cherry tomatoes. Is that the size you always get? Did you use commercial seed or one from a friend? I have planted seeds from several commercial sources and my Black Cherries have larger fruit than yours. In your picture of the cherry tomatoes, your Sungold looked as large as the Black Cherry. In my garden, Sungold is a normal sized cherry tomato, but Black Cherry is a large cherry, with all of them being much larger than Sungold. Your three favorite cherries look like great choices to me since I love both Black Cherry and Sungold. We ate a lot of cherry tomatoes because I planted heavy thinking I would dry a few. I was not happy with the results, so we just ate a lot of them. LOL Your apple tree looks great. I don't have fruit trees, but my DIL picked her tree and brought me a huge box of Granny Smiths from it. It took me all week to get them processed but it is worth it. Be sure to make some 'Apple Pie Jam'. She said she only brought me a third of what her tree produced. I made jam, apple pie filling, apple butter, apple sauce, and canned plain apples for use in baking. I did the plain ones because I could get a ton of those into a jar and I was getting tired of processing apples. LOL I would think they would be perfect for a huge apple cobbler mid-winter. We are having nice weather and I haven't been able to take advantage of it. I went to the doctor last Tuesday with a request for meds and thought I had a sinus infection that was playing havoc with my ears. I started 3 kinds of meds that night and got worse each day. Yesterday I couldn't stand it any longer and went back for new meds. I knew I needed an antibiotic and kept trying to take that one but felt that it was probably the one making me sick. I seem to be tolerating this one OK, but I am trying to stay away from pollens until I am better. I enjoyed looking at your pictures and felt as if I had strolled through your garden. I will continue to pray for your step-Dad and assume his health will improve after his treatment. I think you are the type to take a lot of responsibility onto your shoulders, so be careful and don't try to run faster than you have strength. You need to stay strong and healthy.

I'd like to see a Tomato review forum, different thread for each variety, with an extensive standard set of questions to answer, ie location of garden city/state/zone? from seed or plant? where obtained? date planted? How many hours of sun? How was plant trained? What sort of fertilizer?, What sort of watering schedule? How close were plants? Weather conditions? pests and problems? Amount of harvest? Quality of tomatoes?etc... plus additional comments, but keeping chatter on related and unrelated subjects to a minimum. WHat made me think of this was when I was looking for information on a specific tomato, the search bringing up over a hundred different threads, probably a thousand different posts which I have looked through, and still have not found out specific information, only comments in passing. This would be a more cut and dried forum for comparison study.

I have always grown Tiny Tim for over 40 years. Have given hundreds away. It has one characteristics that no other tomato has that I know of. It loves shade. Timmy will grow happily and produce well where it is never touched by sunlight. That is a phenomenal characteristic. I only grow it to give to people in apartments or with totally shaded yards. They can pick their own tomatoes, and be proud to have grown them. Taste is not great, but good in a salad. Another great characteristic is that it will grow as big or small as you want. Grow it in a 6-oz styrofoam coffee cup, and it becomes an adorable little 6-inch plant loaded with tomatoes for your office desk. A novelty, but absolutely adorable! In a regular deep 4-gallon pot, it grows about 2 feet tall, also loaded with tomatoes. Stems are pretty strong to hold up all that fruit. They flop, but do not break. Twice, I have given to different people a novelty coffee cup of cute little Timmy, and they planted it in full sun when it was already full of tomatoes. They died, probably because it could not root well and continue producing. But it may be that Timmy can not stand full sun. I grew Red Robin once, and I concluded that it was probably just another name for Timmy. But I did not test it in a no-light situation or in 6-oz cups. Tiny Tim is no Sungold in taste. But it has its own special niche in low light and in cute tiny containers.