Just for fun I stopped at the Ravenna Gardens up in U Village this weekend (I took the bus since my neighborhood's side streets were totally snowed in this weekend). Renee's Garden seeds has packets of rose seeds. I thought it would be fun to give them a try. It says they've been scarified and pre-treated for somewhat speedy germination (I've grown plenty of roses from my own seeds and always just plant them in autumn and wait until spring so they get variable temps/moisture that they need to sprout in spring (or muuuuuch later)), but this is the first time I've tried from purchased seed. I thought it would be fun to give them a try. We'll see how they do, but I'm curious. It says they are small growing, small flowering types in various shades of pink with some white. Below is a nice link to the actual seed pack. Happy growing and sowing, Grant Here is a link that might be useful: Rose seeds from Renee's Garden seeds

I know nothing about the Paragon from Tomatofest so cannot comment on it. I have grown almost every Livingston variety offered by Victory Seeds and I know/trust their seeds for that reason. The Paragon I grew from Victory Seeds was true to type and the fruit I got matched Livingston's description and Victory's description. I've never grown DeWeese Streaked. Want to know why? It is a late season variety, and it can be very hard to get late-season types to set fruit early enough in our climate. If they don't set fruit in May/the first half of June, high temps and high humidity tend to shut down pollination/fertilization and then they won't set many, if any, fruits until fall. Then, since they take a long time to mature, you're racing the cold weather to get any ripe ones at all. I tend to avoid late-season varieties for that reason, unless I can plant them in Feb. in a pot and drag them into the garage at night. Using that technique, they'll usually set fruit for me in late April or early May and then I can be harvesting it by July. Otherwise, it isn't worth babying a plant through all that heat only to get a handful of fruit in the fall. I'd rather have tomatoes for months. I work hard to improve my in-ground soil and I spend a lot of money carefully blending a soil-less mix for my containers, so I don't want to waste "good soil" on a plant that is not highly productive. I can tell by the first week in June if a tomato plant is going to be productive for me, or not, by how many flowers/fruit it has set by then. In my area, the temps usually hit the point of no return during the third week in June, so if fruits aren't on the tomato plants (not talking bite-sized ones here, they're different) by that point, then that plant is not going to have a good year and is a waste of space. I also am not a really huge fan of the very large bicolors, having found them to be quite erratic in performance. Some years they taste great, other years they don't. Some years they are beautiful, other years they have a lot of cracking and aren't so great. If it rains a lot, especially after they're breaking color, their texture can get mushy or mealy and the excess moisture waters down the flavor. I've had better results from red/green bicolors than from yellow/orange/red ones. I don't know why but for whatever reason they seem better adapted to our climate. To be honest, even the bicolored cherry types I've grown weren;t good enough to earn a return engagement. It isn't that there was something wrong with them, but rather than there just wasn't anything that special. This year some of the Brad Gates' varieties I'm trying are bicolors and they may be late-season ones, but I've toyed with trying them for years and finally decided to just do it. However, they're "experiments" that I'm added in addition to all my regular tomatoes, which means I added more containers in order to have them and not that they are taking the place of one of our "usual" productive varieties. That makes them expendable if they aren't doing well. I have a certain number of tomatoes I expect to get for fresh eating, canning, salsa, pasta sauce, dehydrating, etc. so I am pretty ruthless about not growing types that won't/don't deliver. For me, late season types tend to not deliver. Your results might vary, and you certainly should try whatever pleases you, but remember that there is virtually nothing we can do here to offset the effect that high heat/high humidity have on tomato production and choose your varieties with that in mind. What is it about DeWeese Streaked that appeals to you? Dawn

Thanks everyone for the input. I think my results were due to a small number of plants and possibly slightly different soil conditions. I am happy to hear that basically plants from cuttings do as well regarding size of plant and tomato production as plants directly from seeds. There is another reason for my question though, the rest of the story................. Last year I grew a Big Zac plant that was pruned to produce only three tomatoes. The plant grew very well and the 3 tomatoes weighed 4 pounds 9 ounces, 4 pounds 2 ounces and just a bit over 4 pounds. For obvious reasons, I wanted to grow that plant again this season. After several discussions with some of the members of this group I decided that because of genetic variability within varieties and the likelihood of getting another great plant such as the one I had, especially since it was a hybrid, the answer was to make cuttings. And so I did. I now have 12 small plants growing in my basement, under lights, all from my "monster plant." If you consider the original plant to be first generation, I am now up to 4th generation, cuttings from plants grown from cuttings from plants etc. I hope by Spring to have 15 tomato plants, maybe 7th or 8th generation, all from my magnificent plant of last year. Then, I cannot wait to see how they do. I have not found anyone who has done this though I am certain they are out there. Anyone have any thoughts?

Inside the seed there is very little substance. A little bit of a plant (embryo), and mostly endosperm. The endosperm serves no function beyond germination, so, if the seed germinates, then the endosperm will have no effect on plant vigor beyond that whether it be a 10 week or 10 year old seed. Other then environment, the only determining factor in plant vigor would be genetics. During dormancy, genetic material is somewhat damaged, however, within cells there are enzymes which actually repair damaged DNA! In a seed cell, all functions, including enzymatic activity are held in a (nearly) suspended animation until seed dormancy is broken. One of the first things that happens is the enzymes go to work repairing the genetic material. If the DNA is so damaged that the cell can not repair it, it goes into cell suicide (apoptosis, programmed cell death). If enough of the genetic material is irreparable, we would not see any germination. If the damage is reparable, then normal cell life continues, assuming favorable growing conditions. I think, overall, aside from germination rate, seed age will not have any significant effect on overall plant health and/or vigor.