I grew a couple of species viticella plants from seed. They are only 3 years old so I am unsure how big they will get or how long they will bloom. Both of them bloomed this year. One had nodding dark blue bells and the other one had a white midrib on it's sepals. I thought they were both very cute and nice plants. They grew about 8' tall and bloomed for 3-4 weeks in July for me. If you have an 8' flower bed I would plant both the viticella and the Betty Corning. The viticella has a dark bell and the Betty has a light blue bell so the colors would look very nice together. I think you will like both of them. My BC is 4 years old now and is such a good bloomer, I really like it. This is the only picture I took of the viticella with the light colored midribs. It is not a very good picture and the sepals are actually darker than the photo shows. Karen Here's Betty

I have a very different growing season, but I also did not like Siletz at all. I've never grown Pearly Pink. My favorite early is Bloody Butcher, but it does not like heat. I tandem plant my BBs with a later tomato and pull them up when it gets too hot. This system works out really really well. You might also want to try Mortgage Lifter. It's not technically an early, but the huge tomatoes ripened soon after my cherry tomatoes. Lifter also doesn't mind the heat we have here so might have a shot there. Cosmonaut Volkov is also a great early tomato. Not as early as others, but it has a great flavor. I think it likes it pretty cold though. You should really grow Paul Robeson. That's a tomato that makes me wish I lived in your area, during the cold the flavor is bland, but when it's hot, wow! It loves the heat, but you need to keep it well watered with good drainage. FYI, one of my greatest disappointments in the garden was from Red Zebra. It was mealy and bland and took forever to ripen. I was so looking forward to it because of Green Zebra, which is one of my favorites. But, climate is a big player in flavor, so it might not be terrible in your garden. Good luck!

Hi All, I just wanted to make an interesting observation about the Indigo Rose that I planted from seed I collected the first time I grew it in 2012. I planted a flat of tomato seeds in the late spring of last year with the intention of planting a garden but due to a myriad of distractions I failed to do so... I kept watering the flat on occasion but was mostly neglectful and every so often would pull out the dead and dying until one day in august (I think, maybe september) I decided to plant the survivors who were quite stunted but alive none the less! To my surprise they immediately jumped into action and began to grow rapidly, so since I live in temperate Southern California I decided to let them go and see what happened, in short order they started to set fruit but not ripen very quickly which is a known factor so in keeping with my 2014 gardening 'style' I ignored them some more except for watering and they continued to grow and set fruit throughout the the fall and winter and I have been able to pick some ripe fruit through December and January so far... I was pruning them back yesterday and noticed that some plants were still putting off new branches and flowers so it makes me wonder if I kept better care of future plantings whether or not they might become something of a perennial tomato... Interesting huh?

I was not familiar with that common name so had to look it up :-) Apparently sliverdust is a just another name for a form of dusty miller, Jacobaea maritima, aka senecio. Have used it as a participant in a mixed container planting as it doesn't have much presence as a stand-alone container subject. Only gets to be about 12"x12" so a 20" container more than adequate. Very easy to grow, needing full sun and minimal water. Do not keep soil media too wet. ps. Jacobaea is NOT the same as Cineraria and requires significantly different growing conditions. Be sure to accurately ID what you are growing first :-)