My all time favorite and the only one I grow now is Golden Nugget. I tested a lot of heirloom tomatoes and these grow in semi shade, are abundant and don't split when the rains come. Oh yes, they taste great too. Mine actually run about an inch. A few are larger. I have grown them in pots as well as in the ground. They need a little staking. Here is some info. You can get them at many places: Open pollinated. 60 days. Determinate. Compact 24 plants support a heavy crop of early bright-golden 1.5" fruits. These garden gems have a rich well-balanced flavor. Most fruits are seedless and resist cracking. A prolific and decorative plant for the home garden. Developed and released by Dr. James Baggett Oregon State University, Dept. of Horticulture.

My tomatoes are not canned whole anymore, don't like the seperation. Now, I feed them through the ViIlaware and all seeds and skins are removed. The tomatoes get the required citric acid added to each empty jar prior to filling. The tomatoes are boiled/simmered for a a couple of hours, until they are thickened up a little, like a tomato sauce. No, I don't process that long, but do give them a half hour. I feel that because of the necessary added acid, they are safe enough, as acidic fruit jellies, etc. As to drying the tomatoes, yes, a dehydrator is very useful. I use one for drying herbs, peppers, and many other items. Mine is a low priced Ronco with just a low wattage coiled heater at the bottom of stack of trays , but there are some very good models that have forced air fans to dry the items faster. The quicker something is dried, the better its flavor. Some like to use an oven, but thats just not a good way to do it. For the grape tomatoes, after being dried, they go great as a sprinkle in a salad, or added to a sauce. The shrink down a LOT, so be prepared

L in FL After finishing the sauces, I tried them and the family did too. Surprisingly the favorite one was the yellow that has an almost fruity flavor, the black one has a deep, rich flavor almost smoky and the red one was the least liked even tho it was still packed with fresh tomato flavor. To give you a better advice on the varieties, I would have to know what do you and your family like, big varieties, medium, small, hybrids, heirlooms or a combination. In my house we like a lot of varieties and I always grow a big assortment, small, medium, big. I grow mostly heirlooms, few hybrids. Each season I tried to grow some of the same varieties and some different or new ones. For a cherry the ones that come to mind would be Sungold and Yellow Submarine. For a medium, Jaune Flame, Chang Li For a big variety, Kellogs Breakfast, Pork Chop. The coming season I am growing some new yellow varieties... A past harvest Silvia

Pam, You're welcome. I would be in hog heaven with all the organic matter rolling in....although maybe by the 3rd time in six months, hog heaven might not be as appealing as it once was. Could Pete take the tractor and pile up all that new mulchy stuff in long rows 2 or 3 feet tall? I suppose you'd have to let them sit a while so the salt water could leach out? Then you could pile soil on top of them, or compost, or mulch, or all three...and you'd have instant hugelkultur beds that might be available for planting for fall 2013 or spring 2014. If you build them tall enough, even after they break down, they'd be elevated enough to keep whatever is planted in them above the next storm surge line perhaps. I am cautious with above-ground hugelkutlur beds here because the copperheads and rattlers like to hide in them, but sometimes I build them below ground with only dirt on top above the grade level.. Sometimes I put them in eroded areas and just keep piling on composty stuff on top of them until eventually native plants pop up out of nowhere and I know the eroded gullies have healed. I just hate thinking of all that free mulch type material not being used. I worked in the garden all day, except I did come inside to eat lunch, and I am worn out. I bet the Mantis cultivator is more tired than I am though. It can rain all it wants tomorrow, because my work is done and my beds are ready for planting. I only uncovered one toad, as far as I know, and he wasn't hit by the tiller itself....he just kind of popped up in a raised bed when I was cultivating the soil nearby. As for Pruden's Purple? Absolutely add it! Ours were so superb last year that it made me wonder I don't plant that variety every year. Of course, I feel that way about any and every tomato that makes a return engagement to my garden after being absent for a year or two. I start asking why I ever dropped it to begin with. The answer always is the same---a lack of space. With the kind of late winter/early spring your part of the country has been having with one storm system after another rolling across the continental US headed your way, I think starting your tomatoes "late" was genius! Even if it was accidental genius. It is likely that by the time the weather calms down and your soil is dry enough for planting, your plants will be the perfect size. Sometimes I fret and worry about plants not being started on time, but it always works out just fine...leading me to believe that things tend to work out they way they were meant to work out. I experience a lot of potato and onion-planting frustration almost every year. I don't care if it hasn't rained in 3 to 6 months, rain will arrive the very day my Dixondale order arrives. I always try to get onions in the ground as much on time as possible, but the rain seems determined every year to make me plant them 2 or 3 weeks later than I should. I just try not to stress over it. Mine just finally went into the ground last week and the ground was a little wet, but not too wet. Now I am hoping that this weekend's rain doesn't delay potato planting too much. I have some planted, some chitting and some still in their bags. I figured this weekend I would get all the rest out and chitting on the sunporch (but, lol, not in the sun) while it pours down rain outside. With any luck at all, the amount of rain we receive won't be too bad and I'll be able to plant potatoes Monday or Tuesday. I don't see any numbers on the Weather Prediction Center's (new name for HPC) QPF that makes me think we'll have so much rain that I won't be able to plant. The longer I have had to wait, the more my seed potato stash has grown. I already had two reds, two russets and Yukon Gold. This week I added All Red, All Blue and Purple Majesty, so that's a total of 8 potato varieties. If I delay planting much more, I'll just keep adding more varieties....as if buying more seed potatoes somehow makes up for the fact that I haven't been able to plant them this week. I learned a lesson last year. We had a really wet fall and winter here, and I knew a huge rainstorm was approaching and I rushed, rushed, rushed to plant onions and potatoes ahead of the storm, and then we had 6" of rain in the next couple of weeks which was too much on top of all the other rain we'd already had, and many of my potatoes and onions rotted before they could grow. So, this year, the onions are in a really well-raised bed that drains well, and the potatoes are going into the raised beds on the highest point of land we have....but not until this rainy weekend is past. Rushing to beat the rain last year was a mistake, and I won't do it again. If the choice comes down to planting either onions or potatoes first, I always choose onions because their maturity is governed by daylength, over which we have no control. Potatoes, on the other hand, often give just as high of a yield if planted "late" as if planted on time---it just depends on when the soil temps reach the range where tubers stop forming. I have looked at the long-range forecasts from NCEP until I am crosseyed for the last month. I keep wanting them to change from 'hotter than normal' to 'cooler than normal'. If only wishing would make it so! I also watch the ENSO forecasts like a hawk, and at this time of the year you know that I do not even know why! It isn't like we suddenly will have an El Nino begin developing at this time of the year! lol I am laughing at myself. This summer, if we luck out and the ENSO forecast starts predicting that an El Nino will develop next winter, then at least I'd know to do all my soil prep for 2014 in autumn and to build those beds high because a wet year is likely. Looking at the ENSO update regularly only makes me crazy this year (and last year...and the year before....) because it only indicates more of what we're already having. Because NCEP offers us so little hope on the long-term forecast, I am going to plant like crazy in March, and put everything into the ground as early as the soil temperatures allow. At this point, we shouldn't have any nights get so cold that I cannot cover up plants to protect them. I feel like it will be just as important to beat the heat this spring as it was last spring, even though March this year is cooler than March was last year. I have a feeling that March will stay cool until one day, just as if someone flipped a switch, it suddenly will be too hot. I hate it when we go from too cold to too hot in one day! Dawn