Laurie, I mostly get the lemon or rose scented geraniums as they are two of my favorite fragrances. For me in zone 7/8 they are treated as annuals. I have yet to be able to winter one over in my garden no matter how much I protect them. I sometimes do pot them up and bring them inside for the winter. I hope to do that with the ones in my garden now. I will have to trim the root ball and entire plant because they have gotten huge. My favorites are; Attar of Rose, Lemon Crispum, Rober's Lemon Rose and Nutmeg. The flowers are usually small but pretty. The main reason most people grow them is for the fragrant leaves. You can put them into tea and other drinks, I like to add them to sugar to make a flavored sugar to roll cookies in before baking and sometime put the cleaned leaves into the bottom of the cake pan before pouring in the batter. Sort of like an upside down cake. I am adding a link here to a nursery that stocks quite an assortment. Hope this is helpful. Kat Here is a link that might be useful: Scented Geraniums

I see a lot of people recommending CP- in my opinion not very compact- not tall, but it can cover a lot of ground because it spreads out. Last year my most compact heavy producer was Danko. Lots of fruit from a well behaved 4' tall plant. First full size fruit to ripen and produced well all season long, that's why I call it semi-D. I love Cherokee Purple and even think I have a superior strain, but I don't consider it to be "compact". Try Danko for a full sized "compact".

Ahhh. You are right digdirt2! I really should have been more specific. I'm really looking for large tomatoes that are mid season enough that they'll still produce. I have good early cherries but not much for big beefsteaks/slicers. I'm also looking for season extension ideas that have worked for people in my general climate that are NOT a greenhouse or high tunnel. I rent and my landlord would have kittens if I built one of those. I'm toying with the idea of a small collapsible greenhouse made of panels that wire together though... :D One of the things specific to my area is some sort of soil disease? All the farmers around here know about it. I need to do more research because I'm not exactly sure what it is but it sometimes makes the nightshades very unhappy and sick. Not every year though. Just some years. I so far haven't had any pest issues. People talk about tomato hornworms and squirrels eating their plants/tomatoes...and I've never seen a hornworm. The squirrels are too fat from birdseed and peanuts to worry about tomatoes in my yard :D Everyone around here grows Roma and Early Girl. Bleech. The taste fresh (of both) is just so meh and disappointing, even from the garden. Roma is good for sauces but there are better ones with less BER I'm reading about (trying Costoluto G this year, going to try oxhearts next!). And Early Girl. I kinda hate her. It's all my parents have grown for years and honestly I never could tell the difference between her and a grocery store tomato. Never ever. For years I didn't even like fresh tomatoes except with lots of dressing. But the first year I grew my own...oh I had a Brandywine and a Cherokee Purple and they were a revelation. Raw tomatoes were good! I think I got 5 or 6 total tomatoes off the plants (my fault, due to it being my first year ever growing stuff by myself and me just sticking them in some dirt in the backyard in July, no fertilizer, not even watered unless they were wilting!). The next year I did the same thing...got about ten tomatoes. And planted my first cherries and discovered my deep love for Black Cherry and Sungold. Last year I found out about the soil issue and was told not to chance planting again (give the soil a year off) and planted in pots (way too small!) and got even WORSE production. I just keep experimenting and most of the time it seems I fail...but that was the year I discovered how much I like San Marzano and Sungold sauce (the only ones that still desperately pumped out lots of tomatoes while grown in tiny two gallon pots) This year I'm growing in 5-10 gallon buckets and 20 gallon (DIY) earthtainers. Unfortunately building the earthtainers took so much time that my tomatoes got put in really late (first and second week of July) instead of the early date I was hoping for! (May 18 -our traditional planting date is Memorial Day) But they're built so next year I'm going to try for 6 weeks early (April) on my plant out with Walls O Water and possibly some greenhouse plastic on a low hoop/tunnel and frost blankets on cold nights. I do have a backup planting planned for 2 weeks early (May) in case of disaster. I'm hoping someone in Minnesota or Wisconsin has tried something like a low tunnel plus WOW? I really want to grow some darned Brandywines and CPs without needing a greenhouse or high tunnel. Zone 5 sure seems to be a sweet spot for CP's If I can just get my plants out a few weeks early and increase the heat/light around them maybe I can get the good harvests I've seen people in zone 5-6 talk about. :D First to fruit has so far always been Sungold for me, though this year I tried Glacier and Black Sea Man as "earlies". I've got lots of fruit on all three but no blush yet. I think the BSM might even beat Sungold...I keep checking every day. :D Haha and you thought YOU had rambled. ;) This year I'm growing: Sungold F1 Cherry - 57 dtm Black Cherry - 65 dtm Csikos Botermo - 65 dtm Black Sea Man - 70 dtm Japanese Black Triffle - 75 dtm Paul Robeson - 75 dtm San Marzano - 80 dtm Costoluto Genovese - 80 dtm Glacier - 55 dtm Cherokee Green - 75 dtm Pruden's Purple - 72 dtm Aunt Ginny's Purple - 80 dtm Pink Brandywine (Burpee, non named?) - 85 dtm *I want to try some named ones and different colors next year Aunt Gertie's Gold - 75 dtm Kellogg's Breakfast Beefsteak - 80 dtm *I wanted KBX but couldn't find seeds in time to start I'm most excited to try Cherokee Green, Pruden's Purple, and Aunt Gertie's Gold. I've read good things about all of them so my fingers are crossed. Especially that Pruden's Purple is an earlier beefsteak with a taste similar to Brandywine. I couldn't find Brandy Boy seeds on the rack and forget to order them along with the others so that's an experiment for next year. Some of these are late...and pushing my season a bit but I have some frost blankets for this fall if we get an early frost. (Sometimes it's early/mid September...sometimes it's October before we get a killing frost.) I've been reading a lot about earthtainers in shorter seasons and they seem to be the answer for me! I can get stuff in earlier and keep it going later (I have the earthtainers on the south side of my home, the "real" garden is on the north side at the bottom of a small hill so frost just rolls down into the garden. There can be a whole month difference in harvesting tomatoes in the two spots). Eventually I'd like to produce enough veggies that we don't have to buy any all summer (or maybe all year...I've been reading Elliot Coleman's books and The Year Round Vegetable Gardener and I'm dreaming of harvesting kale and carrots all winter long) and I'm planning to sell some plants this spring for seed money so I can try lots of new tomatoes each year till I find the best ones for my garden! ;) Do I sound overly excited and super determined? Hey it's summer, tomatoes are kinda my favorite topic right now! :D

Thanks for the suggestions! Someone on the perennials forum mentioned lime green - that might really make whatever color I decide to use really pop.