Hi Bob, I'll preface my comments by stating we were in drought throughout the spring and summer with very little rainfall at all until June, and even then, there was far too little. So, while our growing conditions here in Oklahoma are always pretty harsh, this year was worse than usual because it was backwards. Instead of having good spring rainfall to get the garden off to an early start and then the usual summer drought, we had drought from Jan-Sept (and the drought still is going strong), and began June with only about 6" of rainfall recorded for the entire year at that point. We got a lot of rain and humidity in June and July, though not nearly enough rain to end the drought. With the weather being so bizarrely dry during our normal wet season, some tomato plants weren't very happy. TexWine (and Dixiewine, and it was my first year with both) germinated a little slowly and grew, as seedlings, very slowly. Because of that, I kept the seedlings in their starter containers longer than all the other varieties I grew, and didn't put them into the ground until late April. Most of the other varieties went into the ground between late March and mid-April. Even then, the Dixiewine and Texwine plants were ridiculously small and were so far behind my other plants that I feared transplanting them into the garden was going to be a waste of time and space. How did it work out? Texwine set fruit earlier than Dixiewine, and set a lot more of it. The first few were quite large, and the later ones got progressively smaller as summer went on, which is typical in our hot growing conditions. Because we had several good days with decent rainfall and cooler than normal temperatures in both June and July, Texwine (and Dixiewine) continued setting fruit well into July. The Texwine fruit had very good flavor. So did Dixiewine, which may have hurt its own cause by setting tons and tons of fruit all at once. Because it had set so very many fruit during a period of severe to extreme drought, the fruit stayed much smaller than I expected. TexWine had significantly fewer fruit but they enlarged to the expected size. Even though Texwine produced less fruit per plant than Dixiewine, it still produced a lot of fruit. I hate to even attempt to form an opinion on varieties that are new to me on the basis of one very odd growing season with weather that is almost totally opposite from what we usually get, but I was pleased enough with how they both performed that I'll plant them again next year. Drought conditions worsened again in August in conjunction with very hot weather at our house, and both plants died back to the ground. I didn't irrigate as much as I usually do in August and probably could have kept them alive if only I'd watered them. A little rain (though not nearly enough) began falling again in September, and both plants have resprouted from the ground but the chances that they'll flower and produce a ripe tomato before the first freeze here (around mid-November) falls somewhere between slim and none. I do think it says something about their resilience that they did regrow from the roots once some rain finally fell. Are you wondering if the flavor is a good as Brandywine? I'd say that, as grown here in the conditions we had, it isn't quite as good, but it is very, very good. Finally, to give you the proper context, I planted two Brandywine Sudduth plants in the ground around the end of March. Normally, I am lucky 4 years out of 5 to get 6 fruit off a Brandywine plant. We just get too hot too early for it most years and the heat and humidity shut down pollination before many fruit can set. In this most bizarre year of years, both my Brandywine Sudduth plants produced dozens and dozens of fruit per plant, with the first ones ripening very early (either very late May or earliest June). They also continued setting fruit as late as mid-July, though production slowed down a lot by early July. This was our best Brandywine year since 2004 (a very wet and humid year that the Brandywine plants loved, likely because the weather also was cooler than usual). I wish I'd had the Texwine and Dixiewine plants at the same size as the Brandywine Sudduth plants and could have put them all in the ground, side by side, at the same time, because that would have been a more fair comparison. My expectations (prior to sowing seed) were that Texwine and Dixiewine likely would outproduce Brandywine (in my garden everything outproduces Brandywine most years) and, instead, the total opposite happened. I don't know if their slow growth as seedlings will be repeated in 2015. I'm hoping it was just a fluke. I grow hundreds of tomato plants from seed every year, and there's not many varieties that ever have been as slow to grow in the seedling stage as Dixiewine and Texwine so I am hoping that this year's extremely slow growth was an anomaly. We had an incredible tomato year here despite terrible drought conditions, and a huge onslaught of grasshoppers, so I cannot complain. Mostly, this was due to the miracle of irrigation. Local gardeners here in our area tended to have either a very bad tomato year (if they were not irrigating in March through May when the rain was almost nonexistent) or an outstanding year (if they irrigated in spring) I'm hoping for more typical weather conditions next year so I can see how Texwine and Dixiewine perform in the type of weather we normally have. Dawn

Hi, I'm new to the pepper forum. I was just searching through old posts, noticed the 2013 Grow List thread, thought, hmmm, wonder if there's a 2014 thread...and there it was. This is my third year growing peppers. Last year I sold pepper and tomato seedlings at a community yard sale. I'm gradually working up my courage (and experience) to sell at farmers markets. So I'm especially interested in varieties people might like to buy, that aren't usually found at garden centers or the big box stores, if anyone has any suggestions. This is what I have so far--need to pare it down a bit due to lack of space. ANAHEIM ANCHO BIRDS EYE CHILI PEPPER BLACK HUNGARIAN CAJUN BELLE HYBRID CHICHIMECA HYBRID CUBANELLE EARLY JALAPENO FLAVORBURST GYPSY HYBRID HABANERO HOT PORTUGAL HUNGARIAN YELLOW WAX ITALIAN PEPPERONCINI MARCONI RED PASILLA BAIIO POBLANO L PURPLE CAYENNE SERRANO TABASCO TRINIDAD PERFUME

Ok Reimer has a bad name. I am sure it is well deserved. But to be fair I did buy a large amount of seeds from them a few months ago, and everything I planted germinated and grew. No not all the seeds, but out of 10 seeds, most of them did sprout and grow. I am lazy when it comes to seeds. I just take a Dixie cup, put the seeds in them, and cover with 1" of water. I then put them in full light until they sprout. Usually far ahead of time the seeds sprout and grow just fine. Last night I planted 10 brussel sprouts and 75% of them have already sprouted one day later. I have tomatoe seeds, pea seeds, and cucumber that have all sprouted in one day. Usually most hot pepper plants will germinate within one week, even the hard ones. In the past I was told to put my seeds into a "Jiffy Plug", blah blah blah. It did not make it grow faster. All seeds need for the first week or two is water, and sun light. Again, not taking away from those who have actually bought and had issues with Reimer seeds.

Tombstone, the Scotch Bonnet TFM is completely different than all of the Naga and Trinidad varieties. Those varieties are noted for their heat, the TFM is notorious for its taste. It's the best tasting pepper I have ever put in my mouth, out of well over 100 different varieties. Just wonderful taste. The only other strains that come close to its taste are the Harold's St. Bart, a strain that is circulating called a True Jamaican Scotch Bonnet, and the Burkina Yellow Scotch Bonnet. John, good to see you here. I was going to shoot you an e-mail to see how you were doing b/c I hadn't seen you around. Hope all is well. Mark P.S. The TFM's look great.