Hi Dale!!!! How are you? Long time no see. I hope the business is doing great. I always was a horrible typist, but I did start out as a 'stenographer' at General Dynamics in the earliest 1980s. Even though they hired me for my shorthand (140 words per minute, I'm proud to say), I mostly typed and this was back when we had to type on IBM Selectric typewriters and and then had to learn to type on computers (called word processors at the time) and I hated them. LOL In the mid-1980s we had to start using a brand new (in the business world) process called 'Electronic Mail' on our brand new computerized word processors and I didn't like it either and could not see its' worth, which just goes to show that I am not good at spotting trends! So, I guess I've been typing a long time but never especially liked it...and didn't stay a stenographer long either, promoting out of secretarial work and into first a personnel administrative job and then later an accounting job before I quit my job in the early 1990s to do the whole stay-at-home-mom thing. I then spent the rest of the 1990s and even the earliest 2000s avoiding computers because I had my fill of them at work all those years. After we moved to a fairly remote, rural area ihere in Oklahoma in the late 1990s, I eventually had to learn to like my computer and communicate on it in order to stay in touch with what was going on in the real world. Now, of course, I cannot imagine my life without electronic communication. I do always write long threads, though, and that's just me trying to be thorough and complete and cover all the bases. Hope you're well and looking forward to another great garden year. Dawn

Jay, I am married to a former Pennsylvanian and he still has relatives there who garden and every summer I envy their cool temperatures (you know, they think 85 degrees is hot) and their usually abundant rainfall. When we go there to visit in summertime, everything is so lush and lovely that it blows my mind, especially compared to how roasting hot and tired everything looks in this part of the country at the same time. On the other hand, Late Blight seems to be on a tear there the last few years, so their beaufiful crops can fail suddenly. Marcy, That's a great list from the Kerr Center. Thanks for linking it. Susan, I think each of us adds/drops varieties for many reasons. After growing tomatoes for 25 years on my own and for at least 15 years with my dad prior to that, I'm just through with the massive experimentation. The truth is that out of every 20 or 25 new (to me) varieties that I try, maybe one or two is worth putting into the permanent growing rotation. So, rather than constantly looking for something new, I'm trying to refine the grow list and weed out those that perform least well in a broad range of conditions. I've reached the conclusion that there really aren't many, or maybe not any, incredible undiscovered varieties out there that taste/perform significantly better than what I've already tried....so I've stopped looking. I had high hopes for the Brandymaster series, likely because it is so tempting to believe there could be anything that could match Brandywine's flavor. They've performed so poorly here that I doubt I'd see a better performance next year or the year after. While many of you may be seeing significantly hotter or drier weather this year than in your average year, for us here in southcentral OK, our rainfall has been exactly 'average' for the year to date and so have our temperatures. If anything we've had slightly lower temperatures, in general, in Love County than we usually have although higher than average heat indices. So, for me, this is a pretty typical year except the real heat arrived in mid-May instead of late June so we got hot earlier, but not necessarily hotter than average...just earlier than average. A tomato variety that didn't perform well in what was a fairly typical year here at our place this year likely wouldn't perform any differently next year. In Oklahoma we have a wide range of average annual rainfall....some folks may average 15" of rainfall per year in western OK while others in eastern OK may average 50-60" or more. Humidity varies widely as does soil type and pH. So, what grows well for someone in highly alkaline soil and water in western OK may not grow nearly as well for someone in eastern OK with entirely different weather and soil. I enjoy looking at everybody's lists and hearing how different tomatoes perform for different people but I know that works well in areas drastically different from mine may not work well here. Growing in containers is much more complicated. First of all, nothing that I grow performs as well in containers as in the ground. Heat and pests hit container-grown plants much harder every year than those in the ground. The grasshoppers have completely stripped my container tomatoes of every leaf and fruit, but have only done sporadic damage to in-ground plants. It is the same thing with spider mites....only the container plants have had issues with them this summer. For me, container-grown tomatoes are great from Jan. or Feb. through the end of June or early July. After that, I might as well yank out those plants and toss them on the compost pile because they're toast. Last year, the tomatoes in containers did somewhat better than they usually do....but we had much higher than average rainfall and much more rain/clouds/cool weather than we see in an average summer. I'm looking for plants that perform best in the worst of conditions, not the best ones, because more often than not, we get the worst conditions every July and August. In containers, I plant tomatoes that can tolerate the heat and the restriction of their root growth and still perform. That means I often grow tomatoes in containers that I don't consider 'good enough' to plant into the ground....stuff like Better Bush and Husky Red Cherry. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm just at the point that I want what produces best for us here, and I don't want to keep looking for something 'better' because I don't think there is anything out there that's really that much better than our tried and true varieties that make our grow list most years. For a long time, I gardened for fun....trying any and every thing that interested me. We ate all we wanted fresh and gave tons away and didn't care if we put up much for the non-gardening season or not. In recent years, though, I've developed a deeper appreciation for the truly superior flavor of anything/everything that's grown locally and picked/prepared/preserved at its peak of perfection. Thus, I give away little and try to raise as much of our annual food supply as possible. In a good year I fill up three freezers, a root cellar and manage to can 2 or 3 or 4 hundred jars of 'stuff'. Since that is what is important to me now, I want plants that produce well, that provide tasty food we like and that are not prima donnas requiring a lot of pampering. Thus, I'm less inclined to experiment and more inclined to plant what produces really well with little fuss. In a lot of ways, the 'experimentation years' were a lot more fun, but the farm-garden-preserving years have been much more productive. Now my family is spoiled and I must produce as much home-grown food as possible because they don't like grocery store stuff as much as they used to. Even DS's firestation co-workers prefer fresh, home-grown and I'm going to try to plant a lot more for them next year so I can send them all the tomatoes, peppers and other yuummy things they're craving. There just isn't room, or enough improved soil, to experiment with varieties now as there used to be. I don't mind that, really, because as long as what I'm growing is producing well, I've gotten over thinking there are incredible varieties out there just waiting for me to find them. Megan, Black Plum grew very well for me for a long time and then for 2 or 3 years it didn't and I dropped it. It is odd how that happens....and I loved Coyote too. If my garden were twice as large as it is, I'd bring it back to the grow list. So many varieties, so little time (and improved soil). The tomatoes I grow from seed invariably outperform storebought ones and I don't know why, but I've seen it enough years to know it is true. Dawn

Oh, this is such an old thread... but at least I won't be the only one still posting in it! I was gifted a Sungold and a Brandywine (no idea which version) from a friend years ago, stuck them in a patch I dug out of the front yard... and they were amazing! I haven't been able to bear to eat grocery-store tomatoes since. But the intervening years have been focused on other things; my one attempt at gardening 3 years ago was a failure when I didn't find time to water (or weed) anything for three weeks at the end of June. Anyway, this year I finally have the right mix of time and space so I spent the winter reading up and dreaming, and... well, let's just say my family and local food shelf will have lots of tomatoes in August... Most seeds from SandHill, but the Sungold Select II and Green Zebra from Bakers Creek, and a handful are from cherrygal.com Cherry Types Blondkopfchen Sungold Select II (soooo excited to have snagged these!) Black Cherry Green Doctors Snow White Cherry (gift from SandHill) Hawaiian Mexican Cocktail "Regular" (I can never keep the beefsteak/medium/etc apart in my head) Brandywine, Sudduths Gogosha Green Zebra Black Krim Black Sea Man Rosabec Purple Calabash (gift from SandHill) Lucky Cross Potato Leaf "Other" Riesentraube (we'll see what tomato wine tastes like...) Yellow Pygmy Costulato Genovese When I got the two extra varieties from SandHill, I couldn't decide whether to jump up and down for joy (yay, two more flavors to try!) or despair - I spent weeks choosing my list, how could I fit 2 more?? But I decided joy was the right reaction. :) I'm sure it'll be more than a jungle in the yard this summer, but it'll be an edible jungle... and I have never been so grateful for the half-acre lot we have as this year. :) Good thing my husband is here to talk me out of cutting down our trees so I can have even more sunlight... Unfortunately, the cutworms have already been busy - but fortunately, although I only planned to grow 2 plants of each variety, I actually PLANTED 7-10 seeds... and almost all of them came up...and then I couldn't bear to cull since they all looked so healthy... so I ended up with lots of seedlings to give away. :) And to replace cutworm-killed plants. And then to give away some more! And still have replacements on hand in case my popsicle sticks don't do the trick with the cutworms... I'm just lucky Minnesota had an incredibly early and mild spring, my seedlings have been outside since the first week of March (with short breaks inside overnight until April) - there was no way I had enough grow-lights or space in the basement for them all! The seeds that I saved from those unknown Brandywines years ago still germinated three years later, so I'm really hoping to increase my seed from every one of these varieties this summer. Just need to cross my fingers and toes that I can get at least one tomato of each variety to survive and ripen enough to collect their seeds! Watching the cutworm decimation last week made me doubt I'll have luck that good, but hope springs eternal...

Hi! I am so sorry to have to post this, but I will be unable to attend on Sunday. I just picked my daughter up from school about an hour ago. She's vomiting and has the stomach bug (its been going around at school and I've been holding my breath till she got it) OF COURSE! She gets it the weekend we have plans. When I got the call I was actually outside setting up my pots with dirt for transplants. I am so sorry and very upset that I won't be making it :( I have a couple of side trades I was suppose to be doing on Sunday as well. If you still want to do them I'd be happy to mail the plants. It's okay if you don't want to too. I soooo apologize to everyone! I hope you all have a super time!! vina