So these are still young seedlings, correct? If so then minimal if any feeding is needed for seedlings. Some may use a very diluted (1/4-1/2 strength mix of your favorite liquid fertilizer once a week after the plants develop 2 sets of true leaves. You'll find this discussed in much more detail over on the Growing from Seed forum and on the Growing Tomatoes forum here. The specific variety you are growing makes no difference. All tomato plants are treated the same. Once transplanted to the garden, that when actual feeding begins and at that time the choice of the 100's of products out there is yours to make. As to how much and how often to water tomatoes? That all depends on your soil and how well it drains? In ground or in containers? Age of the plant? Has it set fruit or not yet? etc. etc. There is no specific formula or rule that applies to all situations or to all gardens or even to all seedlings when it comes to watering. I have read some post here where people have said to starve them of water and force the roots to grow, I have never heard that before. If that is what was actually said and meant then no and you won't hear that from anyone who knows anything about growing tomato seedlings. The point many of us often make is that you must avoid OVER-watering seedlings and that can destroy the roots and that they will tolerate UNDER-watering better than they will OVER-watering. Hope this helps. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Growing from Seed Forum

Okay - but here's my problem: I picked some this morning that were really orange and popped a few in my mouth - yes they were sweet and delicious - but... I have found that the ones I picked that still had a bit of green veining I put in a brown paper bag and that was weeks ago and still they have the green veins (although they are large) and are horrible tasting. As Trudi mentioned, they are bitter if there are greenish veins, but why aren't they turning orange in the bag? I've had 15 of them in the bag for over a month. For now, though, I am seeing plenty on the vine turning a great orange so I know now to wait until there is no green veins at all and they are very tasty when ripe. carrie

So I've finished my comparison between the following "sweet" cherries: 1. Sunsugar (hybrid; SS) 2. Sungold (hybrid; SG) 3. Ambrosia Gold (OP; AG) 4. Big SunGold Select (OP; BSS) All were grown from seed and then transplanted in ground with similar soil conditions, sun/shade, watering. Ranking data is below with the best listed first. A. Germination success: SS, SG, BSS, AG B. Productivity: SS, AG, BSS, SG C. Growth: BSS, SS, AG, SG D. Flavor: AG, SS, SG, BSS E. Brix: SS, SG, AG, BSS General observations: GERMINATION: As expected, hybrid varieties tended to show a lot higher germination rate than the OP varieties. That being said, germination is also a factor of seed harvesting techniques, storage and age. I don't have any information on these characteristics, but it would be interesting to note if my germination for the OPs goes up for seeds that I saved and grew out next year (I'm betting it would be a lot better). Take home message, when growing the OPs from seed, make sure that you plant more than you need due to germination success. GROWTH: All varieties grew at a similar pace indoors as seedlings all showing good strong seedling health. As I recall, none stood out as particularly better or worse than others during the seedling stage. Once transplanted BSS definitely observed the tallest plant with thick strong limbs. There was not that much difference between SS and AG. For some reason I always see SG as being more wisphy and frail and this occurred again this year. PRODUCTIVITY: SS was the best with productivity generally showing good strong trusses and generally observing good success from flower to fruit. AG was a very close second. BBS came third and SS was a distant fourth. As noted in the pics below, BBS is indeed a large cherry (1-2oz) and is easily double the size of the hybrid varieties. AG came in second. SS tended to be a bit larger than SG, but they were relatively close in size. As noted by others, SG tends to having more cracking/splitting issues vs SS. AG and SS tended to hang on the vine the longest. BSS showed some cracking, but not as much as SS. In terms of coloring when ripe, SS tended to have the strong golden orange color. SS was more yellowish orange while both AG and BSS were a deeper red when ripe. FLAVOR: Flavor is of course very subjective. My personal favorite was AG, not b/c it was the sweetest, but b/c it has a noteworthy complex flavor. It definitely has sweetness to it, but it mixed it with a tang/acidity which I quite liked. SS was also very good, but it had more of a linear sweet taste which I like (as well as my kids) but it didn't have the complexity of AG. SG came in third. SG tends to be a little more variant in it's taste. Sometimes sweet, sometimes slightly sweet like it was not completely ripe even though it appeared to be the case. BSS was by far the least flavorful. BSS had a somewhat bland tomato taste, which was not awful, but was definitely not sweet. BSS would be fine in a garden salad and is obviously the largest of all cherry tomatoes evaluated, but if you want to get a nice large cherry with good taste there are others that are better (like Gardeners Delight which I also grew). BRIX/SWEETNESS: I thought I should mention this since after all these varieties are supposed to be "sweet" cherries. SS was by far the sweetest. Although I didn't actually do a brix test, I'm certain the sugar content would be the highest. Next up was SG, but as I mentioned above, it's sweetness tended to be hit or miss. AG came in third with a pleasant sweetness but not overly sweet. BSS was not sweet at all. CONCLUSION: I have grown SG for many years and for many years it has always done well. SG always germinates well and is a solid producer as cherries go in my garden. That being said, SS was hands down a better hybrid. It produced more and the flavor was more consistent. It was definitely the sweetest of all cherries that I grew and stayed longer on the vine and split less. As mentioned above, I also really liked AG and was pleasantly surprised by its flavor and productivity. It was my personal favorite of all four. It observed many of the same characteristic as SS, but was larger and had a more complex flavor. I was very happy to note these attributes especially since AG is an OP and the seed can be saved and regrown year after year. BSS was a dud. But only b/c of its flavor. I suppose if BSS were marketed as a large cherry with traditional tomato taste, I would grade it much higher, but as a "sweet" OP that was supposed to compete with SG/SS, it wasn't even in the same ballpark. That being said, you definitely get your biggest bang for the buck due to its size and growth. .

Thanks, robin and vince. Ah, robin, I think you're right. Some tomatoes are way too bushy nuts w the suckers, but I think that for my sandy soil and not so sunny garden, I need to leave the s suckers on Sun Gold. I just went out and got 5 tomatoes from two plants. True, I need to weed (competition) and I think I am not putting enough fertilizer w minerals often enough for my super well draining sandy loam. I say, "sandy loam" -- it was all construction gravel over a sloped woodland lot (oh, yep, the nice topsoil was pushed by the bull dozer onto the next lot, downslope that, guess what, the excavator w the dozer owned (he's dead ). But I can grab some woodland soil/leaf mold from another wood area, it's just WORK to lug it, even w a wheel barrow. Atop the gravel fill, was spread some unsifted loam (from a pond excavation), but it only covered about 4-5 inches. Over the years I added chopped hardwood leaves, horse manure (weed seeds and all -- don't think I'll do that again), peat moss and decayed (not cooked) compost. One fellow rototilling it some years ago thought it had good "tilth" (word? ). Now there are worms in the soil, there were none, zero, when I started. It is a small area, but I am limited in my gardening work because I have bad back pain 24/7 and lots of other work and projects. Plus ugly interior New England heat and humidity make me collapse into a sogged clothing heap. (I hate it when I want to move quickly, and the humidity is so great that my clothing sticks to me as if I'm trapped in blackberry bushes.) I'll try to go out and "Fertilize" and weed. Shall I go for a blue liquid Miracle Grow hit (1 Tbs per gallon of well water), and the balanced or the superbloom type? Or would it be better to work in (around the plants) some Epsoma vegetable or tomato fertilizer? Or big box store "composted manure" that I bought for I forgot what? I need a climate with gentle breezes for sailing, no more than 40% Relative humidity; 70 deg F (okay, 55-75), a good shake of sunshine. Vince! what soil do you have, man? Zone 8 = warmth? Thanks again, people. The few tomatoes I've eaten are delish, but I need to improve my weeding and environment. What's hosta taste like in a salad? ;?