I finally got off the dime. Did 6 containers for zone 6 Once the bag of soil I brought in last night thaws I'll get a lot more done tonight.

Jay, It is a truly amazing list and I hope the weather gives you a break and allows for some good fruit set. All my spring tomatoes have been in the ground for some time---some planted in April and some planted in May, and of course, the few I plant in containers in February for earliest tomatoes. Those extra-earlies were yanked out of the containers in late May and replaced with varieties I like better and needed to plant someplace since the ground was still so wet in the spot where they otherwise could have been planted. The earlies weren't anything special--I think they were Better Bush, Bush Goliath, Early Girl and Grape---and they did their job--giving us ripe tomatoes in April and May while we waited for the in-ground plantings to start producing. These are the spring plants I ended up with. The plants listed survived late freezes, 18" or 19" of rainfall in 5 weeks, high winds in the 30s-40s and gusting into the 50s, etc. After the kind of spring weather we had, I just feel lucky to have tomato plants that did survive. This year, I have cut back drastically on both the number of plants and number of varieties, having struggled with drought so desperately last year. I choose to take 4 rows out of tomato/pepper production and plant them with broccoli and potatoes because I felt like whatever rain might fall would fall during prime time for cool-season veggies. So far, that has seemed like a good decision. Although we'll have a lot fewer tomatoes/peppers overall, we'll have tons of broccoli (in the middle of the harvest right now) and lots of potatoes too. After years of trying dozens of new (to me) heirlooms every year, I've actually reversed and have been trying many more new (to me) hybrids the last 3 years. And I have been trying to "pare down" the heirloom list to only the best performers, planting more of the proven varieties that produce good yields for us and less of the heirlooms that may or may not. I'll never stop trying different heirloom varieties, but I am trying to go more and more with great producers (both heirloom and hybrid) and less with the testing of new varieties. So, here's my pared-back, scaled-down list of tomatoes that have been planted and which have survived so far in 2009: IN CONTAINERS: 1. Red Defender 2. Scarlet Red 3. Scarlet Red 4. Livingston's Gold Ball 5. Mountain Princess 6. Momotaro 7. Chocolate Stripes 8. Indian Stripes 9. Red Defencer 10. Red Defender 11. Tropic 12. Moreton 13. Homestead 24 14. Sophie's Choice 15. Tropic 16. Moreton 17. Viva Italia 18. Sioux 19. New Big Dwarf 20. Box Car Willie 21. Glacier 22. San Marzano Redorta 23. New Big Dwarf 24. Black Plum 25. Viva Italia 26. Black Krim 27. Aunt Ruby's German Green IN THE GARDEN: 28. Tess's Land Race Currant 29. Sweet Million 30. Snow White 31. Grape 32. Gold Ball 33. Black Cherry 34. Dr. Carolyn 35. Rose Quartz 36. Ildi 37. Better Bush 38. Yellow Cherry 39. Yellow Pear 40. Snow White 41. Ildi 42. Snow White 43. Rose Quartz 44. Black Cherry 45. Black Cherry 46. Jet Star 47. Ramapo 48. Indian Stripe 49. Indian Stripe 50. Brandy Boy 51. Brandy Boy 52. Black Cherry 53. Primetime 54. Royal Hillbilly 55. Nebraska Wedding 56. New Big Dwarf 57. Primetime 58. Moreton 59. Moreton 60. Supersonic 61. Supersonic 62. Jet Star 63. Ramapo 64. Arkansas Traveler 65. Arkansas Travelet 66. Box Car Willie 67. Black Cherry 68. Porterhouse 69. Orange Flesh Purple Smudge 70. Sioux 71. Brandywine 72. Brandywine 73. Sophie's Choice 74. Early Girl 75. Early Girl The following Dwarf plants were planted as a "border" down one side of a raised bed that had a double-row of Packman broccoli plants: 76. Red Robin 77. Red Robin 78. Red Robin 79. Orange Pixie 80. Orange Pixie 81. Orange Pixie 82. Yellow Canary 83. Yellow Canary There were about a dozen other varieties that did not survive the late freezes, flooding rains, and high winds that occurred after they were in the ground. Among them was True Black Brandywine, which was one of my healthiest plants and earliest producers last year. Last week I started seeds for the fall tomatoes. Although I don't yet know how many of each variety will end up being planted in the ground or in a container, here's the varieties I started: LIVINGSTON'S TOMATO VARIETIES: 1. Dwarf Stone 2. Favorite 3. Gold Ball 4. Golden Queen 5. Globe 6. Honor Bright (Lutescent) 7. Ideal 8. Magnus 9. Main Crop Pink 10. Paragon 11. Stone LONG-KEEPING TYPES: 12. Long Season Peach 13. Longkeeper 14. Keepsake 15. Sunray (technically not considered a longkeeper, but seems to be one) PASTE TYPES: 16. Rio Grande 17. San Marzano Redorta 18. Opalka HEAT SETTING TYPES: 19. Solar Set R 20. Solar Fire CHERRIES: 21. Cuban Yellow Grape 22. Sun Cherry 23. Sun Gold 24. Golden Sweet 25. Fargo OTHERS: 26. Dixie Golden Giant 27. True Black Brandywine 28. Bloody Butcher 29. Mountain Glory VFFF/TSWV 30. Mountain Fresh Plus For peppers, I'm only growing a few of the varieties that are the heaviest producers for us. I dropped about 20 varieties this year that I usually grow, but here's what we do have: 1. Tepin 2. Tepin 3. Tepin 4. Tepin 5. Jaloro Yellow Jalapeno 6. Mucho Nacho Jalapeno 7. Mucho Nacho Jalapeno 8. Mucho Nacho Jalapeno 9. Grande' Jalapeno 10. Ixtapa Jalapeno 11. Ixtapa Jalapeno 12. Ixtapa Jalapeno 13. Ixtapa Jalapeno 14. Habanero 15. Habanero 16. Habanero 17. Habanero 18. Red Beauty Sweet Bell 19. Red Beauty Sweet Bell 20. Red Beauty Sweet Bell 21. Red Beauty Sweet Bell 22. Purple Beauty Sweet Bell 23. Chocolate Beauty Sweet Bell 24. Chocolate Beauty Sweet Bell 25. Chocolate Beauty Sweet Bell 26. Chocolate Beauty Sweet Bell 27. Chocolate Beauty Sweet Bell 28. Chocolate Beauty Sweet Bell 29. Roumanian Rainbow Sweet Bell 30. Roumanian Rainbow Sweet Bell 31. Roumanian Rainbow Sweet Bell 32. Roumanian Rainbow Sweet Bell 33. Mini Belle Mix 34. Mini Belle Mix 35. Mini Belle Mix 36. Orange Sun Sweet Bell 37. Orange Sun Sweet Bell The only peppers I've planted for fall are ornamental ones, since the spring peppers will produce in the summer and in the fall. The ornamental ones I planted were Purple Flash and Royal Black, I think. All my plants get exactly the same thing at planting time....Espoma Tomato-Tone and a little bone meal. They do get periodic feedings of liquid seaweed or fish emulsion, and the ones in containers get fed a lot more often than the ones in the ground. In this year's garden, the earliest tomatoes to produce ripe fruit (not counting the extra-earlies in containers) have been Jet Star and Better Bush, Yellow Cherry and Black Cherry. The best-looking plants with healthy foliage and lots of blossoms/fruit, though, are the Harris Hybrids---Supersonic, Primetime and Moreton and the Rutgers/NJAES variety Ramapo. Close runners-up for great growth and fruit set include Indian Stripe, Royal Hillbilly, Mountain Princess and Brandy Boy. Although beaten almost to death by the wind as they were hardening off and/or newly planted, Scarlet Red and Red Defender have rebounded and look great. Most of my plants have set fruit now, so it is just the wait for more ripe ones. Everything went in later than usual this year, so the big harvest has not yet begun. Normally by now I am running the dehydrator daily with a few hundred cherry, grape, currant and small pear-shaped types being dried for winter. I was just thinking yesterday how odd it is that I'm not running the dehydrator yet. Still, I planted tons of bite-sized tomato varieties so I'm sure I'll eventually be dehydrating fruit daily. At the present time, none of the cherry tomatoes have made it into the house yet, because I pick them and eat them while working in the garden. Dawn

Scott, I still have tomatoes producing heavily, and a few slow-pokes (planted late because of weather) that haven't produced a ripe one yet. And, there's no way I am going to list every single variety because I plant too many, but I'll give a brief synopsis of the ones that have produced well. Better Bush--earliest tomatoes...picked ripe ones in late April from plants set out in containers in mid-February. The flavor was very good considering these ripened in cool weather. The one in the ground in the garden produced one of the earliest ripe fruit in the garden too. Early Girl--early, lots of fruit, average flavor Jet Star--earlier than Early Girl, heavy bearers, better than average flavor Supersonic--very heavy yields of very large tomatoes, great flavor Prime Time--very heavy yields of large tomatoes, great flavor Ramapo--heavy yields of medium to large tomatoes, great flavor Moreton--heavy yields of medium to large tomatoes, very good flavor Momotaro--heavy yields of large pink tomatoes, excellent flavor Livingston Gold Ball--Heavy yields of golf-ball sized golden-yellow fruit with great taste. I like these so much they seldom make it indoors because I eat them while working in the garden. Indian Stripe--moderate yields (not as good this year as last year) of tomatoes similar to Cherokee Purple in flavor (excellent flavor) and appearance Chocolate Stripes--moderately heavy yield of red and green stiped tomatoes with average flavor Brandywine--low yields--so far 2 tomatoes from one plant and 5 from the other, but the flavor is great, and they are blooming now so hoping for more fruit set during the cool spell (which hasn't arrive here yet--it was 84 degrees here at 7:30 a.m. and felt like 89) Nebraska Wedding--Moderate yields of orange beefsteaks with outstanding texture and flavor Royal Hillbilly-moderate yield of fruit with amazing flavor--did not produce huge numbers like last year Tess' Land Race Currant--One of these is all you need. The plant currently is 8' tall and about 4' wide and I've had trouble keeping it upright. It currently is staked with 3 8' tall metal fence posts and 3 shorter wooden stakes. This produces tiny, red, round, tasty 1/2" wide tomatoes in great profusion....I'd say I've easily picked a thousand of these so far and it will produce until frost is heavy. A lot of flavor in a tiny tomato. We use these in salads and also I dehydrate tons of them. Sweet Million--heavy producer of red cherries with very good flavor Rose Quart--heavy producer of pink oval cherry types (not really as oval as most grape tomatoes) with very good flavor SunGold--as always, a heavy producer of golden-orange cherries with great flavor. Less cracking than most years. Black Cherry--superb as always and ties with SunGold in terms of great flavor and great productivity Ildi--a very prolific yellow grape tomato with amazing flavor. I've tried other yellow grapes and none of them can touch it in flavor. Some of the others are late to ripen.... Red Defender and Scarlet Red both have very heavy loads of large tomatoes. I am just about to start picking them. I think I picked a couple of Scarlet Red last week, but sent them to work at the fire station with DS, so can't comment on the flavor yet. These plants (and Moreton) have just about more fruit than foliage, and their foliage is heavy. I've never had plants in 7 to 10 gallon containers produce as many tomatoes per plant as these are producing. I can't wait to see how they do in the ground next year. Arkansas Traveler is producing medium-sized pink tomatoes with great flavor as always. Box Car Willie is just now ripening fruit. San Marzano Redorta is slow to ripen this year. Viva Italia has been a heavier producer and earlier and with fine flavor Black Plum was wonderful but both plants---one in a container and one in the ground--died of bacterial wilt. Mountain Princess produced heavy loads of pink, tasty fruit early on but was the first to die....of bacterial wilt. It was in a container too, and in fresh soil. (sigh) Some plants that won't be back: Dr. Carolyn (ivory cherry), Snow White (ivory to yellow large cherry) and Yellow Pear (kids love them). All three struggled with disease and died about the time they're producing heavily. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I didn't grow a lot of my real favorites this year because I was worried about drought and wanted some heavy-producing hybrids. Next year (Jay, do you think I'll stick to this plan?) I am determined to grow only the best-of-the-best of the plants I've tried, and maybe allow myself to try 5 or 10 new varieties. I think I'll do a 50-50 split between heirlooms (better flavor, but usually lower productivity in our climate) and hybrids (flavor can be iffy, but heavy production). Dawn

Jay, It puzzled me too and still does. Your freeze damage occurred in a manner that contradicts almost everything we've been told about freeze damage....like the fact that yours occurred on higher ground and not lower ground. Mine is always the opposite. The year the bed of black tomatoes survived freeze damage that severely injured or killed everything else, they were in the highest bed at the top of my sloping garden. I had thought that maybe you had some wind and it kept the damage from settling in uniformly, so your damage seems even more odd in the absence of wind. I also have had times where I thought the foliage from nearby trees protected some plants, but that didn't happen in your garden either. I guess it is one more oddball thing to add to the whole oddball year. Ilene, I've been thinking about those of you in northeastern OK and wondering what the 2009-2010 El Nino with all its excess rainfall will do to y'all and to your plants this coming spring. It seems like y'all have enough issues with excess moisture most years, and now to have the looming specter of El Nino on top of that.... The only issue with starting seed in the ground is that your whole crop will be very late, and you might not get any ripe fruit until fall. It's that whole pollination thing where the plants need to pollinate while temps are in the right range, and it is doubtful that direct-sown plants would be large enough to bloom while temps are in the right range. Still, you never know....if you have recurring cold fronts next year like we had this year, you might very well get fruit set all summer during the recurring cold spells. I love your description of the friends that remind you of the Baldwin Sisters! I always thought they were so funny. I didn't save any seed from anything because I am always so overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the harvest (more about the latest harvest in a minute) at the same time I ought to be saving seeds, but I can still save some from Tess's later this week because it still has several hundred tomatoes on it. In fact, if it ever stops raining, I need to pick those tomatoes today and dehydrate a bunch of them. First, I'll look at my seed envelope, because I'm thinking it was packed with oodles of seed, so I might not have to save any since there might be plenty from the original seed packet to share. Here's where Tess's Land Race Currant gets interesting: are you ready for a simple lesson in tomato biology? Tess's Land Race Currant, like all currant tomatoes, is not Lycopersicon lycopersicum like most tomatoes. Instead, it is Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium. It has extruded styles on its flowers, so it is very, very prone to cross pollinate. Because of the extruded styles, all currant tomatoes cross very easily with other currant tomatoes--that is one thing I know for sure. What I am not sure about is how readily they cross with tomatoes that are Lycopersicon lycopersicum. Most modern hybrid tomatoes have retracted styles, so likely wouldn't cross with Tess', but some heirloom tomatoes, especially those that have potato-leaved foliage, also have extruded styles so they might cross. And, even with beefsteak types of Lycopersicon lycopersicum, any fruit formed from double blossoms (also referred to by some as megablooms) may be crossed. So, saved unbagged seed of Tess's might or might not give you Tess's---which is why I'm hoping my seed packet of Tess's has a lot of seeds in it that are more likely to be pure. Another interesting thing about Tess's is that it mostly produces red fruit, but is not stable (perhaps because it crosses so easily?) and sometimes you get gold or pink or a sort of rosy-gold fruit. On this year's plants, I've had all red ones though. Either way....whether from the packet or from some seed I can save and ferment this week, I'll send you some Tess's seed this winter when we start exchanging seeds. I have tried to grow Tess's in ever enlarging (diameter-wise) cages and in ever-taller cages. Because it simply won't stop growing, and I hate to prune/top a healthy plant, I am thinking that an arched panel may be the best solution for it. I guess we'll know by this time next year if I'm right. Isn't Jay's plants' damage the oddest thing? I guess we should be grateful, though, that it was hit and miss because at least he didn't lose them all. When green tomato time arrives, I have a recipe for a green tomato cake that tastes like a spice cake, and for fried green tomato parmigiana. We're not mincemeat eaters either, so I don't make tomato mincemeat and I don't care for pickled tomatoes either. Earlier, I said I don't even try to save seed because I always get so overwhelmed by the harvest, which is exactly the case here this summer. The harvest was late but abundant and I have about 150 jars of food put up in the cellar, and an equal amount in the freezers. Looking at it all, I am kind of amazed to think it all came from our garden. Except for a steady flow of smallish numbers of tomatoes...with no more than a dozen or two large ones on any given day....and recurring rounds of peppers, the harvest has really slowed down......until yesterday. I went out to the garden to pick ears from the earlier of the two fall sweet corns, and this is what I ended up bringing inside just before dinner time: Hundreds of Tepin peppers to dry Dozens each of jalapenos and habaneros A good-sized mess of black-eyed peas (the last ones, because I then pulled the vines), A good sized mess of Royalty purple pod beans and a similar amount of Contender bush green beans A modest amount of okra About a dozen tomatoes (large ones only, still need to pick bite-sized ones from the six remaining bite-sized tom plants) and still need to pick big ones today from the containers in the back yard A few dozen ears of corn About a dozen pickling cukes So, today I'll be in the kitchen processing all of these one way or another, although I'm about out of ideas for hot peppers, having already canned pepper rings and pepper strips, frozen plain green jalapenos and roasted red and green chipotles, dehydrated jalapenos and habaneros down into either dried, ground power seasoning or chopped dehydrated pepper flakes, and dehydrated tepins. I've also made several batches of Jalapeno Jelly, Jalapeno Gold Jelly, and Habanero Gold Confetti Jelly. I am really getting sick of peppers. I guess I could make more salsa--I think we have plenty, but DS thinks we need much more. I could make pepper ristras, but in this humidity, they'd likely dry on the outside and mold inside. So, I guess I'll just make more of the same stuff I've already made....and I haven't made any vinegar/pepper sauce yet, so that's a possibility. The second fall corn should be ready to harvest in 10-14 days so I guess we'll know in a couple of weeks if it has beaten the frost and matured, or if the frost gets it first. I'm hoping for another frost-free month so I can harvest a lot more beans and cukes, but the rain/clouds aren't helping because they stall without sunlight and some heat. In a way, it is nice to have bowls and bags of produce stacked everywhere to process again, because the harvest really has dwindled down. Harvesting the last of the purplehull pinkeye peas was bittersweet--I hate to see the harvest end, but they produced copious amounts of peas from July through October, so that's a pretty good run, and we ate them almost daily 'in season' and still have plenty put up in the freezer for winter. I really need more cukes in order to make a batch of pickles, but the others aren't enlarging very much in the absence of sunlight. I guess I could make a half-batch of something. So far, the only pickled cukes I've done have been whole Dill pickles, bread and butter slices, and sweet pickle relish, so I am hoping to get enough cukes to make dill spears, dill relish, kosher dills and bread-and-butter stackers before the cucumber harvest ends. I tried to help myself in terms of NOT having an overwhelming harvest to process by saving pickling cukes and bush green beans for fall, and it helped a lot. I don't think I could have handled the harvest I had in July-August if I'd had to deal with cukes and bush beans at the same time. Still, because the tomatoes produced great, if late, and the peppers were overachievers (and still are, which makes it tempting to just pull the plants now and put an end to my pepper misery) month after month, I still had weeks where every flat surface in the house had piles of produce waiting to be processed, or in some stage of being processed. I wish there were a way to spread out the harvest more evenly but you really can't.....the veggies produce when they produce and that's just how it is. In a year like this, I really think I could produce almost an entire year's supply of veggies here....but, then, most years are not like this...most have half the rainfall we've had so far this year, so I should be grateful for the non-drought years because they are fairly rare. Still, I'm at the point where I never want to look at another pepper again....and my jalapeno plants are still heavily loaded. The rain, by the way, continues to fall, and we've had thunder and lightning since the early morning hours, but nothing violent. Dawn