dean, i have grown nootka rose for a few years. it is a super long storing garlic. it easily stores for over a year and will still look like new when all your other garlic is dried up shells. the cloves are long and slender, and the inner ones will be really narrow. the thing with nootka rose is the clove skin is very thin, and difficult to peel. ever get a hard boiled egg where the shell comes off bit by bit by bit? that's kinda how it is peeling nootka rose.you just have to keep at it. you will have enough decent size cloves to use. i think its worth growing. use all your other garlic first. keith

Carolyn, my Opalka seeds were sourced from Sandhill. I will admit, my first year growing Opalka BER became a problem for several varieties(but not all) of tomato that year. Lots of rain followed by drought, and then I think probably over watered to compensate. Last year I gave Opalka another shot. And while I didn't get any BER problems, the production, fruit size, and plant vigor just wasn't all that spectacular. As I said before, the taste, while not bad, was only a slight improvement over Roma(which I consider to be far more vigorous and productive). I know most here won't share my opinion, but I've found leaf problems are far less pronounced when growing hybrid tomatoes and varieties bred for resistance. I understand that all tomato varies are susceptible to one thing or another regardless of being OP or Hybrid, dictated by the grower, but more accurately, by the environment and soil- which is sometimes difficult if not impossible to control. Mulio, I am far from being an expert, but this "grower" has successfully grown and harvested many varieties of tomatoes over the last decade. I've made a few mistakes along the way, but it ain't my first rodeo. I mean, really, how hard is it to grow a tomato? Opalka just didn't pan out the way I hoped it would. Just because the majority likes it(and Carolyn recommends it) doesn't mean I have to. I know it's not a popular opinion and I'm ok with that. This year is a mostly hybrid centric crop, and the plants just look so much happier and healthier than before, and producing like mad. Pure luck? science? grower? There are a few heirlooms that I would probably grow again, but 1 or 2 varieties out of the few dozen I've tried is hardly worth it.

N-Light, Last year I was looking for extra large paste tomatoes with flavor. I grew Amish Paste from two sources. Both were about the same. I wouldn't call them paste tomatoes. They would've been considered large for paste if they had've been past, but they had way too much gel and seeds to be considered paste tomatoes. Personally, I found the taste a bit funky and won't be growing them again or recommending them either. I also grew Polish Linguisa in 2006, and they were large to extra large paste tomatoes with good flavor for a paste tomato. I'd say overall, P-Ling tasted fair for a tomato in general, and was not mealy or grainy like a lot of paste tomatoes. I grew Opalka in 2006, and they were not as large as Polish Linguisa and about the same as Amish paste but more consistent in shape and size. Opalka has excellent flavor for a paste tomato and superior flavor for a tomato in general. Also, their skin thinness and interior texture were supreme for a paste tomato and they were delicious right on a salad. I highly recommend Opalka as an all purpose tomato and excellent for fresh salsa. This year I was looking for an even larger paste tomato and tried Romeo from Peters Seed Research. Here is their Web page for Romeo Tomato . While I don't doubt their claim of "up to 2 pounds, I only got up to 1 pound, 12 ounces ... but I got several that weighed between 1 - 1.5 pounds of one of the two plants and most were 3/4 - 1.25 pounds off another plant. Our summer was extremely hot and dry ... August was like 25 days of 94 - 105*F ... and I don't think we had a half inch of rain. So, I would expect larger Romeo fruit in a normal season. The reason I mention Romeo is because you are asking for a large paste with taste. Romeo's flavor richened as the season progressed, and by late August, the tomatoes tasted really good sliced on sandwiches ... surprisingly good for a super dense, meaty tomato with next to zero seeds and no gel in most of the locules except for just enough to serve as embryonic encasement for the maybe ten seeds per locule AT MOST! For me, Romeo made extra good sauce that didn't have to be simmered too long. And if you roast the tomatoes first, they really tasted fabulous. Here is a shot of the alongside a Potato Top of the same weight. The Romeo is about 5 inches wide at the bell! There are some more extra large paste tomato I still want to try ... like Howard German and Big Mama ... but at this point, I think Romeo proved itself to be a jumbo paste with very good taste. It also was disease resistent and fairly heat tolerant. Bill

Ok... after reading more I realize we have a few more splurges that had not occurred to me at the time. Tomatoes on the vine or any good garden type tomato. I cannot abide a thick skinned mealy supermarket kind. Any San Marzano tomatoes for sauce work fine. It must be the soil or that water.... Sangria jelly, whenever I can find it. It is ridiculously good. The smoked whitefish spread at Costco. We have that in our house at all times. If cheese were less fattening, I'd have a whole fridge dedicated to it. As it is, I splurge on "eating cheese" (as opposed to cheese for cooking or grated cheeses) when we have guests. I love the horseradish cheddar kind or the champagne cheddar and any good asiago variety is my fave. I nibble it to try to make it last. I think I lived on a half cheese diet when pregnant as it was one of the few things that did not turn my stomach. Virginia ham is also a little splurge as it is usually more expensive than other kinds. It tastes like deli ham is supposed to taste to me. The other kinds are ok,and I'll buy them when they are much lower, but Virginia style is superior. German sausages from the German butcher are also a splurge. They carry the good European bread to go with their amazing cold cuts. I count what I buy there as eating out prices, and consider it lucky that we are not tipping for it, lol. I guess it is a way to justify those prices for eating at home and having it cost so much, lol....I don't even know what the price per lb is and prefer not to know. It is the one time I don't know prices out of everything else I do in life and hope to never know as it would ruin it for me. I get a large bag of stuff and it is spread out over several meals, but is probably our largest splurge, only done once in a while..... We do only drink imported beer and since most domestic is so awful, don't even consider that a splurge. It is a necessity to drink the better quality. After becoming used to German/Austrian beer over there, it is impossible to accept less. It sounds snobby, but if anyone did a side by side comparison, they'd forgive us ;) Luckily, we don't drink quantity. Often, dh and I will split a beer with dinner just to accompany certain foods. Our fave wine is a German reisling by Schmitte Sonne, which has a screw top, so is not crazy expensive, but it does cost more than many other whites we could buy instead. Since we buy by the case, we cut the costs some. It is always a hit when we bring some as a hostess gift.