You donÂt know me but we have a mutual friend by the name of Darrell Merrill, aka Tulsa Tomato Man. I have been asked and regret to inform you Darrel is in Hospice Care and will expire shortly. This information comes from his Daughter Lisa who now runs the farm and business located in Tulsa.

*****

Yes, I do know about Darrell. Just this past Friday someone posted about him and his current condition and I've linked to that below. It's on the second page here.

But thanks for thinking of me when it concerns Darrell. What a complex interesting man he is. I still have two books that he sent me. He once said he was known as the popcorn man b'c he ran such a business before he became the Tomato Man. ( smile)

And as I noted in the other thread linked to below, we did get to meet at SSE in Decorah when I was there to give a talk.

He has many friends in many places and while I haven't been directly in touch lately, I think of him often.

Thanks for sharing with me about his current condition as did the person who posted two days ago.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Darrell

Carolyn, thanks for the reply. One question for you. Lisa, DarrelÂs daughter mentioned you had a tomato named either by you or after you. Care to share with an old sod farmer and tomato grower if that is true and what it is called?

FWIW, DarrelÂs daughter Lisa has quit her job, moved back to Tulsa, and taken over the farm operations. I am confident from talking to her she will continue the family business and devote herself in making the operation bigger and better than ever while preserving her FatherÂs principles and dedication. The farm was open for businesses last Thursday on April 3rd just like Dad use to do it. TulsanÂs are very thankful as Darrel and his farm are a legend there and has somewhat a Rock Star image.

Darrel also had another nickname "Man With Garlic Breath" as he was also into preserving heirloom varieties of garlic.

Carolyn, thanks for the reply. One question for you. Lisa, DarrelÂs daughter mentioned you had a tomato named either by you or after you. Care to share with an old sod farmer and tomato grower if that is true and what it is called?

*****

The variety was cleverly called Dr. Carolyn, LOL, and it wasn't named by me it was named by Steve Draper and it was a surprise to me when I opened my SSE Yearbook that year and saw it.

I had saved seeds from Galina's which is a great gold cherry tomato with PL ( potato leaf) foliage and when I planted out some of the seeds the next year I got all sorts of colors on different plants, and all cherries. Colors were pink, red, yellow, salmon and one that I called ivory mutant b'c it was the best of the bunch.

At the same time Steve had seen similar instability with his saved seeds from Galina's but got no ivory ones so asked me to send that one to him. He loved it, named it and listed it in the SSE Yearbook.

To this day I have no idea what happened genetically such that I got all cherries of different colors from those saved seeds.

An SSE member also sent me a pink version that popped up in his garden which he also cleverly named Dr. Carolyn Pink.

The variety Dr, Carolyn is listed at many seed sources, the pink version less so.

Carolyn