The Construction Video is now available for viewing or download, from the good folks over at TomatoFest's website. We broke it into 3 Chapters that follow the .pdf Construction plans. From start to finish it runs 45 minutes viewing time. You can either watch it "real time" from their Server, or better yet, you can download the 3 Chapters to your PC for viewing or skipping ahead, repeats, etc. Make sure you have a DSL link as the 3 files total 240 MBytes (about a 15 minute download time). Be sure to also download the new Rev 1.3 Construction .pdf as there have been some enhancements since the Video was made. As always, please remember the Feed The Children Organization. http://www.tomatofest.com/tomato-earthtainer.html Note: Mel Gibson doesn't have anything to worry about as I doubt I will be making the trip to the next Cannes Film Festival. Anyway, it was a lot of fun building an EarthTainer with Gary Ibsen - - and thank goodness for digital Video Editing!!! Raybo http://earthtainer.org/Home_Page.html Here is a link that might be useful: EarthTainer Construction Video Links

Susan, I didn't want to be too negative, but this is an important issue because in a hot, dry year, the hybrids I grow will outproduce the OPs by as high as 10-1. It isn't like we live someplace where it is easy to grow tomatoes, and most years are hot and dry so we do have to worry about timely fruitset and heat tolerance. So, while the OPs will give a decent crop early in the season, they may or may not set fruit well in the hotter months. That's when the hybrids often pick up the slack and I feel like the great-tasting hybrids with proven disease tolerance and high yields are worth their weight in gold in July and August. Brandywine vs. Brandy Boy is a perfect example of how heat can affect an OP. Brandywine is my favorite tomato of all time and in a year when it is not too rainy as the fruit is maturing, the flavor is incredible. Nothing else tastes exactly like a good Brandywine. I first grew Brandywine in the mid-1990s and never got huge yields, except once in about 2003 or 2004 when we had so many tomatoes from six Brandywine plants that we gave them away. Everyone we gave Brandywines to said it was the best tomato they'd ever eaten, and the unspoken question in their eyes was "why don't you give us some of these every year". I felt obligated to explain that most years I only got 3 or 4 fruit per plant period for the whole year. When Burpee released Brandy Boy, I thought "Yeah, sure, like anything is ever going to match Brandywine's flavor." Still, Gone Fishin' liked them and highly recommended them, so I planted them in either BB's second or third year of existence, and I loved them. While Brandy Boy's flavor is not as exquisite as Brandywine Sudduth's, it is close enough for me. I looked at one Brandy Boy today and counted its fruit. It had 24 and still is flowering and setting fruit. In even the best of years I'd need 6 to 8 Brandywines to equal the production of one Brandy Boy. I think I planted 4 Brandy Boys this year. So, even though I love Brandywine, it just does not produce enough fruit to earn a spot in my garden, but Brandy Boy, with its similar flavor, high production and disease tolerance earns several spots in the garden. I do like True Black Brandywine and it produces well, but it has a black tomato flavor, not a true Brandywine tomato flavor. I grow at least 2 TBBs every year, and sometimes 4. I still struggle with getting the balance right between hybrid and O-P varieties. I'd rather grow more OPs for all their unique flavors and colors, but I have to grow a lot of hybrids too in order to be able to give away as many as I do and to be able to can, dehydrate and freeze a whole lot of them. I love, love, love Big Beef. I have several and they're all heavily loaded and I am thrilled about that. I also love Big Boy, which my dad always grew, even though it never seems to produce as well for me as it seemed to produce for him. Better Boy produces more heavily most years, but I don't like its flavor quite as much as Big Boy. I've never tried Best Boy because I suspect it is only an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the other Boys. I'm stubborn that way. Now I have to take back what I said about Big Boy. One year I planted 6 or 8 of them in late July for fall tomatoes. It was incredibly hot and dry. Our afternoon humidity was in the single digits many days. Our highs were over 105 and as high as 110 in August, and those Big Boys were blooming and setting fruit every day in those conditions. I believe the low humidity is what allowed high fruitset in high temps. That year, we had so many Big Boy tomatoes on those plants when the first frost hit that I pulled up the plants, brought them into the garage and stripped them of every fruit. We gave away hundreds of fruit, both red and green. It was incredible. Sill, that's the only year I've grown Big Boy that it truly wowed me with its productivity in the heat. Early Girl is a tomato-producing machine this year. The one Early Girl that I have in the galvanized 200-gallon stock tank (with three other plants) already has produced 19 ripe ones, has 4 more breaking color, and about 15 fully green ones. If she never produces another tomato this year, I'd have to be happy with how well she has done. However, she usually produces all summer long, including in July and August when a lot of others slow down, so I expect she'll keep on producing all along as long as disease or some horrid pest doesn't attack her. I grew the F-1 Top Sirloin and it was only okay as grown in my garden in whatever years I grew it. It didn't make the permanent grow list. It isn't that it was bad. It is just that it was only average, and I'm always looking for the ones that are above-average. I hope the O-P Top Sirloin is a good one for you. It sounds nice, and if Suze likes it, then it certainly is worth trying because she grows in conditions I consider tougher than ours. It is a hot dry year here at my house! lol Last May we had over 7" of rain in May alone and it was such a relief to have that rainfall. This year, in May so far, we've had less than 1.5" at our house and it is so incredibly dry that we're afraid to mow the pastures for fear the dry standing cool season grasses and forbs will ignite. It's pretty bad when it is too dry to safely mow in May. I've only set the place on fire once by having the lawn mower hit a rock, causing a spark that set the grass on fire, but it is an experience I do not care to repeat. You should get fruit from virtually anything you planted this year as long as the plants stay healthy. The temperatures are in the right range for fruit set and, for once, are staying there in that range for a decent amount of time. I did look at my dwarfs this afternoon, and all of them are in bloom or have blooms about to open, but none have visible fruitset yet. The plants thenselves are healthy and happy with no pests and no diseases so far. Dawn

My original seed for Marianna's Peace were from Gary Ibsen. A lady named Geri in Washington had purchased them in 2002 and only wanted to grow 3 or 4 so she sent me the remainder of the pack. At that time, Gary Ibsen was selling Marianna's Peace for $24 per pack of 6 seed though he actually shipped about 10 or 11 seed in each pack. From my 2002 growout,I got 4 potato leaf and 3 regular leaf plants. I tossed the RL plants as most likely bee made crosses. I planted three of the PL plants in my flower bed in front of the house to provide some isolation and reduce the likelihood of crossing. I fertilized them with a 4 inch thick layer of rabbit manure. That soil was RICH. The three plants grew up to 15 feet long and produced about 20,000 seed. I sent a few thousand seed to Glenn Drowns at http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/ , about 1000 to Marianna at http://www.mariseeds.com/ , and 1500 seed to Steve Goto in California who grew and sold plants in 2003. I sent most of the remaining seed to Mischka and he distributed them for free around the world to anyone who wanted them. The objective was to make seed as widely available as possible in one year. I grew plants again in 2003 and produced quite a few more seed though not nearly as much as in 2002. In 2004, I got more seed direct from Gary Ibsen and grew them out. They produced a mix of smooth shouldered and fluted shouldered fruit. Don't ask why I got more seed, I just wanted to see if he was still shipping a mixed bag of PL and RL. I sent out quite a few of the two types in 2004 and several people grew them in 2005. In 2005, I grew plants from both the original 2002 seed (3 plants) and from the fluted shouldered 2004 seed (4 plants). To my taste, the smooth shouldered fruits were better flavored than the fluted shoulderd fruits though both were better than average flavor wise. Since then, I have only grown the smooth shouldered original version. The original 2002 plants ripened fruit in two stages first turning pink on the bottom with green shoulders and then turning entirely pink. The green shouldered fruit are poor flavored, wait until the entire tomato has ripened on the vine if you want them to taste the best. The correct traits for Marianna's Peace are: 1. The shoulders should be smooth, not fluted. 2. The fruit ripen first to pink with green shoulders. 3. When fully ripe the entire tomato turns deep pink. 4. The tomatoes are extremely dense, they feel like mini bowling balls in your hand. 5. The tend have a lot of radial cracks near the stem 6. They are rampant indeterminate potato leaf plants. To my knowledge, Gary Ibsen only sells the fluted shoulder tomatoes now though it might be worth the effort to ask him if you want to be sure. I am fairly certain that TGS got seed from Gary in 2004 which is the source of their stock. If you want true to type seed, Mariseeds and Sandhill are your best options. Marianna is shipping in about 7 days so you can order today and have them late next week. I have seed to grow this year but am fairly low so need to do another mass growout. Craig Lehoullier grew a Marianna's Peace plant in 2003 and saved seed. He probably still has them since he was not very impressed with flavor. Marianna's Conflict was Martin Longseth's contribution to the story. It is a red fruited tomato and the best I recall is regular leaf. I still have the threads where Mischka, Amy, Paquebot and others had flame wars complete with fire extinguishers, molotov cocktails, and grenades. Here are a few links to the archive server that will help. Jackie's thread Celestial's thread DarJones

Help  I need the advice from a SWC expert. Last weekend I built two SWC containers. Mind you, IÂm not a talented builder of any sorts. So at any rate  after deciding to try 17 different tomato plants this year, and having had my share of dreaded BLER , I decided to give the SWC a try (funny how things in February when it is rainy and cold seem like a good idea  just like my 50 x 20 lasgane garden idea) At any rate  I had plants I started from seed that absolutely needed to get in the ground. In my area, I could not find the 4 pronged tomato supports, so I decided to invest in the Texas Tomato Cages  Well, I followed the direction pretty much to a tee on the first container  right up to filling the container. Well with the Texas Tomato cages, there is only about a 4 inch gap between the first ring and the top of the container. Needless to say, filling the container was a real PIA!!!!After struggling with filling the first container in 100 degree heat, I realized it would be much easier to fill the container if I simply added the black plastic after I filled the container  Can I remind you it was 100 degree, and those bags get heavier when the temp goes up. O.K. now on to the second container. After building the first container, I learned a few things along the way and the assembly went much faster.. I was able to finish the second container in about half the time as the first (now it is above 100 degrees and of course I need to fill the container in direct sun) o.k.  so now I have proudly planted the rest of my tomato crop only to look up on my porch to see the two 4" PVC support parts that are used to support the aeration bench!!!!!!!! UGHHHHHHH  So now what do I do? Do I dig up the plants, take out all the dirt, undo the whatever type of bolts those are that hold the aeration bench to the container and put the supports in? Or do I risk it and just let it be????