I thought I had a final list. I really did. But it's coming down to the wire - this is what I think I am going to try to have in my garden (20 plants) and two large containers: IN THE GROUND Anna Russian - 2 Big Beef - 1 Bloody Butcher - 1 Brandywine OTV - 2 German Head - 2 German Red Strawberry - 2 Indian Stripe - 1 Marianna's Peace - 2 Marmande - 2 Paul Robeson - 1 Red Star - 1 Rhodes Heirloom - 2 Sophie's Choice - 1 IN CONTAINERS Gold Nugget Isis Candy Siletz HAVE SEED, DON'T HAVE ROOM!!! Black Krim Cherokee Purple Earl's Faux Golden Cherokee Golden Ponderosa Mavritanskite Do you see the problem? They're all great. I want to taste them all - the closest I've ever knowingly got to actually tasting an heirloom tomato was an UglyRipe from Stop and Shop! So I'm going crazy. I have already booked a guy to help me dig an entirely new bed in April which will expand me from 8 plants to 20, but that's really all I can do. Any advice is welcome, as long as it doesn't require my obtaining more seed. If I email you asking for any more seed, just gently say no, or that you will send it to me in the fall. I need a 12 step program.

Mark, I already did ask Craig about it. We're in contact b'c he's growing all my plants for me this year and shipping them up here. And Lee and Shoe and Mel are doing most of the seed production. He just sent up the latest germination report so I don't know if he's going to comment or not. Mark if Chuck got a GJRL from Shumways, that's what he got, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's THE correct leaf form seeing as how he got it from Shumways and Hilton probably got it from an SSE member and as I pointed out above, even in the early 90's folks were listing both RL and PL forms. Chuck died in June of 2002 and for several years before that he had made lots of mistakes with seeds b'c of his medical condition. He had bought lots of stuff off the shelf from Seeds by Design and that's where he got so many wrong PL's including the wrong PL Red Brandywine. Joyce thought she could return the seed but that couldn't be done. It was Donna who started putting those abbreviations in the listings to remind herself of what should go there even though she didn't have the seed. Quite frankly I've often wondered how old some of the seeds she lists are re germination these days b'c many of them go back to about 10 yo and for many of them there is no commercial source for her to restock. You might remember that Joyce asked me to work with Donna b'c she'd never even grown a tomato plant, her job with Chuck was packing tomato seed. I tried for a while but it jsut didn't work out. I do know that someone about two years ago bought 10 varieties and got zero germination on 9, told Donna that and Donna offered to send her back the same seed. It wasn't good. Finally, I've never grown German Johnson, don't intend to, so it's been fun while it lasted folks but I'm with Bill, as in I'm out of here. LOL If I hear anything back from Craig I will post it. Carolyn

Old German is a typical gold/red bicolor of which there are well over 200 named ones. Most of them can be sweet and lucious one year and very bland and mealy the next year, for the same variety, so are very much influenced by weather. There's no way that anyone can tell you what the taste of a variety might be, really, since taste is both perceptual and personal and there's even a human genetic factor involved. And there are many variables that can influence taste as well,such as how plants are grown, were amendments used, if so which ones, how much and when, what is the soil like, where, geographically the plants are grown, what's the weather like in any one season,etc. So what it comes down to is what you personally like for the taste of ANY variety you grow as I see it. Carolyn

Nothing tree-like :-) Here, bearded iris are in bloom around Mother's Day - early May. The crabapple will have already bloomed and should/will be in full leaf by then. I can't think of many trees that would not be.