Jay, It became a 'Kingness' when you posted that list. Until then, we only thought you had an addiction or an obsession. Now that you have been annointed King, there is nothing you can do but grin and bear it. You'd just better hope I don't show up at the Spring Fling with a Tomato Crown fit for a king. With the folks from Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri who post regularly on our forum, I just think of them as part of 'us' and anytime they want some kind of seed that I have, I'm happy to send them some, and they send me seed too. I tend to ignore seed requests from people who do not post on this forum because they're usually just looking for free seeds. Sometimes I will offer seed to someone who asks me questions about a specific variety but that's not the same thing as having strangers trolling the web for free seeds and I ignore those e-mails if I don't recognize the folks from this forum or the Tomato forum. I'm going to try to save OP seeds this year so I can share them , but I know that in order to do that, I need to do it early in the season before canning, freezing and dehydrating consume my days. I know from experience that once I'm spending 12 to 16 hours a day harvesting and putting up food, saving seeds will be the last thing on my mind. Diane, See....the Tomato King is turning into a Pepper King too. Those horses are really getting nervous. They are wondering if he's gonna put those containers in 'their' pasture. Jay, When I go to Tatiana's Tomatobase and start reading the lists/descriptions of varieties and seeds, I totally immerse myself in it and can wander around there for hours, planting dream gardens in my mind. I, too, take everything a seller says with a grain of salt and prefer real reviews from real gardeners. I'm looking forward to trying Mule's tomato crosses (Dora and Gary O Sena) that you sent me. I'm thinking of growing them all together in one bed along with Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and Indian Stripe...and JD's Special C-Tex, just so I can closely compare their growth and performance side-by-side. Of course, I'll have to do many, many taste tests to choose my favorites....like THAT will break my heart. Tomorrow is THE DAY....the big day I've been looking forward to for such a long time......no, not because it's the Super Bowl. It's SEED-STARTING DAY! Well, you know that I'll watch the football game, but long before gametime, I'll have my 2010 tomato seeds tucked into the seedstarting mix, sitting on the seedling heat mat with those bright lights shining down from the shelf above. Seed-Starting Day is one of my favorite days of the year. On the day you start your seeds, the new gardening year stretches ahead of you in all its perfection -- nothing has gone wrong yet and there haven't yet been any disappointments. From seed-starting day forward, the gardening year is a tiny bit less perfect day by day as things begin to go wrong....seeds don't sprout or the weather acts up or whatever. But, for that one perfect day, everything is brand new and full of hope and you are sure that "this year, things will be different....and everything will be perfect". OK, I know that kind of gardening perfection doesn't really exist, but on Seed-Starting Day you can make yourself believe it does. Dawn

Paula, Hate to hear about the Red Toch. Out of over 200 cloves I started I had 2 complete no shows. Two that came up and then died and one that has a sprout but not growing much. I think it was because of too heavy of mulch over it. Also might be what happened to the two that sprouted and died. Now to your question. Without seeing a picture hard for me to say. Is the bottom leaves yellow on all? If it is just the very bottom I wouldn't be too concerned. The oldest leaves of many plants do die. Do you have sand of clay? It could be a water issue also. If the tops look fine and have good color I wouldn't worry yet. I'm guessing you've had lots of rain. Here not as much rain but has really been cool this week. My oldest garlic is really growing. I wouldn't get too concerned yet. Jay

Carol, That Cluster Goliath looks amazing. It makes me tempted to go to Totally Tomatoes and order the whole Goliath line. It's been 6 or 7 years since I've grown a lot of Goliaths (one row of them will give you all the tomatoes you need). I grew regular Goliath and Bush Goliath as early tomatoes this spring, but gave them away to a friend when I ran out of space for them. I gave them to our friends still in 5-gallon pots (they needed to be potted up or transplanted and all my larger pots were full and so was my garden) and covered with fruit and they were harvesting tomatoes a couple of weeks later. They harvested the first one before it broke color (lol) because they were so excited to have fruit. They have sandy soil with nematodes and had just about given up on growing tomatoes so I may have 'converted' them into container growers with those Goliaths. You tomato addicts (OK, we tomato addicts) are now becoming addicted to peppers. One fun thing we could do next year for the swap is that everyone could pick a favorite variety or two to grow in quantity for the swap. Then everyone could bring 'their' chosen variety or varieties to the swap and trade with everyone else. Of course, everyone could bring other extra peppers too, but we'd know Carol was growing Variety A, and Lynn was growing Variety B, and so forth. Someone would have to be the Pepper Coordinator and keep a list of who was bringing what, but wouldn't it be fun? On another note, like tomatoes, peppers are perennial. I have a couple of plants that are now in their third year because I overwinter them in containers in the garage. We went down to about 6 degrees on a couple of nights, but I know the garage stayed somewhat warmer...maybe it briefly went down to 15 or 20 degees on those 6 degrees nights. Anyway, the Red Sweet Bell Pepper I overwintered from last year starting blooming in Jan. or Feb. and set a couple of early bell peppers that I harvested in April. Then it set more in March or April. Those peppers are now a gorgeous red and ready to pick. This is despite the fact that the overwintered plant lost its leaves and some tips of some branches froze several times on cold nights although it never completely froze and died. This fall, when pepper production drops, I'm going to dig up and pot a few and try overwintering them again in an effort to get an earlier pepper harvest. It works with hots, sweets and ornamentals....the ornamentals were the first ones I ever overwintered. Finally, if y'all want 'pepper trees' to go along with my tomato trees, you'd need to start them in January for a late April swap. They grow a lot slower than tomato plants. Carol, I've held peppers in cups forever some years waiting for the weather to warm up and they always take off just fine when they're finally in the ground even if they were root-bound in the pots. This year a lot of my peppers (both sweets and hots) had flowers and tiny fruit when I set them out into the garden, and I'm harvesting those peppers this week. It seems like this year the peppers grew faster than usual once I got them into the ground. It likely can be attributed to the July-like temperatures that arrived in southern OK in the last half of May. I'll be canning something.....likely hot peppers and plums (not together!) tomorrow, and maybe salsa by the end of the week. When the harvest starts rolling in, it sure gets busy around here. Dawn

"I'll never be like that because I can stop anytime I want". They always say the first sign of addiction is denial. I remember when a friend whose garden was growing in size said the same thing. A few years later when I still had some control myself I reminded them of what they said. And was told to read her lips. And she said I said anytime I want and I don't want too. That is my boat now. My family and even friends wonder why I spend so much time gardening but also appreciate the produce they get. Of course this year my sister is beginning to wonder when the tomatoes will start coming. Another sign is when you can't wait to check the mailbox to see if a new catalog has arrived. But when someone says something about you receiving so many you say I can't figure out how I got on all of those lists. But just let them throw away one of the 20 plus and you'll notice it before you turn in to sleep. And the seed companies are like the people selling Christmas goodies. Start earlier every year. Now we can blame them for keeping our addiction growing. And then when they why weren't you at the wedding you were invited too and you say oh I didn't feel like going. When the truth is you wanted to take advantage of the nice fall day and spend it in the garden. And then when they say you were seen in the garden you reply I just went out to check on it and time got away. It is nice to be around a bunch of fellow addicts. Because we all need company and a non addict can never understand. Jay