Pam, I'll definitely be checking them out. if people on here wanna continue being generous, I'd rather go that route. but I am not at all opposed to buying seeds if I can't get the kinds I want via trade. MsPeppajo: I've never heard of onza roja, but in general the goal here is known hybrids, (preferably really hot ones), as opposed to mystery peppers. I do appreciate the offer though. speaking of hybrids, I was making thai pepper sauce earlier today, and in the process of de-stemming 150 pods, I noticed one had only 2 seeds in the whole pod. those of you who are familiar with thai peppers know that they're basically a bunch of seeds, with a thin coating of pepper. I've heard that sometimes a cross will result in much fewer seeds than normal. I tried to cross my thai with my brain strain earlier this year, but kinda gave up because most of the host flowers on the thai dropped. now I can't help wondering if this was one that didn't drop, or was the result of cross pollination with another one of my plants (they're anything BUT isolated). is it safe to assume if the goal is to get a few hybrids next year I should try to germinate those 2 seeds?

Hello everyone and many thanks for the compliments. I'm starting to prepare to pull plants. I've got three plants of Cherokee Purple, 2 Red Brandywine, 1 Yellow Brandywine and one plant of variety 444 that are ready to be pulled up. By the end of the week, I'll probably add Champion, Viva Italia, Jet Star and others to that list. Early Goliath has set 6 more fruit within the past couple of weeks so that will be one variety that should be around for a while. figfarmer, as a rule, tomato plants are done in June where I live. Tomato plants will flower throughout the summer but they will not typically set fruit. The temperature and humidity stays consistently too high for any fruit production to take place. We would have to experiance an extended rainy/cloudy period during the summer for any kind of decent fruit to be produced. gardenmommy, I grow at three different locations but at home, I grow about 100. The numbers above are from 52 plants. Regarding dehybridizing, it all depends on your interest....getting into this area is really all about what your goals are. You need to be prepared to grow out a large number of plants and then select for traits that you observe to be desireable. This can take a few years to end up with a stabilized variety of choice. I'm attempting to dehybridize Big Boy. Regarding Brandywine and other late season varieties, I don't let the difficulty factor stop me from experiancing those varieties. In fact, I've had very good success with Brandywine....some years are great and some years are so-so. It looks like I will only harvest 10 fruit from Brandywine this year but that's okay with me. I've had one weigh just over a pound. It all depends on where you live in Texas. Texas is such a large state that it emcompasses many zones and can climatic conditions can vary widely. Emily, counting tomatoes on a variety such as Sungold can be quite the task (LOL). But really it's not that difficult. I only count when I harvest them and you would be surprised how quickly you can pick a hundred or so. By the way, I harvested 608 Mexico Midget at 9.1 pounds so far. Probably still have another 150 to 200 on this one.

Love it! I love the "rumba strips" that you have going on in the shower. I don't know if there is such a thing as "rumba strips" but I am posting a link that I found on the dance. It sort of looks like your shower :) Here is a link that might be useful: Rumba

I too, love your home! I've totally enjoyed seeing the pictures you so generously share with us on the forum. A question: Is your antique bed shorter than modern beds? If so, have you bought a new mattress and bed springs? And if you have, and if you are happy with them, would you share where you bought them? The reason I ask is that I have an antique sleigh bed that very much needs a new mattress and box springs. It is about an inch shorter than modern standard mattresses. I'm having a difficult time finding a quality mattress for it.