I don't post here a lot, but I do on the Canadian forums. I lurk here :-) I don't grow a lot of tomato varieties but I do grow for quality. This year I have one plant, grown form a seed of the original Gordon Graham tomato. He has the world's record largest tomato according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Through good fortune and a friend, I was able to trade for just a few seeds from Gordon Graham's world record tomato. I got one to germinate, so I have one tomato plant that is a direct child of his original! I do grow other tomatoes but I'm really excited about this one! We had a very bad tomato year last year with lots of BER. This year I planted the tomatoes in my good lasagne "wine" garden, dug in lots of old manure, a little lime and one Tums tablet in each hole. The same friend who gave me the seeds above, told me that a Tums will help supply the calcium the tomatoes need to help prevent BER. So I'm trying it. It's easy and cheap, so I figured "Why not?" We'll see how it goes. Needless to say, I baby that plant! In addition to that one, I am also growing our own heritage Portugal beefheart tomatoes (see link to pic below), San Marzano, Manitoba, Ailsa Craig, and Rev Morrow long keeper. Here is a link that might be useful:

Really cute Minnie. Joyce

When I was "oldifying" my previous house, a 1994 Cape, I shopped at Bradbury & Bradbury (bradbury.com) for wallpaper, Rejuvenation for lighting, vintagetub.com (FANTASTIC customer service) for plumbing fixtures, ebay for accessories, Horton Brasses for door pulls. Now we've bought an old house (1900 Eastlake Victorian, albeit stripped naked and modest to begin with) I'll be back to all those companies, and soon I'll be headed down to Architectural Salvage in Exeter NH for parts for our broken mortise locks (I may have to buy the whole lock and scavenge the parts we need; it would probably make more sense to replace the whole thing but I'm sentimental about the parts that have been there for 107 years). He's a little expensive though. In a few months I'll go up to Old House Parts in Kennebunk ME, and check out the rumors of a Habitat ReStore in Portland (Maine, that is). jfpegan.com (who also sells on eBay as jfpegan) sells restored antique and handmade repro lighting at good prices. I picked up two slightly battered pan chandeliers at a yard sale this last week (15 bucks for both!) and when I'm a little more flush I'll send them off there for repair and restoration, which they also do. I'm not sure if I've seen anyone mention Bathroom Machineries (deabath.com). Sort of a mediocre website but they have things no one else does. Sadly, where I live (SE NH) the Arts-and-Crafts-that's-not-Mission ;-) furniture I love most is a rare critter, at least on the lower budget end. I've heard the Skinner "Discovery" auctions in Bolton MA have cheaper, less-fancy things; it's about an hour and a half drive but I'd rather bring something wonderful home from that than something from Ikea, which is the same distance in a slightly different direction.

The ones you sent me Nancy, are not in bloom yet. It might not have gotten cold enough to set blooms its first year here in Ft.laud. Sorry I lost your email address to let you know it is doing well. I still have the card/letter you sent me with the sections you sent me. I have lost a lot of the smaller cuttings over the summer, but the big one is doing well. I am watching for buds, my 'new' style X-Mas cactus' are setting buds, but it is not as exciting as waiting to see if I get any from my Old Christmas cactus. It reminds me of my gram/mom, and Conn. These new varieties don't. I almost bought a few of the newer varieties, on E-bay. But tiny 3 segment cuttings are over $25-50!!! Named ones like 'Samba Brazil', 'Inca Sun' and 'Aspen', and a few are $99!! For tiny segments. That is obscene!! How rare are these?? So...ill never see these in person, in my lifetime, in my collections.