Hoosier, I think you know where GD came from but if you've forgotten here's a wee tomato history of it. I saved seeds from Galina's Yellow which I'm sure you know, PL with deep gold cherries and I like it very much. Saved seeds gave rise to no plants with PL foliage but plants which each had different colored cherries such as red, pink, yellow, salmon and one I called ivory. This all happened shortly after Bill McDorman brought back Galina's and all the other Siberian ones and offered them at his website. At the same time my friend Steve Draper who lived in Utah was also seeing genetic instability with Galina and asked me to send him the best of what I had which is the one I called ivory b'c it was a very vigorous plant and the fruits had some of that grest taste of Galina. He liked it very much, named it Dr. Carolyn without telling me and I first found out that when I got my SSE YEarbook that year. At first it was throwing some red fruited plants but that stopped fairly soon. it also threw some pink fruited plants and an SSE member sent me seeds for what he called Dr. Carolyn Pink, which Darrel says he likes a lot as do some others. Dr. Carolyn mutated spontaneously to a green when ripe in Amy Goldman's Garden. I found that hard to believe and asked keith how that could happen and I still have the PM's he sent me which showed that it could happen. As to wild tomato genes in it? There are two scientists at the Geneva USDA station/Cornell who have been doing DNA sequencing on many different varieties and have found snippets of wild sequences in all of them. Esther Van der Knapp at OSU has found the same and I know you tracked her down at one point, this was after Scientific American had a cover picture of tomatoes and discussed the changes that lead to differences in fruit shape and size as part of the evolution of our domestic tomato.If you want to check their publications their names are Angela Baldi and Joanne, and I can't remember her last name without looking it up. So yes, I'm sure there are some wild species snips in Green Doctors, just as there are in all the other varieties that Joanne and Angela and Esther have found. QED. I've met both two times b'c Joanne has relatives in Glens Falls, which is near me, and they've stopped by on those trips, brought some of their publications as well as a huge poster board that had beem used at a conference. I first met Angela through Garden Web where she was searching for folks who had grown lots of OP heirlooms and that led to Craig LeHoullier and I both being listed as Consultants on their grant proposals to the Feds. To this day I have no idea whatsoever to explain the original genetic instability that both Steve and I saw with Galina that then led to the variety Dr. Carolyn that then led to Dr. Carolyn Pink that then led to Green Doctors and now Green Doctors Frosted which is a clear epidermis mutation from GD found independently by Neil Lockhart who is listing it in the 2010 SSE Yearbook and Jeff Casey in Canada who is listing it at his website with all his other tomato seeds for sale. Both Neil and Jeff were kind enough to send me a few seeds of GD Frosted which I offered in my annual seed offer elsewhere, now closed. While Tom Wagner has developed a couple of clear skinned GW ripes, I trialed Verde Claro for him back in the mid-90's, he's never formally released them and asked me if I would please not share seeds of Verde Claro except with Craig who was also supposed to trial all the varieties Tom sent, but didn't. So GD Frosted appears to be the first clear skinned variety GWR that has been made available to the public thru Neil Lockhart in the YEarbook, Jeff Casey at his website and the seeds I'm distributing thru my seed offer. Carolyn

Mantis, I did read that Mac are going with a new common brain or something. Now abut those Russian Reds. I have some nice ones up in the seed tray. Maybe 5/5. I think seeds came from Rosco. Anyway, it sounds like a nice little determinate, right? About a 4-5 footer. Have you gorwn it and if so does it need a stake. Something in the grey matter says tree tybe and sturdy. If that is so I'll plant 5/5 in pots.:)

Well I feel rather tame with my babies, they are still newborns.... and our web server is playing up so I can't even post piccies. Very annoyed as I took a heaps of photos of the new 4-bed veggie patch complete with snow peas, potatoes, eggplant, chilli and tommies. Capsicums are still foetal - we left them a little later to see if that would help them out. Ground is still a little cold for them I think. I too am joining the green-with-envy club... Mantis I can't believe your tommies are so big already! We have fruit on the Broad Ripple Yellow Currant and the Jaune Flamme. Also in the plot and all with flowers: Cherokee Purple, Kelloggs Breakfast, Roma San Marzano, Principe Borghese, Brandywine Suddeth.

Now I am very hungry! Think I'll have to have some tommies for breakfast, LOL. Principe Borghese are now starting to ripen and since it's so hot, I don't want to roast them. Oh dear, will have to eat them raw! Tried this the other day and it was superb! First macerate halved cherries (I used BRYC) by sprinkling with salt and olive oil, for at least 30 mins at room temperature (not the fridge!) 1. Grab some frozen puff pastry sheets, cut squares in half to make rectangular strips and blind bake until pale golden (not fully cooked) 2. Take it out the oven and cool for a little bit 3. Spread cooled puff pastry with your favourite pesto (I tried both basil & Capsicum/Chilli), then Ricotta cheese 4. Finally, top with drained, macerated cherry toms (save the juice for salad dressing etc) 5. Pop these back into very hot oven (I did 240 deg with fan) until cherries are caremlised at the edges (10-15 mins or so) 6. Sprinkle with fresh ground pepper and allow to cool enough to handle with your hands These are also nice at room temperature. I'm going to try something similar with focaccia dough, just poking halved BRYC into the dough, maybe alternating with halved olives.