Hi, Misty! ALWAYS nice to see you pokin' your head in around here! It's interesting that you left the ROCKY Mountains--and now you have ROCKY soil instead! I'm not so sure that's a good trade off! :-D But I'm glad to know you're still growing a buncha veggies! There's no food as good as home grown veggies--especially tomatoes! I don't know what they are, but the Pink Stuff they sell in food stores are not tomatoes! If you like Sungold, you REALLY should try Sweet Aperitif red cherry some year! They're "different" from Sungold, but they are BOTH To Die For! [Fedco--good seeds, good prices! Free shipping over $50 -- $6 under $50!] If you're in "eastern" Kansas, what town are you in/near? I'm asking because long, long ago, my husband's best friend--best man at our wedding!--was from Hutch--as in Hutchinson! And when he got married, his Intended was from Beatrice (Bea-A'-trice!), and my husband was HIS best man so we went back there for the wedding--the wedding was in Beatrice! Then, after they got married they lived on his father's (inherited) farm at Hutch, and one year we drove back there and stayed--in the olde farm house--for a couple nites and one day went out and waded in the Arkansas (Ar-KAN'-sas!) "river," which runs across the farm they lived on! It was great fun--except for the nasty, nasty "no-see-ums" that were biting us--no matter where we were! So I'm just wondering how close you might be to that area! Getting way off the tomato subject!!! Also! If you're close enough to St. Louis, have you ever heard of Cahokia Mounds??? It's right across the river (the BIG river--not the wading kind!) from St. Louis at Collinsville, Illinois! If you've never heard of it, search it (I recommend doing it on DuckDuckGo so you can actually SEE the "images"--since you can't anymore with google search!). It's part of the "Mississippi River Mounds Cultures", ancestors of some of today's "east coast" tribes (Creek, Shawnee, Seminole, and more!)--there are "ruins" that "look like" Central American ruins, but they're "made of earth!" If you're interested in "that sort of thing" I thought they were very interesting! If you ever go and you walk to the top of "Monk's Mound" (yeah, named by White Man!) you can "look across the river" and see St. Louis--that's how close it is to the river! I found the Ye Olde Folks thread on RMG (actually, I had saved a link to it--it's virtually impossible to find anything you try to search for on GW anymore since houzz took over!) and I'm gonna do a short post on it right after I post this, to bump it up! It was started in 2008! If you have "some time," check it out! I just reread virtually the whole thread again--Memories!!! Candy cigarettes and Burma Shave signs!!! Please do keep showing up here every now and then! You're Family, and if you have "garden"--or bird!--questions, we're still here with answers--even if you DO live in No-See-Um Kansas! Happy Spring, Skybird F 03.01.24 @ 1255 MST

Rose I have grown these for ~10 years. Excellent flavor, good production of consistently large fruit. Initially sensitive to BER, I have mostly selected that out. As they suffer in the midday heat, mine grow well in partial shade. They get morning and evening sun. Moscovich Early, very good flavor, cold tolerant, consistent producer of medium size fruit. Mortgage Lifter Flavor almost as good as Rose, produces earlier and more heavily. My CRW cage buckled under the load last year! Tolerates heat and variable weather. Amish Paste Heavy producer of flavorful fruit. Garden Peach Fruits lived up to their description in terms of color, taste and texture, but declined in size as the season progressed. A novelty. Stupice Adds to the flavor of soups and sauces. Last year they were abnormal monsters with stems like flattened garden hoses, aberrant multiple flowers and many cat-faced fruits. Normally a bit short, these reached the garage roof. Maybe a virus? Friends do not accept them because of their tendency to have small raised freckles on the skin. They do not know what they are missing! Black from Tula Poor production and intolerant of last years variable weather, but with a fascinating taste worthy of one more try. NOT RETURNING: New Girl Very flavorful for a hybrid. Early and consistent production of small to medium fruit in good years. Last year was not a good one, reminding of the several bad years before. It is not reliable enough to take up garden space when Stupice is earlier, more consistently productive, tastier and Moscovich comes in just about 1 day later. Giant Tree True, it did provide last yearÂs largest fruit, beating out Mortgage Lifter and PrudenÂs Purple by 1 oz. The flavor was not remarkable, nor was its storied height. By seasonÂs end it just caught up with the aberrant Stupice. Pruden's Purple Some very impressive early fruit but no staying power. Cherokee Purple Did not do much last year. My first attempt, probably the weather, but it gave me no reason to try again. Giant Belgium Very much like Mortgage Lifter, but a little less of everything, taste, size, consistency, yield...Had I not put it up against ML head-to-head, I would probably have grown it again.

Hi all! My goodness, everyone has got exciting news lately! Graduations, trips, get togethers--what fun! :) Our garden is going great balls of fire this year. (OH, gad! Did I just jinx us?!) We planted (from seed, mind you): KY Wonder beans, Blue Lake beans, Dragon Tongue beans, Sugar Snaps Peas, shelling peas, tomatillos, Amish Paste tomatoes, Brandywine tomatoes, Early Girl tomatoes, Better Boy tomatoes, San Marzano tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, Delicious tomatoes, okra, Fairy Tale eggplant, Dusky eggplant, Poblano peppers, Anaheim chili peppers, Lipstick pimento peppers, bell peppers, habanero peppers, cayenne peppers, jalapeno peppers, Tabasco peppers, hot banana peppers, paprika peppers, ghost peppers, cilantro, chives, oregano, thyme, dill, stevia, parsley,catnip, sage, basil, lavender, rosemary, chard, radishes, bak choi, several lettuces, mustard greens, kale, kohl rabi, mesclun, spinach, yellow squash, zucchini, cukes, cantaloupe, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, and pumpkins. In raised beds. Not to mention the patio blueberry bushes, along with the honeyberry bushes. Oh, and we have a garlic bed, too. We also started a bunch of flowers from seeds this year, too, but I can't remember them right off the bat. I do know that the TX Bluebonnets got up about 3 inches, and the birds or a squirrel ate 'em. We do the "Square-Foot¨ gardening system, and it works very well. I'll see if I can figure out how to post a pic. Other than that, things are chaotic, as usual. I have been trying to get some information re: insurance policies that belong to my heart adopted mom, and the insurance company keeps sending up roadblocks. Now, they want some sort of affidavit from the original attorney that did my POA in '04 saying that I'm still the POA. WTH? Seriously? The atty bills at $250/hour; she doesn't have it, and neither do I. I don't know what to do. I am sooooo fed up with this. I've fought for 13 months now, and I.am.tired. I have spent hundreds of hours, and countless miles on my cars to help someone that doesn't have anyone but me, and this is what I get. No good deed goes unpunished. Remember that, y'all; its good words to live by. :) Hugs, Maddie

Hi Spatz, thanks for reminding me of the variety, I would love some seeds from Jaune Flamme, I have just been to visit my mum and I'm pretty sure I can scam a bit of space in her garden for some more varieties, though i haven't really told her that yet, ha ha - I managed to get her to grow a broad bean cover crop without having to reveal my sneaky 'surrogate' tomato patch plan *snickers loudly*. I was wondering if I could trouble you for some seeds of some cherry varieties as well? I was going try a few different coloured cherries in pots this year. I was just looking at Finbars recipe above and noticed the cavalo nero reference, now I have been looking for seeds of this for a while and was talking to the woman at the market who grows heritage seedlings and she informed me that cavalo nero is more often sold as lacinato kale, which I have had seed to all along! Can anyone confirm this for me? I did an internet search, from this I learnt that Cavalo Nero is most definately a type of kale but I'm still not sure if it is actually Lacinato. cheers, mudlark