Every year my tomatoes have a theme. One year it was oranges, last year it was whites and container varieties. This year it's blacks and a few others, including the return of a couple kinds. Black Pepper- new this year, a paste Black Prince- new this year, 5 oz fruits Black Krim- new this year- beefsteak Black from Tula- new this year, saucer Dwarf Wild Fred- a return from last year. One of the best tomatoes of last year, the others being White Queen and Snow White Cherry. A nice container plant, and a tasty black getting compared to the other blacks this year. Jaune Flamme- a return from 2014. Hands down the best tomato of the year, great fresh, canned, and dehydrated. 2-4 oz fruits, compact growth habit topping off around 5', suitable container plant. Pink Bumblebee cherry- new this year. I try to have an interesting bicolor every year, last year was Copper River. I plan on doing a cherry/tiny eats compare year in a couple years, and need to test out a couple of little ones every year too. Sweet Pea Currant- new this year. Just another little eats, but container growable. I also have clones going from some of the indoor/overwintered plants I took in because I had seed stock failures last year, or because I wanted to test out their limits, lol. So a couple of these might stick around through the summer if I need seed stock off of them, but it's more likely that either they will get sold off come spring. Totem- a super hearty container plant. Sets seed well indoors and out, takes cuttings/cloning very well, and overwinters in the kitchen window nicely. Germination rate is high, and early growth stays small. Silvery Fir Tree- not so suitable for indoor overwintering, it likes a bigger pot. And it gets leggy. Will grow out for seed stock if I can coax the clones along till spring. It's a pretty ornamental I want to revisit in the future, so I want to save seed for the sake of saving seed. Beaver Lodge Slicer- Healthy plants, decent in containers. Taking cloning pretty well. I have a half dozen seed stock tomatoes growing and ripening right now, may or may not keep cuttings. A right nice and early setting red, it grows well around here and sells well. Copper River- really a lovely plant with nice flesh, I want to save this seed for the sake of saving it more than anything else. I have one mother plant that is a long vine, very leggy in the kitchen window. It is finally producing a nice sucker I can cut for cloning, and two small flower clusters forming.

Had almost two weeks of overcast weather, with a goodly (for us, amyway) amount of rain. Now we are transitioning into clear skier and sunny weather, and the highs are supposed to get into the 80s tomorrow and Friday. Tempting to plant out. However, clear skies mean colder nights. Forecast calls for lows in mid/low 40s through early next week. And even though last night's low was only supposed to be 40, it got all the way down to 34 degrees, the birdbath froze over, and my marigolds got pretty well frosted. The other herbs didn't seem to mind, but I'd have been in some trouble if I'd given in and planted out. Average LFD is this coming Sunday. We'll see.

Jersey Snow Flakes (9820) 12/14/2007 (R. Kurzynski) Single-semidouble white pansy/white sparkle overlay. Variegated medium green and white, plain, quilted. Standard Jersey Snow Drops (9819) 12/14/2007 (R. Kurzynski) Semidouble-double white pansy. Variegated medium green and white, plain, quilted. Standard So it would seem that the difference is in the number of petals, more in JSDrops and the sparkle overlay only in JSFlakes? I looked and looked at the plants in your photo, Irina, and thought I saw more petals in the Drops plant, but I couldn't be sure. The leaves looked the same in both to me. I would assume they are "sister" plants from the same cross? Very pretty whites, both of them. I'd have a hard time deciding which to grow.

Lovely! Such beautiful white petals to go with the slight variegation.