What hasn't been mentioned here is that those of you who buy seeds or receive them in a trade usually have no idea of what the seed age is, and all things being equal as to how you sow your seeds in what artificial mix, when and how you transplant them after they have 1-2 true leaves, what you transplant them to, how you grow them on, any amendment used, etc. there WILL be differences in germination percentages, count on it, based on seed age alone. One example. I used to make seed offers here at GW and offered several hundred varieties at a time. And I asked for feedback on germination percentages. These were my own saved seeds so I knew exactly what year the seed was produced. Well I remember that I made a seed offer here in late Fall of 2004 and I was offering seeds with ages from 1995 and up, having offered seeds from 1991 to 1994 in a previous seed offer. Let's say variety X was offered, seed fresh from the summer of 2004 and germinated the very next Spring. For a single variety I got back reports where folks got from 100% germination down to zero, that's right, zero germination, with most being in the 80-90% range. Which says that if 10 folks sow seeds of the same variety from the same supplier with the same packed for date, or even known seed age, there could be a HUGE range of results. And the packed for date only tells you when the seeds were packed, not when they were produced. The only place I know of where ALL tomato seeds sold are less than 2 yo is Sandhill Preservation. Seeds being sold by commercial places will have different seed ages for different varieties as they rotate out and replace seed as needed and some but not all places do germination tests before they sell the seeds. So I agree with the others who have posted about the fact that there's no way to know how many seeds will germinate or how many will grow into great plants in the garden and bear well. But when it comes to seed starting I tend to agree with Randy that you should oversow. He says 4 seeds to get one good seedling, and I agree. I usually sow 5 seeds for each variety to get two good plants to the garden. There are just so many variables that enter into all of this that it makes no sense to me to skimp on how many seeds/variety one sows. Is oversowing, as some define it, wasteful? I dunno, I don't 'think so as all of us sit in front of our not cheap computers with added software, etc, and spend on this and that,etc., but do have priorities when it comes to how we spend our money. I don't buy tomato seed b'c it comes to me, and I won't trade tomato seed either, except for certain situations, but I know, knowing me, that oversowing a few seeds for anything I don't consider to be wasteful and that's because gardening is my life and my love. And if it's considered wasteful to use more seeds than some think necessary then save your own seeds. Go to the top of this first page, click on the FAQ link and scroll down to the excellent article on how to prevent Cross pollination. Whether it's a waste of money to try and ensure that you have enough good transplants to set out that you hope the critters and diseases and all else don't get them is, I think, a decision that each person has to make depending on what their goals and expectations are for growing tomatoes. Carolyn, who gulps at the prices of some seeds these days but she wants her Savor F1 melons and will pay the price. She does think that some sources for tomato seed have prices she would never ever pay, as in too expensive, and here I speak of OP, not F1 hybrid varieties, but again,it really is a personal choice what one pays for seeds/plants of anything. And a personal choice as to how many seeds of anything are to be planted. With experience some of these questions are answered, so it pays to get older and wiser re gardening in terms of experience. Yes, I'm on the downside of the life cycle, but still hanging in there.LOL

Sure. I have my records from last year, and I think the year before was similar. I took cuttings from unbranched new growth at the branch ends the third week of June (about 6 to 8 inch lengths). I removed the leaves from the bottom half, cut the top 1/4 inch or so off (very new growth - tends to wilt even in high humidity) recut the bottoms just below a node to produce cuttings about 5 inches long, and dipped the cuttings in rooting hormone powder and shook off the excess. I stuck them in 5-1-1 mix (a bark based mix - see the container gardening forum for info) and firmed them in well. I put a humidity dome over the tray (cuttings were stuck in cell trays in flats) and put the dome under a 2 foot T5HO strip light (one bulb, 24 watts). The light was a couple inches above the 4 inch tall dome. The light was left on 24 hours a day. I left two vents in the dome open just a hair for some ventilation, and removed the dome twice per day (for just a minute or two) in order to hand mist with a spray bottle. Success was 0%. Cuttings of other plants (none particularly hard to root, admittedly) with the same method/environment had success rates closer to 80% - 100%. This year is similar to above, except the finished cuttings are closer to 6 inches, they were taken the first week of June, instead of rooting powder I did a 4-5 second dip in 20x diluted Dip n' Grow, and instead of a humidity dome they are under fog with root zone temperature maintained at 77° by bottom heat. Also, instead of the fluorescent light they are under a COB LED (5000K) set at 24 inches above the cuttings to produce about 200 PPFD (also left on for 24 hours).

Glad I found this article as I think I can really help as I have the exact opposite problems, severe Gulf Coast Sand. 1st, you get enough light, dappled light deep in the south is good. Direct sunlight down here just fries stuff. The problems your having are drainage related. Vine ripening vegtables "think tomatoe is more of a semi perinneal vegtable myself more so than a fruit", have a harder time without the light. You have that white swamp clay but it is usually VERY nutrient dense. Usually you need to figure out how to make that soluable to plants. How deep have you dug? I am guessing that 2 1/2 foot down you have a hardpan of clay, so the water doesn't really run off but its more like a swimming pool and that is likely 99% of your problem, but again its just a theoretical guess without being able to dig. The use of double wide "plantings back up to each other and a slightly wider path" traditional rows is every bit as effective as the new raised bed craze. I've done every kind of bed you can think of, I have reversed double wide rows where you plant on the low point to retain moisture because of wind/sandy soil. You should consider planting water loving vegtables and could probably really excel at winter vegtables like purple top, radishes, brussel sprouts, cabbage, lettuce, onion, leeks, etc. You would have a hard time with carrots, garlic, deep roots and or meteraniean climate. I also want to say what have you tried to grow. Tomatoes should never be the standard of a garden in the south. Ex I grow some tomatoes and they do well minus our infestations of hornworms "when they come its not worth the fight, but I let them eat "kill them manually", then what I did this week right before August is cut the tomatoe down to the base rather than pull because of the root structure. I've already gotten spring tomatoes but the tomatoes are already about 2 foot after looking like crap the last two months. I would rather have your soil than mine to boot, yes you heard that correctly. I might as well be in Arizona with salt spray off the Gulf. So you adapt, palms, kale, radishes, turnips, cover crops, sugarcane, peppers, lemongrass, in areas where I get bay salinity flooding. Yous should think of the oppostie, what needs H20. DON"T ADD SAND, you would likely make concrete, in fact if your thinking about that, try a very small spot like 2x2 first. ALWAYS do that when considering extreme measures. Mulch won't help you much because it will just keep stuff cool/damp/wet. I almost NEVER say that. I would try pontomac and a couple other Potatoe varities but I have NO doubt you would EXCEL at growing sweet potatoes because you can root the shoots in water. They grow in straight water like 10x faster than in ground. You seem to be on the right track of trying to get things many gardeners recommend like "just add compost bull and everything is okay". You don't likely need much fertilizer as clay soils tend to pack a lot". I would like to finish with use nature against nature. Change your thinking a little bit from the traditional corn and tomatoe, and think why not take advantage of the nutrients and saturated soil to have a semi hydroponic garden in your backyard. There is a guy on ebay right now selling purple sweet potatoe slips, you can get white, beaureguard, etc. and try out jerusalem artichoke. Again I think you might excel with potatoes and they may suck up some of that h20. we plant them alongside ponds in the country for fdeer plots and for us. Best of luck.

I use a faked name and faked birthday in Facebook to protect my privacy. Lots of benefits with Facebook Groups: loading pics. is super-fast & easy, versus real pain & extremely-time-consuming to load pics. in Houzz. Folks load like 20+ pics. at once in Facebook in a few minutes, which would take the entire day in Houzz. If my computer wipes out any pics, I can retrieve them if I posted in Facebook, but I CANNOT RETRIEVE THE OLD PICS. THAT I POSTED IN HOUZZ. Houzz does not allow copying any pics. posted in Houzz, EVEN IF THEY ARE MY OWN PICTURES. In my personal profile in Facebook, I posted pics. and set them to ONLY I CAN SEE, or FOR FRIENDS TO SEE, or to PUBLIC. So my pics. are protected & stored in privacy on Facebook and I can retrieve them later, even if my computer crashed and I forgot to do a backup. With Houzz, whatever pic. you post is Houzz's property, and NOT yours to retrieve later if your computer got wiped out. It's easy to search for any topics in Facebook, and you don't get Houzz-written-stuff. I quit Houzz since I always post links for reference, and Houzz deleted the ENTIRE THREAD (with other posters' comments), just because there's a link to Amazon to buy THE CORRECT SULFATE OF POTASH. Houzz does not tolerate any commercial link, even if it's beneficial for the public. I tested Azomite twice, it's mostly calcium plus many trace minerals, but IT'S FAR SUPERIOR TO LIME. There are many trace elements in Azomite that promote FAST growth, and absorption of calcium is best IN CONJUNCTION with other trace elements. Marie Pavie doubled in size, same with other roses (more leaves in late fall). YES to Kelp. Nothing can give roses deep colors, including dark-green leaves like kelp. The famous rosarian, Kitty Belendez, posted the best pics. of roses in HMF. She has alkaline sandy soil in CA, and uses Kelp in her SOLUBLE fertilizer. YES to blackstrap Molasses (higher potassium than regular molasses). Dr. Rudolph Ballentine says that, “Since it is a concentrated residue, molasses contains significant quantities of minerals such as iron, a fair amount of calcium and generous quantities of trace elements such as zinc, copper, and chromium.” NO to alfalfa tea if you have tons of rain. Rain is acidic at pH 5.3 in CA, and even more acidic at 4 in the east coast. pH or rain in my Chicago sub. is 4.5. See the map below of pH of rain across USA. Alfalfa tea is VERY ACIDIC after 3 days. It's useful for VERY ALKALINE region, no rain, but DAMAGE roses for high-rain months. Pickled veggies, or Kimchi, gets sour within a few days (even with salt to slow down the souring). Making alfalfa tea is like pouring diluted vinegar on your roses. I wilted plenty of roses in hot summer when I fixed my pH 9 alkaline tap with vinegar. They also break out in blackspots immediately even in hot & dry weather. Think about how lettuce gets wilted if you pour vinegar-dressing on it. I tested alfalfa tea and roses WERE NOT perky nor healthy. Houzz makes it impossible to search for any topics, such as "Your top 5 roses", or "blackspots and alfalfa". Houzz's goal is to promote their stuff, rather than help in searching for truth. In the good old days of easy search in Gardenweb, I checked on alfalfa tea, and 2 other people REPORTED black spots on roses when they doused roses with alfalfa tea. Rain is acidic enough, there's no need to make sour alfalfa tea, and the nutrients in alfalfa tea is very low, like 2-1-2. My grass clippings have higher nutrients at 4-1-1. For roses to be healthy, the potassium needs to be at least 10 for disease prevention. Potassium is LESS AVAILABLE at pH BELOW 6, like alfalfa tea or acidic rain. To prevent diseases prior to rainy month, I top roses with horse manure (pH 8) with lime & potassium & many trace elements, esp. anti-fungal elements of copper, zinc, and boron. Molybdenum is essential for nitrogen uptake and re-growth of leaves, and IS LESS AVAILABLE when pH is below 6. Click on pic. below to enlarge to see pH of rain across USA: