Sey .... I have grown most on your planted to date list. I see you have a mystery black. I have one as well that I call Obviously Not Green Zebra. Mine is a large beefsteak that showed up in a dedicated Green Zebra Bed. It looks similar to Paul Robeson and the taste was fantastic. I forgot about that one when I was making my 2017 list and your Mystery reference jogged my memory. I've got some pictures somewhere that I will try to post. I've also got a F2 I call Awesome Purple Heart. One day last summer, my DH brought me a couple of heart shaped fruit but he couldn't remember which bed/plant he got them from. I did not intentionally grow any hearts last year. I grew 46 varieties last year and to date have been unable to figure it out. So I ate one (excellent) and saved the seeds from the other. I will be attempting to grow out at least 4 of these this year .... we'll see what I get. "Sun Gold @ 3.5 days." That's quick. Have grown it side-by-side with Sun Sugar the last 2 years. As you know, both are excellent. They grow into quite the jungle for me; exceeding the limits of large texas tomato cages w/extensions. Shell

Barrie --- if I recall correctly you have a greenhouse the size of a football field. We have small footage with enough sunlight (too many shade trees in our backyard) where we can grow about 20 tomato plants. So our experience is limited only for the 1 plant of each variety. This year we nixed eggplants and pole beans to fit in 30 varieties --- so, we can choose the most tasty AND disease resistant with great production for next year. As a home grower I can only comment on the ones that will work for us. High humidly (nearly every night it's 99% in the summer), high temps, lots of rain bring in lots of diseases (early blight, gray mold and the worst -- Leaf Spot later on...we are expecting any day for the thrips to arrive, bringing in Septoria, with copper spray ready in hand...LOL) forces us to make hard choices. So far we tasted the following similar to Brandy Boy (still awaiting Brandywine Sudduth, Mrs. Maxwell's Big Italian and Prudence Purple to ripen) in order of best tasting: Rose --- soft, nice flavor, juicy, on the sweet side. Stump of the World --- soft, good overall taste on the sweet side. Chapman --- soft, juicy, not an impressionable taste. Brandy Boy beats them all in taste (love the tangy flavor) !!! Tony p.s. Think Pink actually tastes better (although on the sweet side) than Rose, Stump, Chapman --- and has incredible disease resistance (VFFNT) and is very productive for us. http://www.tomatogrowers.com/THINK-PINK-VFFNT-HYBRID/productinfo/5192/

Amy, Tim and I were joking that the single red branch might be turning red because it is dying. I don't think we're right about that, but I have pondered why only one branch has leaves that have changed color. I do see quite a bit of red poison ivy in the trees along fence lines when I walk the dogs. I don't care if it is poison ivy (not our property, not our problem), I love seeing the red foliage. Seriously, though, on trees whose leaves turn red, those trees need the specific combination of cool nights and bright sunny days to make red leaves, and some years we don't get that combination so we don't get much red foliage. When one branch or one part of a tree turns red and the rest doesn't, scientists believe that the part turning red first just happens to have the perfect microclimate. I am not sure I buy that explanation. Why one limb on a tree that's 30' or 40' tall? Why not 2 or 3 limbs or 6 or 10? (sigh) Mother Nature has many mysteries we really do not understand. Today we went to the CostCo in Southlake, TX, because I wanted to go to Central Market just up the road a bit after that. I'd forgotten how gorgeous that specific CostCo's landscaping is. You can tell their landscape architect must have specified trees that have good autumn color because most of the trees planted in the parking lot medians have great autumn color already---mostly Chinese pistache is what is red there right now, but also some sort of cypress trees, sweetgum and maybe some Shumard red oaks (that aren't red yet) along the perimeter. I was looking at the pistache trees today and loving their foliage and red berries. Why haven't I planted Chinese pistache here? I'm going to plant 2 or 3 next spring. Amy, I still have a lot of Red Creoles that haven't sprouted yet. Also, Copra, Highlander and Red River. Those are the Dixondale varieties that store the longest for me. That's how I get in trouble, by the way, with planting too many---picking all those long keeping varieties means I have a lot to plant in order to have a lot to store---and then we have more than we can eat fresh even after I've made tons of salsa and chopped/frozen tons more. I need to have more discipline and pick just one long keeping type each year instead of several. I think Nelson is getting scarce because a lot of places sold out of it in 2017. I think Jung still had it the last time I was looking at seeds on their webpage. Who knows if the sellers that sold out in 2017 will have it again for 2018. It could be that there was a crop failure at the seed production level since many of the USA retailers all buy their seed through the same big wholesalers, who in turn buy their seed from overseas producers. Nancy, George (MacMex) lives near Tahlequah and he posted a photo on his FB page of a cabbage covered in frost (cabbage is fine) this morning and said the low there was 25 degrees, so he must have gotten some of your cold if your garden escaped relatively undamaged. Maybe the cold didn't make it quite to your place last night. We're supposed to be about 5 degrees warmer tonight that we were last night. We'll see. Rebecca, My garden is toast. It is okay, but I will miss the Lima beans our big lush plants would have been producing for about another month. I thought about covering them up, but the trellis is 6' tall and about 25' long and I didn't want to wrestle with getting row cover over that trellis and weighed down along the egdes in yesterday's wind. I hope giving your back some extra rest today is helping it, and the fact that OSU won couldn't hurt any. We had the game on the radio while we were out running errands and doing grocery shopping. You're like me. No matter how many seeds and containers you have, you always need more. It is a peculiar affliction we gardeners have, of always "needing" more. lol. I'll tell you what makes me feel old---my nephew has a 14 year old stepdaughter!!!! Yikes. I am not sure how that happened. I believe her mom was very young when she had her, but still......it seems like the nieces and nephews themselves were graduating from high school just a few years ago (been more than a decade though, even for the youngest one) and now one of them has a stepdaughter in high school this year. That sort of freaks me out. However, the rest of my nieces and nephews' kids range from newborn to about 10 years old, so they're all ages. Still, I do feel old age creeping up on me. Jacob, That pepper plant really is a champ, or is in a perfect microclimate. I miss the green already. Everything here has gone the color of wheat except for the tree foliage. I cannot believe the difference in how everything looks now compared to just a few days ago. Rebecca, There you go, you enabler you! Go, girl, go! If you and I are going to have far too many seeds (and you know that we do, and probably Amy too), then everyone else needs to have far too many seeds as well. Perversely, not that my garden is frozen, I want to plant something. I probably won't though. Maybe I'll sow some lettuce seeds indoors. It was nice today to walk wherever I wanted and to not have to watch out for snakes beneath my feet. If we have any days that go back up into the 70s/80s, I will have to watch. They don't necessarily go down for the count after the first freeze, and will continue to be out now and then either hunting for food or capturing heat by lying on concrete until we get good and cold and stay there. I'm watching TCU play Iowa State right now, and TCU has not had the lead yet in this game. I'm wondering if ISU is going to pull off another upset and beat the #4 team in the country. It could happen. I hope it doesn't. Dawn

I plan to cut back in 2019 by 50% to allocate more raised bed space for pepper production. My 2019 grow list is as follows: Amazon Chocolate Black Magic Bolseno Brad's Atomic Grape* Brunete Captain Lucky Cherry Bomb Clear Lake Heirloom Couilles De Taureau (Heuvos de Toro) Dora Druzba* (Overall best of 2018) Esterina Fabulous Dark Cherry V* George Detsika's Italian Red Gordo de Pantones* Grandma Oliver's Chocolate* Iva's Red Berry Lithuanian McMurray #10* Mikado Chernyi Missouri Pink Love Apple Monroe* (Trying this one again) Moravsky Div Northern Lights Oregon Spring Pale Perfect Purple Seek No Further Love Apple Stupice Sunpeach SuperNova Unknown Mexican Market Black F2 (Black w/Green Shoulders) *Invited back from 2018 2018 Review AAA Sweet Solano - Fair, would grow again Aunt Lou's Underground Railroad - Low production Big Orange V - Good, would grow again BKX/Prairie Star - Grew out as Prairie Star - Low Production Black Bear - Good, would grow again Black Early X PBTD - Very Nice, would grow again, good looking fruit Black Giant - Low Production Blackberry - Low Production Blackstar - Low production Bosanski Stari - Very nice red, would grow again Brad's Atomic Grape - Very Nice, big seller, good production Buffalo Soldier - Low production Bulgarian #7 - Moderate production, great taste, would grow again Bulgarian Old Sort (No Name) - Moderate production, great taste, would grown again Butter 'n Eggs - Mellow, great production, not a big fan Calabacito Rojo - Little ruffled tomatoes, not a big fan Druzba - Great production and taste, overall #1 for 2018 Dwarf Arctic Rose - Did not do well for me Dwarf Iditarod Red - Did not do well for me Early Glee - Nice, good production, would grow again Fabulous Dark Cherry V - My best cherry for 2018 Faelan's First Snow - Moderate production, great taste, would grow again Forest Fire - Super early, decent production, I wish I would have planted more German Johnson Benton Strain - Fruit sizes and shapes all over the map Gordo de Pantones - Huge and tasty red beefsteaks, very nice and would grow again, one of my 2018 top performers Grandma Oliver's Chocolate - Probably my best black for 2018 Indian Moon - Not a big fan Lime Green Salad - Had several plants that produced a few tasty fruits Maglia Rosa - OK, would grow again Matsu Express - Fruit sizes and shapes all over the map McGee - Good, would grow again McKinley - Nice large pink beefsteak, would grow again. Top 5 for 2018 McMurray #10 - Another large pink beefsteak, would grow again. Another Top 5 for 2018. Medovaya Kaplya - OK but was expecting more Milka's Red Bulgarian - Decent, would grow again Monroe - Moderate production, pretty good, plant succumb to disease early. Would like to try again. Morado de Fitero - Great, would grow again. Moruno Anta - Another good one, top 10 for sure Moruno de Madrid - Low production Napa Giant - No production Negrillo de Almoguera - #2 black for 2018 Negro de Cuenca - Nice red, would grow again Orange Cream - Did not do well Our Own Pink - A very beautiful and large PL plant, low to moderate production, few but great tasting fruits, would grow again Perth Pride - Did not do well Pink Pioneer - Great, ranked right up there with McKinley and McMurray #10 Reverend Michael Keyes - Decent, still in search of good red cherry Rosella Purple - Did not do well Scary Larry - Would grow again, good production Spike - Would grow again, good production Summer Cider - Low production but sooooo good Sweet Ozark Orange - Another one with low production but great taste Tasmanian Chocolate - My best dwarf Texas Star - Low production Vorlon - Good production, decent taste, #3 of my 2018 blacks Wherokowhai - No production Shell