Thanks guys, no I did not supercrop. In fact, I did prune off the suckers ... later I found out that I should NOT have done that. It will severely hurt your yield they say. However, the plants are much bigger then the previous photos and are setting fruit quite nicely. Ill try to get some pics posted tonight. Also, my green pepper plants have sprouted, along with a pretty purple pepper plant, and a beefmaster indeterimante tomato plant. My basil is growing great, and I have been topping the basil which is in turn responding nicely and starting to grow "tops". My lettuce is like a wildfire as well .. fun stuff! Now that I got my newbie mistakes out of the way I think Im ready to rock on the next grow ;) I need to take a few clones of these totem hybrids though, I really like them. I think my next grow however, will be an INDETERMINANT cherry type tomato plant, and an indeterminant slicer variety as well, along with a few green peppers, lettuce, and spinach. Then I want to try a blueberry bush and some strawberries. I dont think the blueberries will be any problem but the strawberries are a different matter. In trying to find a continously producing line. The june bearers only fruit once a year, and then theres a seasonal variety that fruit twice a year.... neither will fit my requirements. I think I need to go with a day neutral variety to get a continous fuit production for the life of the plant??

I live by Lawton. Some of us are looking for some sweet potato slips. Do you still sell any? If so I would like to buy some, what would be the best to grow down here? Sandy soil.

Across much of the nation many gardeners have been experiencing slower growth and later ripening because of weather, a lot of us had a colder, wetter spring than normal followed almost immediately by very hot weather. Yellowed leaves can be from a number of problems such as nutrient deficiencies, over watering, disease, lack of sunlight, or just plain old aging. To be able to suggest what might be wrong with your plants, it would be helpful to know more about the environment it is in. So, here are the "usual" questions: Have you checked the moisture of the growing medium or soil 3-5" below the surface? Is it dry, just right, or soggy? Have you had a soil test? Are you feeding the plants? How often? What are the NPK values of any fertilizers you are using to feed them? What has the weather been like in your area? Have you used any amendments? Do you mulch? If so, with what and how much (how deep)? Are there any other plants near the problem plants, if so, do the neighboring plants have problems? Can you post pictures? The more information you can give us, the better the chances that someone can give you an accurate diagnosis. Betsy

If you saved seeds from a hybrid tomato and planted them, would the resulting plants be one or the other of the two parents? (Let's keep it simple by not having more than that.) Or could you come up with an entirely different tomato not like the hybrid and not like either parent? **** If you planted the saved F2 seeds from a known hybrid you wouldn't really get plants that resemble either parent genetically. You're assuming that there are only two parents and that was true with some of the earliest hybrids bred but is not true for more modern hybrids where there are two breeding lines, both OP, that lead to the creation of the final hybrid and each line can have up to maybe 4 genetic inputs. YEs, some have tried dehybridizing a known heirloom and I did it with Ramapo F1 , which is one of the earlier hybrids that has only two parents, and others have done it with Sungold F1 and Big Boy and Dona and others. I tried to dehybridize Big Boy but only to get out the one parent, Teddy Jones, a large pink heirloom from the midwest, and Dr. Oved Schifriss, who bred Big Boy, told me that I'd be lucky to get out only about 80% of the genes for Teddy Jones. (I've read threads where people are enthusiastically "dehybridizing" tomatoes and have wondered if the aim is to grow one or the other parent or rather a new plant altogether. I've been unable to understand what the goal is. Tomato Fest has seeds of a dehybridized Big Beef that seems to have most of the BB characteristics but is OP. It's just not clear to me if it's a "new tomato" or just one of the BB parents.) Since one can never get out 100% of the genes of any known hybrid such as Big Beef, you can only assume it has most of the traits of the original hybrid by growing both and comparing. The goal in dehybridizing known hybrids is to get an OP version that resembles the original OP so that hybrid seeds don't have to be bought. Another goal for just a few folks is tog et out just one parent, but I don't know of others who have tried that other than myself with Big Boy and Teddy Jones, although there must be others who have their own projects. The other situation is where quite a few folks now are doing their own crosses, creating hybrids and then dehybridizing those to look for interesting plants/fruits in the F2 and F3 generations, making selections, and then continuing to grow out and make selections to get an OP derivative that's genetically stable in that all seeds planted give the same plants/fruits. There are also those situations where an accidental cross has occurred to create a hybrid and sometimes folks save the F2 seeds, etc., and plant out just to see what they get. So any OP version of a known hybrid doesn't usually have all the genes that the original hybrid had. I'm linking to the website of Keith, who posts here so you can read about dehybridization and how long it would take to get nearer and nearer to 100% of the genes back. I should live so long. LOL From the home page click on CULTURE and then select what you want from the other links shown. An excellent explanation of making crosses, dehybridizing by making selections, etc. Does that answer most of your questions? Carolyn Here is a link that might be useful: Online Tomato Vine