"Colorado Seed Co" says Rio Grande is a popular variety in Europe that is very prolific, and they call it Rio Grande in Europe and Roma Grande here, if that isn't a typo. A US reviewer, Sarah, on the Franchi seed site calls Rio Grande semi-determinate and someone in another community says it kept yielding cluster after cluster right till frost. Roma Grande in a Pennsylvania trial last year was the #1 paste tomatoes for production and #5 for flavor. The grower in charge of the trial mentions the package was available as Burpee seeds in Lowes but not in the online catalog. I bet that is the study you reference since the 31.1 pound/plant yield is there, except it was 24 plants, not 17 as you mentioned. Also, The package of tomatoes was part (1/5 packs of seeds) of the now discontinued Burpee Bamboo salsa kit. Cook's Garden seeds according to an Uncle Wayne else called Roma Grande an OP indeterminate. I bet if you contacted Franchi, Cook's or Colorado you would get your answers as to your cultivar, and it wouldn't surprise me if someting dumb happened, like Burpee not identifying the paste tomato in its kit with the real name, so it wouldn't be seen as an endorsement as being a favorite LOL Maybe they just buy a little from someone like Franchi and rebrand it under the table, since people in many big marketing departments tend to be more concerned with ... marketing. Here is a link that might be useful: Roma (Rio) Grande

Hi Fire duck. I know quite a few early tomatoes That I grew last year: 1- Siletz (OSU)., RL, Det: Fruit siize ~ 5 oz. Taste good. It was one of the two early ones last year. 2- Bloody Butcher:: PL, Indet: fruit size ~ 1 oz: Taste v.good; It Was neck and neck with Siletz.Both had DTM of about 70 days in my climate. 3- Matina, PL, Indet, fruit size about 2oz. Taste very good. DTM ~~ 80 days. It got mold diseases, That is the reason for dropping it. 4- Legend (OSU), RL, Det: Fruit size ~ 8 oz. Taste OK, not too great I am growing Siletz BECAUSE it is early and its fruits are larger. and it is compact. I am also growing Legend BECAUSE it is compact (det), disease resistant, good fruits size.. NEW this year: Druzba , Willamette (OSU, Det) , Rio Grande (Roma type, det) and Fourth of July. Druzba has great reviews. 4th of July, is average. Rio Grande has good reviews. 5- Last year I also grew Stupice (PL, Indet ) . Didn't like it. The fruits were too small and it was not that early. Now I know there are 4 strains of Stupice. That figures. So I can recommend : Siletz, Bloody Butcher, Matina, Druzba, Ri Grande. I am growing over 20 new varieties this season, after extensive search. Some of them might be early too but I don't know for sure yet. BTW: There is another early one with good reviews : Kimberly. But I have not grown it. Stay tuned for more recommendations. Dave knows quite many of them. Sey

regarding W/D in the home gym.... If you do that, then you have forever relegated that room to a laundry room. It becomes a very large laundry that is used as a gym. IMHO, I don't think a very large laundry will be a selling point. I would rather have a multipurpose room that can used for many different things. If you keep the home gym as a multipurpose generic room, then it can be used as a guest bedroom, kids playroom etc etc as your life changes. However, if you are willing to give up the bedroom, it solves the issue of your powder room where the guest is not walking through the laundry area. In general, it is nice to be able to direct the guests to the powder room which is NOT a personal bathroom. If you direct the guests to the hall bath, that is in the private area. My guess is that you want a useful/nicer powder room for the guests to use. When you remodel, you think you solved one problem, you notice another problem! I would work the floor plan more so that you have a really nice inviting 1/2 bath with better doors in that hallway. You are already doing an enormous amount of work. This will not add that much to the work. At this point, it is just your time....

Pudgeder, I've heard it said that everything in the desert is designed to kill you, or at least poke, stab, impale, scrape, or poison you. It's a beautiful kind of deadliness though, and so true that there is more life than most people realize in that environment. Oh, Jinx -- I wish I had seen them! How beautiful they are! We saw a pair of coyotes on two different mornings, both at around the same place on the road near our accommodation. No way to know, of course, if it was the same two, but they were smallish and could very well have just been making the rounds in their territory. I think they're fascinating animals! Amy, we plan to return this coming spring, for the explicit purpose of seeing the desert in bloom. I'm so excited! I might even take my good camera along this next time.