I think I found the answer to my first question on the Fedco Seeds site: "Be My Baby Gene Pool Cherry Tomato OG (65 days) Open-pollinated. Ind. This productive cherry is the ongoing result of a cross of three famous tomatoes: an heirloom potato-leaf beefsteak and two cherries, one orange and one red. The crossing and selection process began in 1997. Although it was selected for a red cherry with regular tomato foliage, a few plants will still be potato-leaved. Rogue them out because their flavor is not as desirable as the rest. The grape tomato in its background lends a rich sweet flavor somewhat akin to that of Sweet Baby Girl, which it replaced. Bred by Relentless. 2007. OT, CO-certified." I still don't know if a large tomato can result from crosses involving cherries. Jim

BenJoe, if you cross Big Beefsteak Tomato "A" with Cherry Tomato "B" you will get an F1 tomato approximately equal in size to the square root of A x B.

I ended up with a cherry fort - not a maze. The signif other decided to downsize the whole deal... so I ended up with a 10 X 10 area. We were starting with lawn... So I planted a tomato every 6-8 inches. I know inches... I put in: Gajo De Melon Suncherry red star sungold green doctors zebra cherry black cherry snow white Riesentraube OSU Blue Oh heavens, I'll have to go home and check again... there were others... I got a lot of people who wanted to donate seed, so I took them up on them and added them to the 'fort'. I have to take recent pictures, but this is what it looked like early on. I haven't been gung-ho on documenting this because I didn't want to document a complete failure if it happened... :) Then I went back to the original farm (without my camera) this weekend and they have extended their tomato maze - lots more varieties and much bigger this year... I will bring the camera next time I go. Again they told the kids "come back with your basket and belly full." SO cute and SO gets them excited about gardening. I want that!!! I'll take pictures tonight and post them tonight or tomorrow.

" potting mixes ARE a dead medium in the near term." That's an extremely general statement my friend, as there are plenty of living potting mixes available. Here are just a few: Light Warrior Ocean Forest Promix .. Also, the simple addition of compost livens the mix darn near immediately (but do keep in mind that composts vary greatly in terms of diversity and life).. Compost tea will also inoculate the entire medium by the time the run off ceases. What we're seeing here is most likely not a nutrient issue and more likely relates to PH, water or container size (it looks very small and should be potted up into at least a 10 gal container)..It'd be helpful to have more info in terms of container size, watering regimen etc.. As I said in my previous comment, it's always best to let a homemade organic soil "cook" for a few weeks; breaking down dry fertilizers, lime/sulfur etc before adding the plants. The reason being is that some nutrients will be unavailable and the soil chemistry (PH, Temperature) will be unstable as the microbe population surges and begins to break everything down. Teehowe, if it were me I surely would NOT fertilize. Simply remove the damaged growth and just keep an eye on things to be sure that new growth remains strong. The plant has healthy coloration and isn't lacking food - IMO of course. Moving forward though it wouldn't hurt to give it a biweekly drench of hydrolyzed fish and liquid kelp. On a side note: The common argument concerning organic fertilizers is that they don't break down fast enough.. This is a misconception. There are many organic materials that are immediately available and even risk burn if applied too heavily, for instance: Bat Guano 10-3-1 (can burn) High N Bat Guano 3-10-1 (can burn) High P - although the P is quickly tied up and best released with mycorrhizal fungi Blood Meal 12-0-0 (can burn) Bone Meal 3-15-0 (can burn) Chilean Nitrate 16-0-0 Hydrolyzed Fish 4-2-2 (can burn - but not too easily) Liquid Kelp 1-0-4 Sulfate of Potash 0-0-50 - Yes, 50.. although NPK's vary, and some don't consider it organic due to the fact that it adds no structure or bulk to the soil. Very fast acting.. There are more but those are a few just to prove the point..