Good to know malna, being not far from me. I really should try a paste. I just try every oxheart i can, and keep making room for more every year. Our favorites and does well for fresh eating. Not high yield but the best flavor. I'm tending my neighbors yard and garden while in Italy and he only grows paste. For a scruffy little garden, third year, he has a good looking tomato crop i noticed while zipping past on my mowing tractor hog. (i might be a bit jealous?) I'll look closer on Saturday... To make 'paste', and much tastier than a purchased tin, just take a qrt of your sauce and spread it out on a 1/2 sheet pan or wide casserole and slow roast in the oven. Aprox 220 for one or two hours. All you are doing is slowly removing moisture to concentrate the flavor. Freeze in ice cube trays and toss in a zip-lock. One cube adds lovely flavor to winter soups and chowders. I process tomatoes a dozen different ways come harvest time. I get a hundred lbs or so of field grown from a friends farm and make sauce with that...and why i grow so many different varieties in my garden. I've been testing for my area for some time now and why my local nursery offers so many different oxheart starts. To the op DeSpain... Don't kick this variety off your roster for next year. Every season has different weather conditions/soil amendments, etc. But do try other varieties and seek out other tomato growers in your area to compare successes. A local farmers market or CSA or neighbor.

beekeeperswife, just wondering if you published your article and might share it with us? Also, reporting back on my experience with the designer, it has been quite discouraging. While I expected that we might butt heads on the style of some of the selections, I was hoping to get helpful input on the size/scale of pieces. However, when I went to mock up what the designers proposed I realized it doesn't work from a functional standpoint -- not only does their plan ignore the architecture of the room but it also would place obstacles in access paths that need to be kept clear. Oh well -- a learning experience for sure.

Here I was thinking that all ppl knew gardeners were awesome individuals. I somehow figured surely everyone had that one house that had a magical garden that you couldn't wait to walk past and get all the luscious scents that spewed out of it - I guess I'm the only one in my neighborhood that promised to have a beautiful garden around my house. after seeing your posts/responses I now realize I just received my badge of honor, I a real gardener now. my gran who lives in Gary told me her neighbors gave her tons of crap about her chicken coop and often called her names, so she went out and got a rooster..I remember the 4th of July someone thru cherry bombs over the fence, it killed my grandads dog, none of the birds were hurt. she got rid of them after a while, she told me she regretted it to this day. i had always thought it the firecrackers were an accident..she said the chickens were gone bc they were too loud. I loved taking out table scraps to the dog and giving the chickens their feed when I'd spend a night. being out with her in the garden wasn't the same without the chickens. Long story short she told me to grow more and be weirder and don't stop or I'll end up old and bitter with regrets bc I let other ppl live my life. silly me for letting something so small get to me, just couldn't believe there are some ppl that don't see the beauty that comes out of gardening. I won't stop, ever! my husband said this is the happiest he's ever seen me. when we met he asked me what I wanted and one of those things was a house with a yard big enough for a garden - I have it now, I won't stop. anddddd...I'm going to give those jokers a bouquet of flowers and some of my veggies like I said I would. maybe they'll see some of the beauty in it..

I've had nothing but great things to say about Annie's Annuals, but something that happened recently has soured me a tiny bit. Among many other plants I ordered from them this spring were three Cobaea scandens, Cup and Saucer Vine, plants. One was a bit on the limp side upon arrival, but there was nothing alarming about it; I'm a very experienced gardener, and I assumed I would be able to get it to bounce back. I planted all three, along with everything else, and waited. Within a few weeks two of the Cup and Saucer plants were dying, and the third wasn't looking good. All other plants in the same soil/light/water were thriving. I did all I could to get them to rebound, but they didn't; they all died. I contacted Annie's to see about getting replacements. I have to point out here that I've only been buying from Annie's since 2013 (I think!). I had read rave reviews about them online, so all along I guess I assumed that their guarantee would be like Bluestone's. I've been ordering from Bluestone Perennials for so long, more than 20 years, that it predates their web site! In those 20+ years I can only recall two times that I made use of their guarantee--which is an unconditional, 100% satisfaction guarantee, no time limit. So twice in 20+ years--it's not like I abuse it. Well, I didn't read Annie's guarantee, http://www.anniesannuals.com/mailorder-info : "We will gladly issue a store credit or refund for the original purchase price of plants if they arrive damaged or fail to thrive within 30 days of receipt. Please report damaged plants and merchandise within 48 hours of receipt." By the time I contacted Annie's, it was WELL PAST the 30 days. The person I spoke to told me about the 30 day thing, and offered to replace the plants if I paid their shipping, and I agreed. The replacements arrived a few days later, and I put them in the ground...and all but one died! In other words, for this one variety of plant, I ended up losing 5 out of 6--a new record for me! I cannot recall EVER having so many of one plant die like that. I don't have any idea why they died; there was nothing remarkable about their demise, they just started turning brown at their base and that spread until encompassing the entire plant. The ONE plant that survived is doing GREAT! Its vines are about 3' long now, happily climbing up a fence. So I'm somewhat disappointed for two reasons, 1) their very limited guarantee, which doesn't allow sufficient time to see if a plant is going to thrive, and, 2) that 5 out of 6 of one plant variety died. I'll still order from them, but perhaps less enthusiastically. I think I'll return to using Bluestone as my primary source.