Tom you are not that much newer than I. I can only tell you what I'm doing. My recently potted trees in 1 gallon pots have a front row seat on a window sill that I open the shade to every morning. Behind those are the ones in cups that are just about ready to pot up. They receive whatever light passes the ones in the front, so basically they are in filtered light. When the newly rooted cuttings with leaves strong enough to have the greenhouse (tote box)cover lifted all day long without suffering any problems, I move them to the window sill (back row) where they get light but no direct sun. I put a cup with the bottom cut out over them to shelter them a few days and then start removing that. It breaks drafts caused by the heating and cooling system plus I live in a drafty old house. My house is also around 70 degrees. As of right now all of them are looking good. I have about 20 more in the new upside down cups that are starting to root and grow leaves. These are in a covered greenhouse. I also have 30 more that are in baggies in their own container and will be moved into cups as they root or grow leaves. The weather has turned nasty today, with light rain and some sleet. Northern La. will even get some snow. When we will be finished with it we'll send it to you. I bet you can't wait. Haha. Keep warm and be aware Spring will come, it is close. I have some dormant plants starting to open buds. "gene"

I'm not saying this to discourage you from raising them from seed, but just so you will know....you can buy Cherokee Purple transplants in stores. I see them at Lowe's, Home Depot and Wal-Mart, as well as at smaller, local ma-and-pa type nurseries, every year. So, if you think you have to raise CP from seed in order to grow them...well, you don't. However, I prefer to raise tomato plants from seed rather than buying them at stores. I think I get healthier, happier, stronger plants that produce better for me when I grow my own. Mostly that is because I am able to start the seeds at exactly the right time in order to have them the size I want for the approximate planting date I have in mind. I've grown CP and the closely-related Indian Stripe from seed for over a decade and you have to be careful about your seed source. Some of the seed available commercially just isn't the "real" CP. Jay was the first person here on this forum to mention this years ago, so I started paying attention to the seeds I was using, and sure enough, I found I agreed with him. I changed the seed supplier I was using, and found to my delight that the seeds I purchased reminded me of the "old" CP I grew in the early to mid-2000s much more than the plants I'd grown from seeds purchased from other companies in recent years. The seed supplier whose seed produced the real CP for me is Gleckler Seedmen, and I'll link them below. I'm not saying all other CP seed will give you a lesser plant with smaller, less flavorful fruit, but that is what I found in several instances with seeds purchased from several other sources. For a starting mix, you can use any sterile soil-less seed-starting medium. I've used several kinds and find that any variety purchased off the shelf has worked for me. You can spend a lot or a little on a growing medium, and I don't necessarily think that the more expensive mixes give you any better result than the less expensive ones do when you are starting annuals from seed. I usually just buy the Jiffy sterile soil-less seed starting mix because that is what is on the store shelves when I am ready to plant. You can use whatever size container works for you. Starting small and potting up works, but you also can start with a larger container. It is just easier to manage smaller containers if you are starting lots of plants from seed. I usually start everything in 72-cell flats, planting multiple seeds per cell, and then pot up to individual containers once the seedlings have a couple of true leaves. When I pot up, I usually put two seedlings in each small pot (I use paper cups if I pot up while the plants are really small or larger plastic Solo cups if I am behind and don't get around to potting up until the plants are larger). As long as you have holes poked into the bottoms of the cups for drainage, any of them will work. Plain old shop lights work just fine. I've raised thousands of seedlings under them with no problem whatsoever. Just remember that no matter what sort of lights you use, the seedlings have to be hardened off to outdoor conditions gradually. I start with one hour the first day, two hours the second day, three hours the third day, etc. Remember that plants raised indoors are not used to direct sunlight or direct wind, so suddenly exposing them to a full day of sunlight and spring wind often will kill them that very first day. Proper hardening off is a vital part of the process you cannot ignore. A lot of us make our own seed-starting shelves by suspending a shop light from chains on a shelving unit. My first one was just three plastic shelves and it cost less than $10.00. Each shelf was lit by one shop light that had two bulbs. My current unit has 5 shelves and each shelf is lit by two shop light fixtures, each one containing two fluorescent tubes. It is easy to start small your first year and, then, if you find you enjoy raising plants from seed, you always can invest more money in a larger shelving system and more lights as the years go on. I went pretty slowly from using the 3 shelf unit for a couple of years to a 4-shelf unit for a couple of years and then to the current 5-shelf unit. Actually, my first couple of years of raising plants from seed indoors, I just raised them on an east-facing window sill because that was the only place we had direct sun. The house we lived in then was on a mostly shady lot, so I had to work with what I had. The plants got a little leggy, but not unbearably so. The seed company I'm linking below has seed that is true to type. The Cherokee Purple seeds I purchased from them produced plants that produced fruit that was larger and true to type and taste. I had become increasingly frustrated with growing CP from seed because the seed from many suppliers is producing smaller fruit that was not/is not the same CP I first grew in the early to mid-2000s, so I have been very happy to have found seed that produces the Cherokee Purple that I remember. It sounds nitpicky, but if I am going to grow and eat CP, I want it to be the best CP available and the one that is the most true to what CP is supposed to be. Victory Seed is another company whose seed usually is true to type, and so is Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I've gotten really picky about who I buy tomato seed from because I'm seeing a lot of heirloom tomato seeds producing fruit that is not the fruit it is supposed to be, and that is very frustrating. I think too much seed is being produced without the proper protection and some seed is cross-pollinating and giving us plants that under-perform. I used to start seedlings in very small containers and progressively move them up every couple of weeks to bigger containers. One year I just decided to skip that step and went from the 72-cell flats to 20-oz. plastic cups and it worked just fine, so I no longer bother progressively potting up to bigger containers. I get ripe tomatoes about the same time every year regardless of how many times the seedlings were (or weren't) potted up while growing indoors. The important thing is just to not start your plants too early. If you start them too early and they grow well, you likely will have to pot them up to larger pots to avoid having them become rootbound. If you start your tomato seeds 6-8 weeks before your anticipated transplanting date, your plants will be just the right size at planting time and you shouldn't have to worry about potting them up more than once. If you grow peppers, by the way, you can start them at the same time you start tomato seeds, but you need to hold them indoors a couple more weeks because they do not tolerate spring''s cooler soil temperatures and air temperatures as well as tomato plants do. I like to put 7 or 8 week old tomato plants into the ground, but will hold my peppers in pots (and this may mean I have to pot them up twice to bigger paper or plastic cups or pots) until the night-time temperatures are sufficiently warm. So, often, my pepper plants might be 10-12 weeks old when they go into the ground. That sounds too old, but from plants put into the ground in early May, we're usually harvesting jalapenos before the end of June. I like to have the first big harvest of paste tomatoes and peppers ready together in June, along with onions, so I can make and can oodles and oodles of salsa from late June through late July. Some years it all works out that way, and other years the tomatoes are ready before jalapenos and onions are. I think you'll really enjoy starting plants from seed. I noticed how much thought you put into building your raised beds and how well they turned out, so I know that you can do this. The big secret about raising plants from seed is that it is pretty easy. Annuals, in particular are a cinch, and once you understand the stratification needs of biennials and perennials, they aren't as hard as you'd think. Once you start raising your own seedlings, you'll have so much fun you won't want to stop. The first couple of years after we moved here is where my seed-starting activity suddenly exploded and got out of control because I finally had enough full-sun areas to plant as much as I wanted. So I did! As soon as I moved one flat of plants outside and had an empty space on the light shelf, I started more seeds. I kept doing it until the weather really was too hot for me to be transplanting young plants into the ground. It amazes me how many flowers, veggies and herbs I can cram into my raised beds, and growing plants from seeds makes it possible to grow lots of interesting plants that you rarely see in stores. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: CP at Gleckler Seedmen

great advice on the tax preparer LOL my dad is a CPA and even his child, doesn't get his full undivided tax attention when i wait till early april LOL. the problem isn't all tax EVASION you are hearing about in the news w/ new govt. officials it's people choosing poor preparers and being stupid and not back checking on their own tax return. if you do not double check everything on your return this is what can happen...even thou my dad does mine i do it myself first (and mine is very complicated) and then even check his over lol. i have no sympathy for anyone w/ RS problems due to problems on their returns. my dad has never ever had a customer audited, thou has helped alot of non-clients thru audits. ~ liz

Fiddle 1 - I didn't think to take pictures prior to my pruning but I primarily sliced off the tap root and these side roots that were wrapping around one another and I 'considered' to be the type you had mentioned can cut off one another? What the entire root mass I left looked like ( probably 1/3 of the entangled mass of fine roots came off with the roots I removed)( BTW Fiddle 1's roots above is the far right FLF in first picture) here is FIddle 2-( the left FLF in first picture) next two pics are prior to any pruning that was just entangled with other FLF in pot not sharing any roots Pic above is what look like just from trimming the large bottom tap root and fine root ball connected being removed (kinda just politely tore the ball away from entire knotted mass?)then I choose a few more I thought were the J hooked type of roots and removed one long root that looked very "woody" I assumed meant dead and looked like below ( note you can see even this second fiddle to repot was staying very wet )other side here- this is how I left it- still another bottom shooter and a few roots on the other side looking maybe j hooked but I felt this guy had already lost about 1/2 to maybe 2/3 of the fine roots and was afraid to prune any more given my lack of any experience here fine roots looked pretty skimpy compared to before- went in out like this. Didnt water again again after flushing thru new pot a few times day 1pm ( attempt to get soil to settle in and air pockets out?) untill day day 3 but it had rained non stop since repotting so air was 98-100%humid since/ with light rain likely hit plant and soil being its 2 ft from patio edge but soil seemed very dry this am though maybe not yet a good judge as gritty feels very dry being new to it regardless. Other pots soil sitting right next to these were still very damp even at surface having gotten same chance of rain watering and no manual watering in same time frame. Day 4 they hadn't perked up yet (read your advice to another to wait 2 wks to fertilize for roots to do their thing first correct??) but I went ahead and gave them one dose of super thrive that day as I wasn't hearing back from anyone here...So anyhow just tell me like it is on why poor fiddles are dropping and what I did right and wrong... I am here to learn and as much as I would love these 2 $9 fig plants to grow into 4 beautiful trees I am starting at this level here to take the chances and try to learn how to give plants their best life vs feeling terrified to touch a beautiful 8 ft trees soil or pot year after year...