Well! I hadn't realized that I would be defending my lack of ethics from all sides on this subject. First, I want to insist that notions on tomato moral values and truths are not absolute but are relative to the person holding them. Now that said, here was my recipe - made up yesterday, on the spot. As you can tell by its slap-dash nature, it falls far short of any kind of self-justification: 1 slice of bacon 4 Tablespoons yellow onion, chopped 2 beefsteak tomatoes, chopped 1/2 Yukon Gold potato, cooked 1/2 cup Progresso chicken broth 1/4 cup half and half black pepper Cook bacon until crisp. Pour off most of the bacon fat and saute onion until tender. Microwave tomatoes for 4 minutes at 50% power. Place in blender with potato, onion, and bacon. Add enough broth to blend ingredients. Pour contents into bowl and add remaining broth, half and half, and pepper. Microwave until thoroughly heated. Serve. Now remember, these are beefsteak tomatoes not beef steaks! I probably should have included a slice of celery root and probably beef bacon would have been preferable to pork but I have trouble finding that these days. We eat so many eggs that it is probably not wise for us to buy beef in bulk but we do. We also have it dry aged and it is remarkably tender and flavorful. I just wish that they would make some of it into bacon for us. For some reason, my cholesterol numbers are darn good. It might be because eating too much beef was such a vice for me, in earlier years. I have moderated that more than just a little. Otherwise, I might be like Mark Twain's moral pauper. She was the woman who was ill and Twain said that she would be on her feet again if she would give up swearing, drinking and smoking. Unfortunately, she didn’t swear, smoke or drink so she didn’t have anything to give up. Twain referred to her as a moral pauper having neglected her vices with none to give up. . . . I may have to give up microwaving tomatoes sometime in the future. Steve

I have a list of those to avoid, unless you LIKE generic, just ok slicer tomatoes. It's only my 2nd year with a garden and the first when I did ANY research. I mainly planted tomatoes I found at Home Depot which was prior to any research - so hardly the best varieties. These were Early Girl, Best Boy & Celebrity. They are producing very well with good looking, but rather bland fruit - I won't plant any of them again. The "Golden Jubilee" fruits have a very attractive, golden color but taste like crap - I won't even give them away. After finally doing real research I've narrowed next year's tomato varieties to around 35 or so...hopefully I'll narrow it down a bit more! Bottom line, I'll never again waste space/water on a generic mass targeted tomato. :)

You all made me crack up with your "best soil debate" reminiscences. That's funny stuff. I know how heated these Internet arguments can become, trust me! I've not used Happy Frog, but I'm up for trying it. I bought some Roots Organic potting soil last year and also some Maxfields (which is a local company) and liked them both for my flower containers. They are both on the pricey side but both are organic. I'm not into Miracle Grow just because I don't like the additives they use. But that's just me. Also, david52, I've been using Soil Pep for years as my garden mulch. I happen to like the color of it and the finer texture. It makes a nice top dressing/mulch and then it blends right into the soil as an amendment. I put new on all my flower beds, hostas, etc. every Spring. Doing that this weekend as a matter of fact. I feed everything with the Yum Yum mix, then top with Soil Pep. So I have lots of that and can mix in some of that. Jaliranchr, as far as tomatoes being forgiving, that has not been my experience thus far. I wish I could say it was. I think some people just have an affinity for certain plants. But I'm willing to give it another try this year and see if I can turn my luck around! I'll plant more this year and not just put all my eggs in one basket.

My biggest this year, so far, has probably been George Detsikas Italian Red (it was about the size a 2lb tomato should be, but it was probably lighter), although I got a Pink Berkeley Tie Dye that was pretty big, and a Sweet Ozark Orange, too. They were somewhat smaller than GDIR (but they would weigh more if they were the same size; I'm not sure if they weighed more or less as is). Chapman was big, but not as big, this year. Amana Orange was another big one, about as big as Chapman, this year. Last year, my three largest were Cuostralee, Chapman, and George Detsikas Italian Red. I didn't grow Cuostralee this year. They were all about 2lbs. I watered a lot more last year. As far as my most productive tomato per weight, I believe Pink Berkeley Tie Dye is the winner, this year. It was a lot different last year (extremely late maturity; small fruit; small plant; a few fruits); this year it has large fruits, a large plant, lots of fruits, and it wasn't super late. I used seeds I saved from last year, this year. Anyway, it looks like PBTD and GDIR are good candidates for dry farming. I think Thessaloniki is a good candidate for wet farming (it's much smaller and less prolific, this year, but it was one of the best last year).