To jump in way at the end here, I think the comparison that would be more valid concerned which is "more work" would be the complete cycle from "seed to seed". As far as heirloom goes, it is a pretty basic plan for "seed to seed" - plant seeds, grow plants, pick quality fruit, save seeds. (While each step has some more complexity than I enumerated, it really is that "simple"). There is very little cross-pollination between tomatoes (although it CAN happen). If you are worried about it, a simple net can be placed over your fruit branch that you want to save the seeds for, and not worry about cross-pollination, as most tomatoes self-pollinate. Compared to hybrids, you cannot go from "seed to seed" in most cases. So there is no cycle. You MUST purchase new seeds every year (that have been crossed from their parents, year after year to produce new hybrid seeds). If you want to talk about economics - there is NO comparison! Even if heirlooms were twice as expensive as hybrids (which is not the case for the spectrum of varieties available), it would still be more economical in the long run to go with heirlooms and save the seeds. Tomato seeds are viable (if properly stored for up to 4 or 5 years - many times longer), so you could save yourself the hassle of saving seeds every year and just save MORE seeds than you need and save them every second year or every third year. In short, heirlooms can be a one time investment, if you so choose - hybrids are a yearly expense. (And yes, I did mean to use the different terms - investment vs. expense.)

Seems like it could apply to turf, but mainly for crops. Imagine farmers not having to fertilize their crops, or at least fertilizing less. Okay. I wasn't going to bring this up but ronalawn82 and I completely disagree. I have full faith that the solution to agricultural productivity lies in the system of agriculture that Mother Nature devised about 500 million years ago. The original poster touched on one of my pet peeves when he said, imagine farmers not having to fertilize their crops. I know farmers who have not fertilized their crops in 15 years. Their fields are just about exactly twice as productive today as they were in the 1990s. Their crop is forage (grass) for livestock, but the people I know raise cattle. Not only did they stop fertilizing, they stopped the high tech hormones, high tech grass seeds, high tech medicines, high tech herbicides, and high tech insecticides. The result was that the grass productivity without all the high tech stuff doubled, and they no longer had to buy supplemental corn or hay. When a farmer when stops paying for an entire catalog of high tech products, suddenly they have a profit to report. These farmers live in drought prone Texas, but they do not irrigate their fields - ever. They bring water to troughs and provide seaweed for minerals; that's all. Their fields have grass, somewhere, all the time, rain or drought. With the doubling of grass productivity they have almost doubled their animal stocking rate with no repercussions. Do you have to live in Texas to do this? No. One place much worse than the Texas environment is in the middle of Arizona's Sonoran desert on the sterilized tailings of a copper strip mine. Annual temperatures range from the 100s to the teens. Precipitation is under 15 inches per year. Here is a website link. Unfortunately the "after" pictures are horrible and the discussion is weak. They have downsized that website since they first posted it and left off a lot of good info. But the point is still made that you can start with sterile soil in a desert and make grassland out of it with no chemical fertilizer. The solution to local food shortages is political, not agricultural. And I believe that if the third world farmers were taught and allowed to use techniques that work without high technology, the rain forests would not be mowed down to make more crop land. I do understand that a lot of progress has been made in trial-and-error cross breeding to improve the speed with which animals put on muscle and the productivity and quality of plant materials; however, these cross breeding experiments were carried out in the environment, not in the computer. When you plant thousands of crossbred seeds, you have the luxury of selecting the best survivors to continue the succession. That will still have to be done even with computer simulation. To quote someone else, "In theory there is no difference between practice and theory. In practice there is."

Well, I built Greg L.'s bin to his specifications. So I used roughy 3 foot 2x2s. There's no reason you couldn't go higher. Although there are possible issues to consider. One is your season. You want to let the plants grow at will and get bushy well before frost kills them. Another point is that I didn't find nearly as many potatoes in the upper 1/3 of the bin. Now part of that was probably my laziness at covering, but I do believe at some point you get diminishing returns. Possibly also the added weight of the soil would inhibit tater growth down below. All that leads me to continue to recommend the potato bin as designed. However, tires solve some of those problems. Of course tires are only so wide so you give up lots in the number of seeds you can start. Hehe I could talk all day on the various methods and materials used to grow potatoes vertically. I did a ton of research before I found those bins. Good luck and enjoy! Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure

Daren, Thanks so much for adding some real-world growing info and the great F3 data!!! In the end that is what will make the difference in whether there will be interest for anyone to actually make the effort to grow it. I think your comment on not sour (vs. acidity) and mine may be both accurate ... and the thing you don't like about the taste ... my problem too ... and what I wonder most is if yours were imported or grown right there in Ontario, not kept cold so long and picked closer to maturity = sweeter, low acid. The reason IMO that Sungold has that fruity taste is that it truely is low acid and extremely high sugar. It is more related to the sugar:acid ratio that give a sweet taste. The lingering aftertaste is fruity sweet in SG where Zima lingers more acid. And the acid hits my dentin and turns into acute dental pain on the next bite for me, so I notice ;-(. The first ones I ate were somewhat sweet, but once the experience is ruined by an aching tooth ... never happened with Santa nor any of my home grown 'maters. I just went to my grocer yesterday who has a few clamshells left over from the Zima promotion over three weeks ago, asking if they would just give me the ones with a few rotting ones inside instead of throwing those away. They told me, "They are not attracting flies yet" so we keep them (as if they could through that clamshell ... and there was one fruit fly ;-)) The tomatoes were from the shipment I bought and ate around 10 days ago, and a few began shriveling and three or four covered in gray mold but mostly they were still hard bullets. He told me to visit the dumpster in a few days if I wanted them since he would be fired for giving me the rotten tomatoes! (in which case I would have given anyone some for free via SASE). I explained I just wanted the seeds but you should have seen the look I got as the store manager who didn't grasp it so he told me if I wanted the seeds, why not buy the rotten packages from him for $4. each ;-) Thanks Daren, we have the same interest I think, so I'm going to look into the kumatos one of these days. Down here in Florida I have my first Santa F2 going and it is a race, but I think I'll make it. One plant really looks strong. It will be a good one to get some F3's since some nice grape shaped tomatoes have started and survived back to back 41 degree nights in a cold snap, which killed a few flowers on Better Boy and Cherokee Purple, and made fused blossoms on other varieties. It is performing just as well as my Supersweet 100's, but three weeks later, due to a later planting date by three weeks. Maybe when I get my Santa F3's in a month weather permitting we could swap some if you want. Did you try the Nectar hybrid tomato that is supposed to be super duper sweet, and very low acid? 10 seeds for $4-$5! PC This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Sat, Nov 8, 14 at 13:51