I'll trade you some unusual and rare kittens for...well...you can just have 'em. They are "Vole Eating Garden Kittens".

mine looks barren... way to early .. never compare the cement laden city with your micro climate ... the retained heat of the day in the pavement .. keeps it warmer at night.. so soil temps increase faster.. triggering earlier growth ... but it is a good indicator of what will come soon in your yard ... patience young jedi ... ken

Hi Carolyn. Hail was last year, a few weeks after early June frost, and before record rainfall. Very interesting to see how easily a stem turned back into a nice plant. Still, last years waterlogged plants produced better tasting tomatoes than this year's admittedly very late yet shockingly full, large, and productive plants. If someone knows what causes mealiness, I would love to know. Really is looking like I will have about 1200-1500 large mealy beefsteaks...and I hoped to avoid any jarring for sauce this year. The weird thing about those saved Black Krim is that I saw no variation at all for the first 2 seasons (with 14 total plants in my garden and given to others), only one out of 6 in season 3, and then 4 this year. All of the other plants have produced the same round tomatoes from that one stray plant from 2005...no noticeable difference in plants size/appearance, fruit size/appearance/number/flavour. All 5 of the variations have produced very similar large pink beefsteaks. If it was particularly unstable/if some initially saved seeds were destined to produce beefsteaks, I would have expected to see it sooner. The one plant that produced beefsteaks last year was quite good (similar to brandywine/marianna's peace), so I saved seeds separately, and the plants growing from those seeds this year are producing nice pink beefs. I did not bag any blossoms this year, will save seeds from one of the round fruits as a backup, and will grow out more of the originals next year and bag some blossoms from each (and save some that come out round). Of course if the beefs turn out to be keepers I will save more of those too. I never did follow the acknowledged proper procedure of saving seeds from the most representative plant from each of the next few successive generations, primarily because I assumed it was a stray OP seed since all of the offspring for first two years were so much like the first. I have learned my lesson, though it appears to be a delicious lesson given the nice beefs pictured in the link below. See some pics from a month ago on the below thread. Shows a few pics of one plant from saved PH seed. The second from the last picture is from saved seeds from last year's one beefsteak from those seeds originally saved in 2005. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg0700110626924.html I purchase 100% of my seeds (except for PH and Goose which were saved by someone and sent to me...jury out on whether Goose are true, who knows if hybrid PH were also cross-pollenized). In a few cases a packet has been mislabeled, in other cases just one stray seed. However as I said this is not always a problem, I have a few good keepers as a result. I will however be disappointed if the other two Cherokee Greens start turning orangey red, and will be a bit disappointed if the RL from Green Giant is not a green tomato. Hey, I thought you liked hearing about my assorted challenging situations and attempts to get clarification on good growing practices! I do a lot of fiddling with things, and we have had wacky weather up here...those things combined with maybe a few more than the average expected number of mixed up seeds has led to more than one BAH from me. Anyway in the end unless things change this season might end up being the biggest tease ever...with poor expectations, very late planting, very cool nights, I somehow ended up with giant full plants...and although widespread fruit set was 3-4 weeks later than normal, the plants seem to be absolutely covered in fruit. So many others have horror stories, but I have bigger plants than ever before, more fruits per plant than ever before, and so far they are the worst tasting (i.e. flavourless and MEALY) since I started growing. It's like I have a garden full of those awful yellow pears. That is deserving of one more BAH!

Hello there! I have the 1994 pattern for Victorian Rose that I am willing to pass along. It's an oldie and the shop that I got it from didn't print the pattern that great, but you can still make it out. I am looking for the Potporri pattern. I would appreciate it if anyone can help me out! Thanks, Shelley sadneram@insightbb.com