At 04:02 PM 7/7/99 -0400, you wrote: >Hi Margaret, >"Druzba" has always been relatively crack free for me, too. I would >consider "Druzba" to be one of the foremost all round tomato varieties. >The problem with making lists is that there must always be a "last one." ><G> I could have included "Burbank" which is another super variety. > Burbank grows great for me, too, and is excellently flavored. Chuck, I grew Black from Tula last year and did some tomato canning. I didn't notice at first that the interior of Black from Tula is nasty-looking, but some went into my regular canning anyway. I'm sure it looks spoiled. I wasn't as taken with the flavor of that as Catharine Vinson was. I prefer Black Krim, and that doesn't have a brown-black interior. >How are you feeling? The heat is about to get me. This may be the year >when I start to slow down. 188 'maters is getting to be too much. I was >intending to slow down this year but Carolyn sent me a bunch of seeds that >were of varieties for her book that I wasn't yet growing.....so.... As we >speak I have all of her varieties either in the garden or in the seed >vials. Our 100 degree weather is supposed to start next week. The house is air conditioned, though, and our humidity is low, so I don't expect problems. I was surprised that Dr. Male thought potato-leafed varieties were more disease resistant than regular leafed. I'm sure she's referring to blight since she has no experience with curly top virus. That's an equal opportunity destroyer, I think, but I should pay closer attention to that. We seldom get the blights here, and I haven't had fusarium or verticillium in that part of the garden. > >I saw a trick that impressed me today. We usually experience cooler >weather during the first two or three weeks of May with a frost free date >of May 1st. Connie Newton got some plants from me and put them in the same >concrete reinforcement wire cages that I use but put a foot high strip of >roofing felt around bottoms of the cages. The plants so grown are >definitely ahead of the others. What's that made of in case a little would disintegrate in the garden? It would also protect seedlings from strong breezes, and that would be a plus in my book. > >Chuck > Margaret