Cent....nice post! I have chosen several of your varieties, as well. I have tried to categorize my choices based on what others here have said. One of my random choices was Yellow Pear. Since, I have heard bad reviews. Do you have experience with it?

Sorry for the long wait on the follow up of this. It has been a busy week.

Fireduck I have experience with yellow pear. While not the best tasting it was the most prolific last year. It was also the most tolerant of the heat. When all others quit producing it kept putting out. Most complaints are about taste. Think of them as mini romas. The taste is more pronounced when they get cooked in some way, shape, or form. My preference is to slice them in half length wise. Sprinkle with a dash of salt, a light drizzle of EVO. Then a few minutes under the broiler. Let cool, then enjoy. it brings out a lot of flavor from them. Also when full ripe they are more of an off orange color than yellow. Waiting until they turn that color makes a ton of difference. I had some splitting. It was more a cosmetic issue than anything. They will fall off of the vine easily. If the green ones fall off it is ok. Put them inside they will ripen up inside just fine.

If you plant I would advise a large cage. I staked mine last year. I ended up having to use a lot of stakes. The plant gets very big. It was oblivious to septoria. Some branches showed signs of it. The rest kept on growing.

I will be posting pics most of the cells in the 72 cell tray have sprouted.

Yep that is right 4 day germination time. Average temp in the closet I have my grow set up is around 80 to 85 on the top shelf where they are. Also they are on the shelf next to my peppers that are on a heat mat. I think some of the heat from the mat transfers over to the tomatoes. Either way I am happy with the results so far.

Happy growing everyone.
Nate Guilliams
Temple, tx

Here is a backed off pic to show more of the area I am growing in.

Note there are hot peppers growing in there as well. It is what is on most of the bottom shelf with some tomatoes in there.

It is pot up time for a few tomatoes that I started earlier as well.

Good beginning , Nate.

So far I am just growing one dwarf tomato. It has just first set of true leaves. I am mainly working on peppers now. I will get to tomatoes in about 3 weeks from today.

BTW: I like your selections.The all seem to be well reviewed and popular varieties.

Seysonn

Thank you Seyson. I did a good bit of research before planing anything. Also all of my seeds came off of the displays at the BBS. For the most part I am sticking with the ones that I can not get transplants for, or the good ones are long gone before I have the cash to spare to buy them. I plan on selling off my extras. So the fact that they are not the same old, same old will help with that.

Sorry for the long wait on the update. I have been either too busy, or too wore out to post. Things are progressing well. There was a slight setback involving a few starter cells being knocked off of the shelf by a falling jig saw, and the tags being knocked out of them. I ended up just pitching the mystery sprouts. I will replant those before Monday.

Things are going well otherwise. Temps in the closet with the lights on is about 85 with the lights on, and the door closed. If the door is opened, and a fan is placed to blow out some of the heat it can go to the mid 70's. I just have to be watchful of our kitten when I do. A lot of stuff has been potted up. A lot more to go. I will be working on that tomorrow, and through out the week.

Why pitch the unknowns? You need a section in the garden for volunteers and other unknowns so as not to waste them. If they are healthy, why dump them?

Garf the ones I pitched were badly mangled by the 4 foot fall to the floor. There were 12 cells with 4 varieties in them. I have limited space for planting so I want to know what is going in.

On the plus side there are over 150 more to work with.

THat sounds great, Nate.
I am germinating my first batch of 8 varieties. The rest I will start end of FEB. That will be roughly 6 weeks to plant out time.

Seysonn