Blogs are pretty easy, have you tried that? People can comment back and forth on them and that may be able to do the things you want to on the internet and help bring people together in the way you like, all year 'round (not just at 'mater time!!!). I have a (hardly ever updated) wordpress blog and I think anyone could manage one, (if I can, anyone should be able to). It's very easy.

Thanks for the suggestion! After seeing just how much interst follows, we may well do exactly that. Thus far, I have been extremely pleased with both the numbers of folks coming up from all over the region, and by the many interests represented. Seems that folks are REALLY interested in rediscovering tomatoes with LOTS of flavor.
PAX VOBISCUM!

You could give a shot at what the Atlanta fruit junkies use...Yahoo Groups or Google Groups. There haven't been as many gatherings in the last couple of years, but there has been semi-recent talk of getting together again as the group once did.

Traffic at the Atlanta Fruits group is a little light from time to time, what you see in post quantity is greatly dependent on what is going on at the time. For example, with a Fig propogation group I'm part of, the lists are overblown with chatter in the first weeks of winter when everything is going dormant, mostly people preparing to swap cuttings, etc., and it stays that way through spring when plants are leafing out, then it lulls till middle of summer when the first figs are coming through, lulls again at the beginning of fall, and picks up again beginning of winter.

Setting up the groups is easy. Yahoo Groups has better spam protection overall, I prefer their setup, even though I use Google Groups for all of our local neighborhood chatter, it's easier to manage for me, and doesn't require having a Yahoo account to join.

I agree with the interest in heirloom tomatoes. For two years I worked in a local garden center and most of the locals would come in looking for older hybrid tomatoes they were familiar with, "they have them at wal-mart" folks would say. We'd ask them to TRY just try one heirloom, and pretty much, most of those gardeners switched.
At Holy Comforter we have been growing heirloom tomatoes for more then 10 years for sale. Usually smaller numbers but a broad variety and have been known for our selection and healthy plants - people are more educated about heirloom tomatoes, and they also know the price of them fresh in markets! It is nice to see them being more highly valued.
I'm interested to know more about white varieties that do well here, and about those that do better in specific climactic conditions in our regions here. Eg. if it will be a wet year, which are the best, the best in a dry year...who has a better strain etc.

GGG

@mensplace, have you ever contacted NAFEX about this? I ask becase Tomato is technically a fruit. NAFEX (North American Fruit EXplorers) is a huge, very well known organization which specializes in all fruits and probably has a great line for something like this already, OR you may be able to find someone that is interested in teaming up with you to generate it, and has a long list of people who would be wanting to participate.

Link to the web site, in case you didn't catch the inline link above.

Here is a link that might be useful: NAFEX website

I have been growing and grafting fruit trees since I was in my early teens and workin after school and in the summers at Green Brothers Nurseries.Know many of the folks around the south such as Lee Calhoun and Jim Lawson who are experts in the field. Have met with the USDA Fruit and Nut tree folks down in Byron, traveled to Long Ashton in England to see the research center there, and regularly obtained scion wood from Cornell. Even this year grafted many a fine pears onto flowering pear seedlings that were plentiful around the yard. Used to be a NAFEX member. Would love to start some figs, but with my various health issues, cannot really justify a new ten year venture. Most of my work is now tending to my large mixed fruit orchard and developing the life in the soil of my garden as I slowly convert to raised beds.
What started the tomato exploration was my interest in growing two each of the best 100 to see what will thrive, produce, and deliver plenty of quality tomatoes. After growing them, I will have good idea of what does best in GA. Towards this end, I have included Creole, Goose Creek and Tropic.Before beginning I took recommendations for seed from around the U.S. and the world back in January from the "experts" in the field. These I began in my Florida room and have been tending and repotting ever since. With my own theory of developing life in the soil, evene my seedlings were started with the best organic seed starting soil to which I added soil micro-organism to enhance root production and disease resistance early own. This assures that a very broad range of organisms go into the soil along with the plants. Meanwhile, I have been consistently adding large amounts of humus, home produced manure compost, and far more to the soil. Now, I would just love to have these 100 varieties get out into the region to educate and provide new taste experiences..as well as a broadly available base of Georgia seed stocks as most who visit are fascinated with saving their own. Each visit takes an hour or two as we just talk tomatoes to match their interests and uses. We should be developing a base of info as to who has what seed. I now have a rather huge collection, but will be growing far fewer next year. Thats why I only planted two of each variety...to add their new seed to my selection, though I will only grow 20 next year. My seed comes from growers across the U.S. and Canada, Russia, Mexico, Europe and the Slavic nations. With many later arrivals, I still have many flats yet to be potted of varieties that will be perfect for later planting as well as the original 100 varieties. Most HAVE to have Green Zebra, SunGold, and the Cherokee strains as those are what they seem to have seen and experienced the most, but there are over 5000 varieties and I was seeking those recomeended by the experts as the best in FLAVOR and had to stop somewhere. Few have any concept of how much work is involved inacquring the rare seeds, much less the starting of seed, mutilple transplants, and moving them in and out for proper hardening, display, daily watering and protection from sun and storms...and I still have at least five hundred new seedlings to pot. Expensive, quality potting soil with large cups to provide adequate root mass adds up quickly.