I think it was Carol (Soonergrandmom) that gave you the tips on growing your seedlings under lights, Tebow. I can't take credit for her expertise.

When I read the title to your post, at first I thought you had bought them out! LOL!!

I think sometimes folks do lurk on the posts here and then go out and buy up the stuff people recommend. I don't blame them, I would to!

You have been doing some heavy duty shopping lately, haven't you! Did you get the fence up yet?

Susan

I think it was seedmama. She knows a lot more about lighting than I do.......wonder how she learned that? I've gotten on those sights by mistake too. LOL

Well, whoever it was, i thank you. About the getting up the fence,... no i havent. Ithink i'll wait for a warmer day to put the post in. There's bound to be one before MARCH.I haven't bought the wire fencing yet anyway. I do have a question though..... my wife has diverticulitus and can't tolerate seeds, but she loves tomatoes. Whats the closest thing to a seedless tomatoe i could grow for her?

Hello, telow, welcome to the forum.

While reading about your wife not being able to tolerate seeds I happend to think about Pompii tomatoes. They are a large roma tomato and a guy might be able to just scrape the seeds out of one of them.

I dont care much for any kind of roma tomato, but my son loves them. Then on the other hand I think you could paint a base ball red and tell him it was a tomato and he would eat it.

I'm just sitting here thing out loud. I'm sure that some of the others can get you fixed up with just the right tomato.

Larry

Telow,
You might try Mortgage Lifter, it produced well for me this last year considering the weather conditions (hot and humid). This is the description from Totally Tomatoes..
Also called Radiator Charlie. Longtime favorite with good yields of very large, smooth, pink-skinned fruits even in droughts. Very meaty fruits with few seeds, much like Giant Belgium, but not quite as large. Very mild, delectable, sweet flavor.

I saved seed from a couple and while it says very few seeds, there were probably 20 or more in each tomato.

Keith

Thanks guys for your suggestions. I will consider them and also wait for my 10,000 catalogs i've sent offfor to come in. My problem is when i read in a catalog and it says mild or just sweet, i go right on bye. I like tomatoes like Limmony or Super SIOUX. If jolly rancher candy had a tomatoe i would buy it.I like a tomatoe that when you take a bite of it the flavor jumps up and slaps me in the face and says....HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW.I'm sure i'll find something before Feburary.

Telow, I was once just like you and thought I mostly liked only those tomatoes with high acid like I ate when I was a child. After I started growing a lot of heirlooms, I learned that I liked some of the other tastes as well. I had never been a fan of cherry tomatoes until several years ago when I read Dawn's report of Black Cherry and Sungold. If I could only have two tomato plants that would be the two I would choose. Sungold is sweet and citrus-y tasting to me and Black Cherry has depth of flavor more like you might describe a wine.

There are tomatoes called "stuffers" that have an interior that is more like a bell pepper than it is a tomato. They not only have few seeds, but the inside is mostly hollow. They aren't a tomato that you would plant for flavor, but the taste is not bad, and they work great as stuffed tomato dishes. I didn't grow any last year, but my husband was asked at the senior citizen's center where I normally donate plants, if I had those again. I hadn't considered why they liked it so much, but it could have been because of it's limited seed. Maybe they had the same problem as you wife has.

Just as a side note - As I understand it diverticuLOSIS is the condition that many people have and is when the intestine becomes weak in spots, or forms little out-pockets or pouches called diverticula. If something gets trapped for too long then imflamation and infection can occur, and this is diverticuLITIS. I have always thought it a rather interesting disease since the diet recommended to avoid getting diverticulosis is a high fiber diet, but if you actually have diverticulitus some of those same foods have to be removed from you diet. Guess that shows that we need to start young to take care of ourselves.

Carol,
I'm with you on cherries. Five years ago I would have told you I didn't really care for them. But once I had grown Black Cherry and Sungold, I had to reevaluate. Those would be my two as well, although I would really miss having a slicer.

I have a double cattle panel arch. This year I grew Sungold down one side and Black Cherry down the other. The two year old could walk through the arch and pick and eat his own. Those are priceless moments.

Seedmama, What a priceless moment indeed!

Like you and Carol, I wasn't a huge fan of the bite-sized tomatoes until I tried Sungold about a decade ago. I always grew a few (mostly Sweet Million) but since moving here I have grown at least 40 varieties of cherry, plum, currant and grape varieties of bite-sized tomatoes and am amazed at how much we like them. SunGold and Black Cherry are the two varieties we couldn't live without too.

Oddly, I found SunGold and Black Cherry because I was growing a "rainbow" of cherry tomatoes and it was their color I wanted. Finding out they had amazing flavor was just a bonues.

To me, there's nothing prettier than a salad that has a wide variety of colors of small tomatoes in it. With all the colors now available, it is possible to have small red, black, white, yellow, green-when-ripe, orange and pink tomatoes in a salad (or in a bowl on the counter) all at the same time, and bi-colored tomatoes too.

Carol, I've never grown the stuffer types because I run out of space. I always mean to try growing them, but never quite get around to it.

Telow, Burpee has a virtually seedless tomato called Sweet Success. I've linked it below. I haven't grown it, but folks who have grown it have given it good reviews. It was new on the market in 2009. The seeds are very expensive, but that is true of all exclusive Burpee varieties. There is a "Sweetie" seedless tomato seed available at Amazon.com from Hirt's for only $1.99 and the photos of "Sweetie" look identical to Burpee's Sweet Success.

Golden Nugget is almost completely seedless. It is a small yellow cherry tomato variety with short, determinate plants that was bred in Oregon. Seeds of it (and many others mentioned here) are available from Tomato Growers Supply Company (www.tomatogrowers.com).

Many paste-type tomatoes are almost seedless, including Opalka, Pompeii, Rocky and San Marzno Redorta. There's a few heirloom types I can think of that are nearly seedless including Dr. Wyche's Yellow (an Oklahoma heirloom from the Hugo, OK, area), Polish Pastel and Rose.

Parthenocarpic tomatoes developed for greenhouse growing and for early tomato production in areas with a long, cool spring often are seedless or nearly seedless. Oregon Spring is one that comes to mind and it is one of several bred by Dr. James Baggett at Oregon State University. Other tomatoes he's bred that are either seedless or nearly so include Gold Nugget, which I mentioned earlier, and also Legend, Santim and Siletz. Some of those have very few seeds early in the season and then the fruit have more seeds per plant later in the season, but they still have fewer seeds than most tomatoes.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet Success Seedless Tomato at Burpee.com

I knew that Dawn would have recommendations for you Telow.

I still have Black Cherry tomatos on the kitchen counter. I have never had tomatos OTV this late! They are scrumptious, too, even tho they aren't probably at peak flavor.

Susan

i JUST HAD TO WRITE AND THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUGGESTIONS. AND THANKS DAWN FOR THE SWEET SUCCESS TIP. I'M HEADED THERE RIGHT NOW. I'M GOING TO EXPAND MY GARDEN BY AT LEAST HALF AND MAYBE EVEN MORE. SOMEBODY HELP ME I'M OUT OF CONTROL!

Telow - Sorry we can't help you with that control thing...cause we are all out of control. Ain't it fun!!!

Thanks Dawn for the heads up on the seedless tomatoe SWEET SUCCESS. i HOPE MY WIFE LIKES THEM. She better at about a buck a seed. Their shipping was as much as the seeds were. But she's worth it after 42 years. I hope i don't mess them up.

Telow,

You're welcome. I hope Sweet Success produces well for you.

As far as being out of control, well.....nobody here can help you with that because we're all out of control too. We're the ones who will just say "go ahead, double the size of the garden....you know that you want to".

After 42 years you'd better believe she's worth it!

If you're new at starting seeds inside, just follow along with us in mid-winter when we all start seeds and we'll walk you right through it.

Dawn