I had a very good mix of heirloom and hybrid tomatoes this year. The
hybrids looked better, tasted better and produced much better. Say what
you want about heirlooms but I won't give them garden space again.
Hybrids all the way for this PA gardener from now on!

Rich Zone 5-6

In article ,
(EVP MAN) wrote:

I had a very good mix of heirloom and hybrid tomatoes this year. The
hybrids looked better, tasted better and produced much better. Say what
you want about heirlooms but I won't give them garden space again.
Hybrids all the way for this PA gardener from now on!

Rich Zone 5-6

I'm glad you are satisfied with your hybrids, but if there weren't
heirloom plants, don't you think the price of the hybrid plants would go
up? Just sayin'.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

wrote:
(EVP MAN) wrote:

The hybrids looked better, tasted better and produced much better.
Say what you want about heirlooms but I won't give them garden space
again.
Hybrids all the way for this PA gardener from now on!
LOL! I expressed precisely the same viewpoint very much earlier this
year. Early on, I composted all of my "Brandywine" except one and,
based on yield, keeping _it_ was a waste of good dirt. As I see it,
entertaining this, that, or the-other "heirloom" is foisting upon
oneself all of the reasons reliable hybrids were developed in the
first place. Who needs it? But then, again, I am neither tomato
connoisseur nor among the "heirloom" cognoscenti, I suppose.
Sentiment or some irrational "doomsday" fear are not among the
reasons that I grow vegetables.

It's always good when someone finds a cultivar that suits their taste and
growing conditions. I would never suggest that people should persist with
growing things that don't suit them - that's what it is all about getting
fresh produce that you enjoy. And there are some cases where over time many
people have found that hybrids are superior to open pollinated varieties,
for example sweet corn.

There are a few things to consider though:

- Many people have had the reverse experience, open pollinated tomatoes
tasted better to them than hybrids. It is hard to do representative tests
on your own, as I said to you before, growing one heirloom in one season in
one location doesn't say anything about all the others. There has been at
least one large systematic tastings and testing of tomatoes that concluded
that overall heirlooms tasted and yielded better (Diggers Club, Victoria).

- If you stick to hybrids you cannot usefully keep the seed for yourself or
swap with neighbours and your choice of cultivars will be restricted. You
must go back to the supplier every year and pay what they ask, and in the
case of tomatoes you will be limited to a small fraction of the cultivars
available. One reason there are so many cultivars is that people kept
breeding and selecting until they got one that suited them in their
conditions. That is impossible with F1s.

- I have a small problem with big business controlling food production. I
know it is the only way it can be done for now and feed enough people but it
isn't the only way or the only way for ever. I have a big problem with big
business controlling the means of food production, which is what you get
with GM crops and F1 hybrid seeds.

I find it odd that you post from a country that prides itself on
individualism and has half the population rabidly wanting to reduce controls
on the individual (by government) but you seem quite happy to hand your
lives over to big business who are not elected and only exist to make a
profit. To me keeping control of seeds, that humans have taken thousands
of years to breed, in the hands of the individual is just common sense.
That may be "doomsday fear" around your place (Atlanta?) but is it really
irrational?

David

Yes I would imagine the price of seed would go up if it weren't for
heirlooms. However, I don't mind spending a few bucks for a pack of
seeds. For the home gardener, the price of seed don't matter near as
much as it would to a large commercial operation that sets thousands of
plants. My slow release granular fertilizer costs me a lot more than
seed

Rich

In article ,
wrote:

I guess I miss your point. As it happens, "big business" _is_ elected.
People vote for it with their wallets every day. Businesses exist to provide
products and services of which people freely avail themselves. The profit is
the
result of those activities. I'm amazed at how few people, most of them
successful businesspeople, grasp that simple reality. It is a peculiarity of
free markets that one only succeeds over the long term by being of service to
ones fellow man.

Obviously, investment bankers aren't fellow men, because they can make a
mess out of the myth of a free market.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

In article ,
(EVP MAN) wrote:

Yes I would imagine the price of seed would go up if it weren't for
heirlooms. However, I don't mind spending a few bucks for a pack of
seeds. For the home gardener, the price of seed don't matter near as
much as it would to a large commercial operation that sets thousands of
plants. My slow release granular fertilizer costs me a lot more than
seed

Rich

I hear that the price of tomato seeds went up in Mozambique, a couple of
days ago.
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6850AM20100906
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:


It's always good when someone finds a cultivar that suits their
taste and growing conditions. I would never suggest that people
should persist with growing things that don't suit them - that's
what it is all about getting fresh produce that you enjoy.
Precisely so; which is why I won't be giving space to "Brandywine"
tomatoes again. Too much vine; too little tomato. What others might
do is not my concern but I would find having _no_ tomatoes in the
garden an acceptable alternative.

If you stick to hybrids you cannot usefully keep the seed for
yourself or swap with neighbours and your choice of cultivars will
be restricted. You must go back to the supplier every year and pay
what they ask, and in the case of tomatoes you will be limited to a
small fraction of the cultivars available.
Irrelevant to me. I'm just not caputured by the seed-saving mystique,
have
no interest in my neighbors at all, let alone in swapping anything
with them, and I already have declared myself to be a tomato
Philistine. DW&I are not big fruit eaters and tomatoes are just
another fruit and best eaten green, to my taste. I'm good for, maybe,
two ripe tomato sandwiches a year and that's about it. Don't eat
catsup; barbeque sauce is made from peppers, not from tomatoes; if
Lidia Bastianich can make pasta sauce from canned tomatoes, I guess
they're good enough for me.
There's no more reason to fear that old devil Big Business
"controlling"
the food supply than there is to fear its controlling the electricity
supply, the petroleum supply, the forest products supply, all of
which it does. "Big Business" got so because people buy its stuff.

Ah yes the free market will find a balance, all we have to do is allow it to
operate by people paying for their choice and all will be well. Another
furphy. The free market wants its profits now and next year it doesn't make
money out of 30 years from now so it doesn't care. If you want to consign
your civilisation to forever making short term decisions have a free market
economy. If you want your productive soil ruined by strip mining despite
needing the land to feed the next generation but there is money in coal now,
have a free market economy.

I
certainly don't harbor any resentment over the fact that I might have
to go up to Sherwood's Nursery from time to time and buy a new packet
of seeds. Surely, there is no reason to believe that some great
catastrophe or grand conspiratorial collaboration of greedy
corporations is going make that impossible to do.

Business makes no money from biodiversity. The more people fall for the
myth of total hybrid superiority the fewer cultivars will be kept. You may
not care about this choice but I do. You may not care about a system that
has worked well for thousands of years, I do.

Neither would the
presence or absence of "Brandywine" tomatoes, for example, on the
shelf next to other cultivars, have the slightest effect on the
latters' prices.

Of course it has no effect on prices if you get your seeds for free.


Those beliefs, which seem to be rather widespread,
reflect "irrational doomsday fear". Some would say they might also
reflect heads full of marshmallows.


Nice.

I find it odd that you post from a country that prides itself on
individualism and has half the population rabidly wanting to reduce
controls on the individual (by government) but you seem quite happy
to hand your lives over to big business who are not elected and only
exist to make a profit. To me keeping control of seeds, that
humans have taken thousands of years to breed, in the hands of the
individual is just common sense. That may be "doomsday fear" around
your place (Atlanta?) but is it really irrational?
I guess I miss your point. As it happens, "big business" _is_ elected.
People vote for it with their wallets every day.

Back to the free market myth again.

Businesses exist to
provide products and services of which people freely avail
themselves. The profit is the result of those activities. I'm amazed
at how few people, most of them successful businesspeople, grasp that
simple reality.

I grasp it very well.

It is a peculiarity of free markets that one only
succeeds over the long term by being of service to ones fellow man.

This is where you don't get it. Business will take profit today over profit
tomorrow any time. The system only succeeds by moving from one source of
resources to the next as they are depleted. The system *cannot* work unless
it is growing. Any time growth stops artifical methods must be used to get
it growing again. What sort of system periodically gives the choice of
gross unemployment and misery or a trillion dollar cardiac re-start?

We must all understand this one fact. In a finite world with finite
resources growth must come to and end and then free market capitalism falls
over. That isn't a wish on my part, I am not pushing ideology I am pushing
a prediction of fact. The present system has served well enough during a
period when unrestrained growth was tolerable but it all comes to an end
when that is no longer possible. The economy must remake itself so that
constant growth is not essential and it becomes sustainable. Getting there
will be a very hard road. The first step is accepting there is a problem.

Or, at the very least, by being perceived as such by ones fellow man.
That is as true of those "greedy" gene manipulators as it is of
street whores: If people didn't want their goods, those entities
would find something else to peddle. Unfortunately, a large cadre of
academicians, mid-level managers, self-styled "journalists", a host
of other vocal wage-slaves demonstrating a classic "clerk" mindset
and the cynical politicians who pander to them never seem quite to
grasp the concept. I suspect it to be because they participate in the
economy only as consumers but that's just a guess.

I have no problem with rational self interest. Where I have the problem is
with irrational self interest. Believing that the system can just go on for
ever as resources dwindle is irrational. It is those "clerks" or the
business execs who are filling the airwaves with FUD about climate change
aided and abetted by those politicians? That's how you make the current
system continue to work: lie. The oil executives know their ride will come
to and end but they want it to be later after they have had made their pile
and the future is SEP (someone elses problem).

Surely, you have not been taken in by the myth of American
"individuality". LOL! In the main, it exists only in the movies and
in whatever pro-America propaganda may be circulating at any given
time. The U.S.A. is very much a go-along-to-get-along society -- and
has been thus since the Spaniards arrived with their repressive
Catholic tyranny and began killing off the indigenous peoples.

There is nothing repressive about the current religious right of the USA of
course, they are such easy going get-along guys. Look at those big
businesses that own senators who constantly support perverse agricultural
subsidies. Look at the hate speech directed at your president because of
his colour and the demonstrable lies about him that will not be silenced.
Tyranny and repression are still nearby.

Why
else would so many YPs drive Lexus and BMW automobiles? However, we
continue resolutely to believe the "go-alongness", if you will, to be
voluntary which it clearly ceases to be when some entity -- whether
parents, school, church, corporation, or government -- makes it
compulsory.
Not Atlanta; couldn't take the winters! About 450 miles (724 km) SSE.

In gardening
It was Handel in the headset for two humid late summer's mornings of
relocating the crown of a Springtime storm deadfall from atop a cache
of wire, bamboo poles and PVC pipe. Limbed the tree and bucked the
upper fourth of her crown months ago but did not remove it because,
well, didn't need access to those items. Hasty, I'm not ;-) When
practical, snags and deadfalls are left in place and the deadfalls
limbed, in order to provide easy access to forage by fine fellows
such as these:

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad307/balvenieman/stuff/01-09-09pileated.jpg

http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad307/balvenieman/stuff/croppedpileated04.jpg

Later in this week I shall be transporting at least one, possibly two,
cubic yards of what is purported to be composted chicken manure back
to the shack for incorporation into the garden. Composted? I hope so;
we shall see.... Also have plans to relocate a number of daughter
tomato plants into a bed for fall/winter fruit. As a rule, I keep
indeterminate tomatoes within bounds with field wire fencing but this
year, because they were container grown and got a late start, they
were allowed to wallow about and a number of canes rooted in the
yard. Volunteers; no layering required. Unusual because the native
Earth here is sand, sand, and more sand.
By the end of this month, will have planted "green" onions; parsley;
sage; "Little Marvel" peas; "Delinel" beans; cucumbers, yellow
squash, and a number of hardy potherbs. Sept. is the earliest that
I've planted winter peas; it remains to be seen how they'll cope with
the hot weather. Eggplant (aubergine), jalapeño, "bell" peppers and
okra continue to bear. Overnights are cool enough now that the
tomatoes have begun retaining their blossoms and they'll soon be
setting fruit. I really want their containers for other things but
shall leave them in place until the daughters "take" to their new
surroundings.
What of you? Is your climate conducive to actively gardening this
time of
year?

You are right on this at least. Politics and economics are off topic, I
will shut up now.

Yes it is spring. I am raising seedlings in a cloche until the risk of
frost is gone. We have been feasting on asparagus for weeks and soon I must
have some self control and stop cutting it. The artichokes will be budding
soon. The sun is shining and all is right with the world.

David

In article ,
wrote:

Billy wrote:


Obviously, investment bankers aren't fellow men, because they can make a
mess out of the myth of a free market.
LOL! That's too rich. No offense, but that you would make such a blanket
statement leads me to believe you ignorant of what investment bankers do in
the
economy and to suspect you have drunk of the "progressive" Kool-Aide. Neither
here nor there in a gardening forum, though, eh?

If I wanted a drunken fool, you'd be my pick.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/bu...y/24panel.html

""Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending
institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself (Alan Greenspan)
included, are in a state of shocked disbelief," he told the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. . .
Mr. Greenspan brushed aside worries about a potential bubble, arguing
that housing prices had never endured a nationwide decline and that a
bust was highly unlikely."

No housing bubble? Why are so many people in default then?


http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/7/robert_scheer_on__the_great
ROBERT SCHEER: I covered these hearings in Washington when the Clinton
Administration in the '90s basically fulfilled the promise of the Reagan
Revolution. Reagan was not able to reverse the sensible regulations of
the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt designed to prevent us from
getting into another depression. And those regulations of
Glass-Steagall, which Feingold was against--was for keeping and against
reversing, said that investment banks playing with supposedly rich
people's money should not be allowed to merge with commercial banks that
were using the deposits of people that were insured by the taxpayers and
that these were different activities. And Reagan could never pull off
that kind of deregulation. In fact, because of the savings and loan
scandal at the end of his term, he actually had to sign off on increased
financial regulation. But when Clinton came in, he brought in one of the
big players on Wall Street, Robert Rubin, who has been head of Goldman
Sachs, and basically turned to him and said, "You know, what do I need
to do to get Wall Street on my side?" And they said, reverse what they
considered to be onerous financial regulation. And Clinton delivered on
that. He brought in Rubin then to be his Treasury secretary, who was
followed by Lawrence Summers, who's now the top economics adviser in the
Obama White House. . .
But that's what happens when you have an economic breakdown. We saw it
in Germany, for God's sake. You know, you look--the demagogues scapegoat
all the people. You know, they scapegoat immigrants. And what you have
now is a lot of money, a lot of money, from the big banks and everyone
else, going into lunatics' camp--the campaign of lunatics. But why?
Because, "Oh, get government off our back. You know, big government,"
ignoring the fact that, you know, this government did not get big and
the debt did not rise because we're trying to help firemen or school
teachers keep their jobs. It happened because we have, literally,
through the Fed and through the federal government, spent, you know,
what? Three, four--committed three, four trillion dollars to make the
banks whole."
---

So, go do whatever it is that you and your bottle do, and leave the
adults to talk, OK, hmmm?
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

David Hare-Scott wrote:
I won't be giving space to "Brandywine"
tomatoes again. Too much vine; too little tomato. What others might
do is not my concern but I would find having _no_ tomatoes in the
garden an acceptable alternative.




A Brandywine tomato is the best I have ever tasted. I have had no luck
growing them, but that doesn't mean that heirlooms aren't delicious with
superb flavor and few seeds.

They are just very selective about conditions which is why less-fussy
hybrids have been produced.

gloria p

In article ,
"gloria.p" wrote:

David Hare-Scott wrote:
I won't be giving space to "Brandywine"
tomatoes again. Too much vine; too little tomato. What others might
do is not my concern but I would find having _no_ tomatoes in the
garden an acceptable alternative.




A Brandywine tomato is the best I have ever tasted. I have had no luck
growing them, but that doesn't mean that heirlooms aren't delicious with
superb flavor and few seeds.

They are just very selective about conditions which is why less-fussy
hybrids have been produced.

gloria p

I'm afraid that you've attributed to David Hare-Scott the statements of
that "bonehead" Balvenieman. You'll remember "Bonehead" Bal as the guy
who like "free market capitalism", because the beauty of "free market
capitalism" is that you don't have to understand how it works (a big
upside for someone dumber than dirt), because it corrects itself, so it
says. Oh, it is also known as Neo-liberalism, and the main points of
neo-liberalism include:

(1) Rule of the Market liberating free enterprise from any bond;
(2) Cutting public expenditure for social services;
(3) Deregulation or reduced government regulation of everything and
anything;
(4) Privatization and selling all state owned enterprises, goods and
services to private investors;
(5) Eliminate the concept of the public good or community and replacing
it with individual responsibility.

It is a favorite of the IMF, and the only thing that is wrong with it is
that it has never worked, NEVER.

Others, like the Editorial Staff at the New York Times, are less
enamored of it, and refer to it as "Casino Capitalism".

"The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Goldman of
defrauding clients by selling them a complex instrument without telling
them it was designed so another client could bet against it. Testifying
before the Senate subcommittee on investigations, Goldman executives
denied withholding information. They insisted there was nothing wrong
with selling mortgage-backed products while placing bets against them.

They called it ³risk management.² Most people call it stacking the deck."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/opinion/28wed1.html?_r=1

So when "Bonehead" Bal, tells you not to worry, you can bend over and
kiss it good-bye. His brains would, however, make excellent fertilizer.

It's OK David, I think we got it cleared up. Oh, and David, save me a
couple of marshmallows won't you?
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

Billy wrote:
In article ,
wrote:

Billy wrote:


Obviously, investment bankers aren't fellow men, because they can
make a mess out of the myth of a free market.
LOL! That's too rich. No offense, but that you would make such a
blanket statement leads me to believe you ignorant of what
investment bankers do in the
economy and to suspect you have drunk of the "progressive"
Kool-Aide. Neither here nor there in a gardening forum, though, eh?

Needling a little but well able to be passed over.


If I wanted a drunken fool, you'd be my pick.


Taking as much offence as possible and returning more. What is the point in
making it personal? Why must somebody who disagrees with you be a bad
person?

David

"gloria.p" wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:
I won't be giving space to "Brandywine"
tomatoes again. Too much vine; too little tomato. What others might
do is not my concern but I would find having _no_ tomatoes in the
garden an acceptable alternative.




A Brandywine tomato is the best I have ever tasted. I have had no
luck
growing them, but that doesn't mean that heirlooms aren't delicious
with superb flavor and few seeds.

They are just very selective about conditions which is why less-fussy
hybrids have been produced.

gloria p
I have given up on brandywine tomatoes in Michigan. The season is just
too short.
I do grow heirloom tomatoes of Romas and Bonnie Best. These are smaller
tomatoes and take less time to grow and grow well in my area. But I will
continue to grow heirloom.

--
Enjoy Life... Dan L (Garden in zone 5a Michigan)

In article ,
Dan L wrote:

"gloria.p" wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:
I won't be giving space to "Brandywine"
tomatoes again. Too much vine; too little tomato. What others might
do is not my concern but I would find having _no_ tomatoes in the
garden an acceptable alternative.




A Brandywine tomato is the best I have ever tasted. I have had no
luck
growing them, but that doesn't mean that heirlooms aren't delicious
with superb flavor and few seeds.

They are just very selective about conditions which is why less-fussy
hybrids have been produced.

gloria p
I have given up on brandywine tomatoes in Michigan. The season is just
too short.
I do grow heirloom tomatoes of Romas and Bonnie Best. These are smaller
tomatoes and take less time to grow and grow well in my area. But I will
continue to grow heirloom.

I'd guess heirlooms need more light or so it seems here. My marglobes
say so. Poor crop a light issue next step demise of another magnolia..
This small effort food production a learning experience.
Aside ...the horn caterpillars seemed happy till all those white
eggs appeared.

--
Bill S. Jersey USA zone 5 shade garden
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q0JfdP36kI

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

Billy wrote:
In article ,
wrote:

Billy wrote:


Obviously, investment bankers aren't fellow men, because they can
make a mess out of the myth of a free market.
LOL! That's too rich. No offense, but that you would make such a
blanket statement leads me to believe you ignorant of what
investment bankers do in the
economy and to suspect you have drunk of the "progressive"
Kool-Aide. Neither here nor there in a gardening forum, though, eh?

Needling a little but well able to be passed over.


If I wanted a drunken fool, you'd be my pick.


Taking as much offence as possible and returning more. What is the point in
making it personal? Why must somebody who disagrees with you be a bad
person?

David

I love dialogue. We all get trapped between our ears, and need a fresh
view in order to have more grist for the mills of our minds to work on.
Presently, in the U.S. of A., we have, essentially, angry mobs running
around blaming the huge deficits on Obama, and calling for the return of
the Republicans that got us into this hole to begin with. Now, don't
misunderstand me, Obama is a jerk. He thinks that the progressives have
nowhere else to go, and that he can continue on as a new and improved
George Bush. However, if he was the man that was elected, he would have
had investigations into the Bush Administration. He would have stopped
the torture, and he would have brought our soldiers home, but he hasn't.
He doesn't talk about coming home (Now we talk of war in *Indonesia,
Somalia, and Venezuela). He talks about being out of Iraq, where we
still have 50,000 troops, god knows how many mercenaries, an embassy
that is large as 80 football fields (427,829 sq. m.), and a State
Department staff armed with Black Hawk helicopters, drones, M1 Abrams
tanks, and some 5,000 mercenaries. Would you like to "super size" your
visa?
However, as I have just said, we are where we are because of Republican
lying, and Democratic acquiescence.
We have 2 choices in this country, the smiling fascists (Democrats), or
the full-tilt crazies (Republicans). Where I can, I'll vote third party,
but the Republican party is alway a clear and present danger. Here in
California, the "Better Business" people have thrown their lot behind
the Republicans. Needless to say, the better it is for business, the
worse it is for consumers.
We need to shut down the War Department and their suppliers. Stop
subsidizing fossil fuel extraction, and nail Wall Street investment
bankers to the wall by their balls. Merrill Lynch was given $10 billion
by American tax-payers to buy back junk stock that they had created, and
they paid themselves $3.6 billion in bonuses!!
Can you see where the anger comes from, when to complain is to be
accused of having "drunk to much progressive Kool-Aid"? That is an
invective, not an argument. This stupidity has to stop, and that is why
it is personal.
I have hung way out on a limb here. If someone wants to make a fool of
me, all they have to do is chop it off. In the mean time, I'm not going
to make the mob hysteria thing easy, if I can help it. People need to
think, and not just go into a knee jerk reaction, if someone is a
Muslim, or a Mexican.
We just had a taxi driver slashed in New York with a knife. His offense?
He was a Muslim.

Otherwise, you are quite right, and the criticism is noted.

Kill any more honey bees lately, "Bonehead"?

I mean, this guy want to be the King of Stupid.

Grrrrr
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

"Billy" wrote in message

Can you see where the anger comes from, when to complain is to be
accused of having "drunk to much progressive Kool-Aid"? That is an
invective, not an argument.

Just use your killfile. If you and David didn't reply to him/her/it, I
wouldn't have to see what he/her/it writes.