The Collected Seed Blog /
My thoughts on a variety of garden topics. Favorites include: vegetables, native plants, heavy clay soil, composting, and gardening with ornery dogs.
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The Collected Seed
- Mar 30, 2020
- 3 min
My favorite tomatoes: Vorlon
Vorlon were highly recommended by tomato growing gurus. Now I'm on the Vorlon tomato loving bandwagon. You should be proud of me. I resisted the urge this weekend to plant any tomatoes. Realistically, I could have because I don't have that many and I have plenty of frost blanket to cover them, but I had plenty of other garden work to keep me busy. The reason for my hesitation is the overnight low on Friday. A week ago today, when I posted about Lemon Boy tomatoes, the lowest
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The Collected Seed
- Mar 23, 2020
- 2 min
My favorite tomatoes: Lemon Boy
I discovered Lemon Boy tomato when I received a plant as a gift. Now I bring this tomato back every year. Wow, has the world changed since the last time I posted! I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about the COVID-19 situation we're all coping with right now. I just want to say thank you to my readers for being patient while I dealt with the changes to my life. Now, let's talk tomatoes... As I've shared over and over, I have very heavy clay soil so I grow in large
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The Collected Seed
- Mar 2, 2020
- 2 min
My favorite micro-dwarf tomato: Aztek
This little micro-dwarf tomato has the brightness of other yellow tomatoes, cute shape, and tiny growth habit. Above: Aztek (right) next to a Sun Gold tomato. Last spring I went bonkers ordering micro-dwarf cherry tomato seeds, trying all sorts of yellow tomatoes so I could evaluate them against everyone's favorite yellow cherry - Sun Gold. You can read more about that here. Overall, I didn't think many of them were noteworthy, which I recap in a little more detail here. Howe
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The Collected Seed
- Feb 24, 2020
- 3 min
My favorite tomatoes: Bendigo Moon (dwarf)
A cross of one of my other favorite tomatoes, Bendigo Moon wowed with impressive production. The picture above is Bendigo Moon (larger) beside its parent, Snow White (smaller). Last year, I received a packet of dwarf tomatoes as a free with purchase with a different tomato seed order. I'd heard of dwarf varieties but never given them much thought, however as I researched the variety in the packet I received, I discovered a plethora of other dwarf tomatoes. Among them, Bendig
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The Collected Seed
- Feb 17, 2020
- 2 min
My favorite tomatoes: Snow White cherry
This tomato came as a complete surprise, but became a staple in my garden after its first year. I stumbled upon my Snow White tomatoes while visiting my favorite garden center to pick up the one and only cherry tomato I grew at that time. I saw these and was intrigued, so I decided grab a plant and give it a try. It's been a staple in my garden since. I make a lot of dishes that call for cherry tomatoes and the Snow White tomatoes were a perfect balance to the Sun Gold cherry
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The Collected Seed
- Feb 10, 2020
- 3 min
My favorite tomatoes: Sun Gold cherry
If tomatoes can have a personality, these definitely do with a cheery and vibrant persona that reflects their taste. I first discovered Sun Gold tomatoes about 5 years ago under the name "Sun Sugar" which I later learned is the near-identical nursery variety. I try a lot of tomatoes and varieties tend to rotate through my garden, but this one has been a staple every year! Cherry tomatoes are great for small spaces and containers I normally grow more cherry tomatoes because I
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