In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

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June 29, 2007

Calling all tomato aficionados

Thanks to reader and heirloom tomato aficionado, Bill Bird, I’ve discovered a forum dedicated to all things tomato.

It’s called Tomatoville, and the more than 1,600 members call themselves tomatovillians. Log onto the website and a tomato-head farmer clad in blue overalls and a yellow shirt says, “Welcome to Tomatoville. We speak tomato.”

You can talk tomato with gardeners across the country or in your own backyard. Members talk about growing tomatoes from seed, saving seed, fertilizing tomatoes, tomato cages, cooking with tomatoes and more. You can even talk about flowers and vegetables. Politics and religion are verboten since there are plenty of places to discuss those topics. Membership is free, though they do ask for your birthday. You can hide that information from fellow tomatovillians if you like.

And Fred "Farmer Fred" Hoffman writes: "This is a first for me: heirloom tomatoes ripening before the hybrids! This, the last week of June, we have already enjoyed the Druzba, Costaluto Genovese, Campbells and Marianna's Peace (a late season tomato!)...we are still waiting for the Early Girl and Celebrity to ripen... What gives? Of course, the cherry tomato, Sweet Million, already is ripening in the thousands."

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