Introduction?

[Paquebot]

Do I need an introduction? Need the story of my life? I grow tomatoes, a lot of them, 'nuff said!

[Nan6b]

Good enough for us, Paquebot. Greetings from Pennsylvania. I too, grow a lot of tomatoes, get a big kick out of them. What state or planting zone are you?

[rxkeith]

hey martin,
i have thought about you from time to time wondering what you have been up to.
i still have some of your seed envelopes with your unique postage imprint whatever
you call it.
how ya been?
good to see you still on the up side of the dirt


keith

[Paquebot]

Keith, also glad to be standing and should not. Fractured my neck a year ago, Atlas bone. That was no problem., brace and time will heal it. Entered the hospital at 238# on 9 Feb. Came home on 11 April at 178#. While in the hospital, caught the superbug staph pneumonia. It was supposed to kill me. Best friend now is my Inogen One concentrator. Without that, may as well strap me to the bed.

One recent change is loss of e-mail provider. Still same name but yahoo instead of merr.

Martin

[Paquebot]

Good enough for us, Paquebot. Greetings from Pennsylvania. I too, grow a lot of tomatoes, get a big kick out of them. What state or planting zone are you?

You must be "new" to the tomato world? I'm in Wisconsin and been growing them in the same exact garden since 1964. Peaked in 2013 when I started 108 varieties. Still gardened over 10,000 square feet in 2012. Age and health caught to me the past two years and down to only about 1,500. Currently list over 900 varieties on SSE. Paquebot Roma is one of mine. If you are into garlic, Martin's is also mine. Find those and you'll know who I am. I was "M" to "C".

[Nan6b]

A heavy-hitter, then.

[Cole_Robbie]

Hi Martin. I remember trading seeds with you a few years ago. Glad to see you here, best wishes on your health.

[Tormato]

Martin,

Long time, no hear. It's been more than a decade. I will be bringing up Wisconsin 55 (and Wisconsin 55 Gold). So, it's time to prep.

[PhilaGardener]

Great to have you posting here!

[Paquebot]

Martin,

Long time, no hear. It's been more than a decade. I will be bringing up Wisconsin 55 (and Wisconsin 55 Gold). So, it's time to prep.

Big smile here! Both of those would be gone if I had refused to let WI55 die. Not available commercially in 2003. Sent it free to 450+ GW members in 2004. Almost 75 years and not an heirloom. WI55 Gold about 10 years younger. Several hundred got that in 2005. Both saved forever. You will not be disappointed. Grew out 2004 WI55 Gold this past season just to make certain that I had pure seed.

[imp]

sounds like some good varieties, pacquebot

[SpookyShoe]

Lots of folks here with street cred.....

[Lonejack]

Hi Martin! It's good to see you here! Sorry to hear that you had the neck problems but also glad to hear you are doing better. I learned a great deal from your old garlic posts on GW. Thank you for sharing your great garlic knowledge there.

I grew Martin's old heirloom garlic several years ago but it never did well for me. It may have been because I bought it from Fillaree farms and it needed to adapt to my hot Midwest climate longer. I had planned to order it from Wegrowgarlic but that was the year they decided to close down their garlic farm. Unfortunately I lost Martin's along with some other varieties during a very wet year that caused a lot of rotting.

Any chance that Wegrowgarlic starts their farm back up in the future?

[Paquebot]

Lonejack, we know that Filaree had the right variety as they got it from us. By "us", I was with WeGrowGarlic at the time. Karen kept the site active until recently so all of the variety information is no longer available. Right now I have 125 Martin's planted. May offer it here next fall if there's interest.

Getting good results depends upon soil prep. When you dig a bulb, you'll find it up to 6" deep. The roots are all below the bulb. Means that the nutrients must be at least 8" deep. Do that and you'll get super bulbs. At WeGrowGarlic, horse manure was plowed under as deep as the plow would go right after harvest. Then chisel-plowed deep before planting. We got 3½" Martin's from that.

[imp]

Great info on the garlic, Martiin, I'll use that information too!

[Lonejack]

Thanks for the information Martin. I'll have to try tilling some manure into the garlic bed next fall. I do add manure from our small cow herd to my compost piles when I build them in the fall. I tilled a couple inches of composed into the garlic bed before planting in October but my Mantis won't go 8" deep. This is in a 10" deep raised bed. Lately I've been fertilizing with Urea and Texas Veggie fertilizer and getting mostly 2-2.75" bulbs of German White and Music and slightly smaller Chesnok Red and Spanish Roja

[hdrider]

Hello Paquebot, I split my time between SE Wisconsin and NE Mississippi. I have grown WI55 several times, thank you for saving it.