Well, it's not the Cover of the Rolling Stone - but it's the NYT! web live this AM

[NewHendoLib]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/realestate/tomato-growing-tips.html/

I know there is a paywall - will put the first 4 para below

It will be in the print version on Sunday

By Margaret Roach
Feb. 16, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

“We are the luckiest tomato growers in all of history,” proclaimed Craig LeHoullier as he thumbed with dramatic effect through the Seed Savers Exchange yearbook, a hefty index of nearly 12,000 heirloom varieties of the beloved Solanum lycopersicum.

Choosing among such a staggering selection of tomatoes, plus hundreds of modern hybrids not included in that print version of the yearbook, is the first step toward your best-ever harvest — or what Dr. LeHoullier, a retired chemist who has grown perhaps 3,000 varieties, calls “epic tomatoes.”

And reaching that goal does not start with just any old tomato that the local big-box store serves up as transplants by the truckload.

“Epic Tomatoes: How to Select and Grow the Best Varieties of All Time” is Dr. LeHoullier’s 2014 book, now in its seventh printing, with about 80,000 copies in print. And Growing Epic Tomatoes is the name of an online course that he teaches with his friend Joe Lamp’l, the host for 12 years of the Emmy Award-winning public television program “Growing a Greener World.”

snip

[hedda_foil]

1. This is EPIC. congratulations, sir.

[2naSalit]

2. COOL!

Congrats!

[mopinko]

3. well, look at you!

congrats my old friend. you earned it.

[farmbo]

4. Well deserved...

Keep on Growing!

[Solly Mack]

5. That's great!

[blm]

6. Whoot!

[luvs2sing]

7. I would rush right out and buy this book..

But the deer are already gathering and licking their chops at the mere thought of our ever growing tomatoes again.

Congratulations!

[Lonestarblue]

15. Same here. The deer roam freely around here, and I like seeing them in my back yard.

But trying to grow anything like tomatoes or salad greens is futile. And what the deer don’t get, the squirrels do. Squirrels plop down in the herb bins and much away. They love Italian parsley!

[luvs2sing]

19. The only thing that bothers my parsley..

is the black swallowtail caterpillars, and I’m more than happy to share my small crop with them. The deer are no longer an adorable novelty. They are a nuisance, and it’s an overcrowding situation that’s unhealthy for them and aggravating for humans. They even ate our garlic!

[niyad]

8. Ah, absolutely wonderful. Your book, which my library system purchased at my request,

is in constant circulation.

[CaptainTruth]

9. Congratulations!!!

[Hekate]

10. Very cool!

[packman]

11. Ah, tomatoes - the one of the most expensive veggies in the world IMHO

I once figured it out that the two good tomatoes I grew that one year, before surrendering them to bugs and assorted blight, cost me about $12 each. True, I enjoyed the daily care, feeding, weeding, spraying , and seeing them grow - but still.

[7wo7rees]

35. Absolutely!!

[barbtries]

12. That's so exciting!

Congratulations Craig.

[steventh]

13. Congrtulations for well deserved recognition.

"Epic Tomatoes" is one of my favorite gardening books, along with "Square Foot Gardening." I hope the NYT article (which I can't see behind the paywall) also mentioned your excellent work with dwarf tomatoes.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

14. 12,000 heirloom varieties?

I can't even begin to imagine.

I tried growing tomatoes a couple of years ago, and was spectacularly unsuccessful. Quite discouraging, as there's nothing better than a vine-ripened tomato.

[mgardener]

16. Congratulations!

I grow Polish Linguisa and Olpaka tomatoes for sauces and salsa.
They do so well in our Zone 4.

[cbabe]

17. Only two things that money can't buy/

That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.

Guy Clark, Homegrown Tomatoes

(Some kind person post the live from Austin YouTube? Thanks!)

[babylonsister]

18. Impressive, congrats!! nt

[Farmer-Rick]

20. I wonder how they avoid the blight?

I grow really good tomatoes until late or early blight hits them.

[Botany]

21. May your Princes be black

[NBachers]

22. I endorse this!

[2Gingersnaps]

23. In anyones life time, that would do!

Congrats!

[highplainsdem]

24. Congratulations! This is wonderful!

[BobTheSubgenius]

25. I remember being so surprised to learn that there are about 6000 varieties of apples.

I am very surprised once again.

A friend of ours that could grow a plant from a dry stick gave me a few heirloom tomato varieties. A few I didn't really care for - not that I didn't like them, they just weren't impressive - but a couple were absolutely delicious. Not big fruit producers though, so not commercially viable, except for a few boutique-type restaurants.

[R Merm]

26. Way to go Craig

[NewHendoLib]

28. Thx friend!

[people]

27. Thank you for your book!

Congratulations and thank you for your beautiful book. Just thinking about buying tomato seeds when I saw this. Am pulling your book off the shelf now.

[Gore1FL]

29. I archived it for you. Here is a non-paywall link

https://archive.ph/cti1W

[niyad]

32. Thank you for that. A very helpful read.

[hippywife]

30. Yahoo!

Congrats!

[Grasswire2]

31. congrats!

I still remember the taste of the Mexico Midgets you sent me.

Very cool!

[live love laugh]

33. Tomatoes in August is one of my favorite things 🥰.

They’re at their peak then and so delicious.

I wish I could grow my own but I lack the talent.

Congratulations!🍾

[7wo7rees]

34. Dear sir, you are the best!

Every farmers market I go to where I have opportunity to talk to growers of tomatoes, I tell them of you
I rec to them your book.
I absolutely love you and your wife and your writing of "retirement" in North Carolina. Reads like heaven and then some!!

Oh yes, 7wo7rees mom and pop live in Pinehurst, NC.
Retirement on golf course did not work out quite as planned.......

[sinkingfeeling]

36. Congrats. Took me awhile to remember your past user name.