Grow Better Veggies

Tomato Seed Winners!

As always, I run a contest each time I send out a newsletter, and my last one was to give ten lucky folks a set of TomatoFest seed packets.  These seed varieties are wonderful:

Black Cherry

Dagma's Perfection

Tobolsk

Sunset's Red Horizon

and Black Prince:

(All photos, courtesy www.TomatoFest.com)

The winners are, according to the "name" they listed when they entered the contest: Annette, Cathy S., Jeph Remley, Annie, William Barnard, Cheryl, Breadl, Aggie, E., and Jen.  I have sent each of you an email letting you know how to claim your seeds.  And if any of you who are not yet on my newsletter list want to join in on all these free-wheelin' give-aways, click here to sign up.

Check back here for a series of posts I'll be having soon on starting tomato seeds.

   

The Winners of the Class Tuitions Contests Are...

I run contests every time I send out a newsletter (I know I keep saying that, but some of you haven't gotten the news yet!).  Only my newsletter subscribers can enter.  In my last installment, a couple of weeks ago, I promised to give away a couple of class tuitions to one of my upcoming gardening (and chicken) classes.  The winners get to pick which class they want to come to.  Click here if you want to subscribe to my free newsletter and get in on these contests.  Click here if you want to see a list of my classes.

The winner of a full class tuition goes to Annette T. of San Jose, who wanted to win a seat in my chicken class.  Congrats, Annette!  You'll be receiving three chicks, a starter brooder kit, and two hours of learning how to care for these babies, with the end result being fresh eggs for you and your family!

The winner of a buddy seat tuition to a class in which they've enrolled, is Diana C. of Santa Cruz.  Diana greatly increased her chances of winning the buddy seat because she enrolled in four of my classes.  She gets to bring a friend for free to any one of those classes.

My next class, Grow the Earliest Tomatoes, is this coming Saturday, February 2, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. here at the farm in Ben Lomond.  I'll be showing folks how to get their tomatoes to fruit a whole month early, with some hard work and perseverance.  Class participants get to take home 6 already growing plants of my proven earliest maturing tomato varieties.  There are a few spots left in that class, so email me at loveapplefarm@gmail.com if you'd like to enroll.  The class costs $30, plus a materials fee of $18.

In the meantime, congratulations to our two winners, and we'll see you soon!

The Winner of the TomatoFest Poster and Seeds is...

We had another contest for my newsletter subscribers; to enter, people had to leave a comment on my Harvest Tuesday post of December 18.  I asked folks to tell me what they were doing in their garden right now.  As you can see, we had a lot of interesting tasks outlined and many of you peeps were harvesting a nice array of your own winter veggies. Here's what a lucky subscriber won:

This is a beautiful heirloom tomato wall poster generously donated by Gary Ibsen of TomatoFest.com.  He is also throwing in 3 packets of his heirloom tomato seeds for the winner.  I chose the winner at random, after jotting down everyone's email address and stirring them around in a box.  Congrats go out to Cheri from Tracy, California. If you'd like to sign up for our free newsletter and get a chance at many more seeds, posters, books, class tuitions, etc., click here.

TomatoFest has 600 different kinds of heirloom tomato seeds on their site, and right now they have put on sale 70 of their most popular varieties for only $2.00 a pack until January 20th.  So if you are in the market for tomato seeds, go on over and take a look.  I love Gary and Dagma, the husband and wife team who run TomatoFest.  Their annual tomato festival is my favorite event of the year, and it benefits many children's charities.  They work very hard to preserve old heritage varieties of tomatoes, and I've personally seen them both laboring in a gigantic tomato field, sweating buckets in 90+ degree heat, harvesting tomatoes for seeds.  They are the real deal.

Thank you, Gary and Dagma, for supporting the cause of righteous tomatoes, and for supporting me!

Working on Upcoming Class List and Newsletter Contest Winners

Sorry for the delay in posting, folks, but I've been busy working on an upcoming roster of classes to be held here at Love Apple Farm.  I've been putting together descriptions, figuring out class dates, and outlining material lists.  I'll unveil the classes within the next couple of days, but for now I'll tell you that they include tomato seed sowing, growing giant tomatoes, growing very early summer tomatoes, starting a summer vegetable garden, compost and vermiculture, and keeping chickens.  Those of you on the "A" list (subscribers to my newsletter) will have the opportunity to win a class tuition or two.  Oh, I'll also be tallying and announcing the winner of the TomatoFest poster and tomato seeds!

The Winner of the 2008 Farmer's Market Calendar is...

For those who subscribe to my email newsletter, I run a contest each week. Last week I decided to hold a drawing for this gorgeous Farmers Market 2008 Calendar.

All people had to do to enter the drawing was to forward my newsletter to someone, anyone, perhaps even someone who works for Monsanto or another agriculture conglomerate hungry to rub out all farmers markets and ensure each of your food dollars is spent at Megalo-Mart on genetically-modified fruits and vegetables.  I am digressing!  On to the drawing!

First, I jotted down all the emails that forwarded my newsletter.  People who forwarded to more than one person got entered the number of times they forwarded. 

Then I put them all into a big vase and had my super handsome, strapping 17 year old son, Zach (those are his huge paws in the pic) to reach in and grab one.

Voila!  As you might be able to tell from this super-fuzzy photo (we are still learning how to use the macro setting on my new camera), the person whose email starts with: "Odonne" was the winner (I conveniently hid the rest of her email address as to save her from the onslaught of vicious hate emails ya'll are likely to send her because she won and you didn't! Ha!

Not to worry, though, Tana Butler, the creator of this beautiful calendar, has graciously promised to make a few more available for you guys to fight over at a future date.  Should you not want to wait for that, click here to go to a page where you can buy your own calendar.  Oh, and if you want in on these contests (this week we are giving away a TomatoFest Heirloom Tomato Poster and TomatoFest Seed Packets, click here to sign up for our free free free Grow Better Veggies newsletter.

Announcing our Newsletter Winners

Every week I send out a newsletter to those on my email list.  Within each newsletter is an opportunity to win something, be it a veggie-related book, Love Apple Farm seeds, class tuition, tomato seedlings, garden implements, or who knows what else I'll come up with.  If you want to be part of it, enter your email in the little box on the right column here.

In my first newsletter two weeks ago, there was a seed give-away of ten of my favorite tomato varieties.  Seventeen people won, and each are getting ten different packets of my tomato seeds,as seen in the photo.  Here are the winners:

Jeff H. (Boulder Creek, CA), Marianne O. (Monterey, CA), Andrew H. (Hollisdale, Australia), Lauren M. (Boulder, CO), Melita I. (Aptos, CA), Doug W. (Santa Cruz, CA), Helen R. (Salinas, CA), J.Y.L. (Bonny Doon, CA), Mary Ellen L. (Santa Cruz, CA), Carol M. (Celina, TX), Kathleen T. (Ben Lomond, CA), Richard B. (Tampa, FL), Jill (Santa Cruz, CA), Julie F. (Santa Cruz, CA), Sharon C. (Columbia, CA), Susan B. (watsonville, CA), Allen S. (Atascadero, CA).

Last week's newsletter had the option for people to enter a drawing for: "The Tomato Festival Cookbook."  I'm happy to announce that the winner is Catt P.  I just sent her an email letting her know.

So sign up now for the Love Apple Farm newsletter.  You get to stay in the loop and perhaps win some cool stuff!