Wow, it feels like summer - it hit 88 or 89°F today! Here in zone 7b the average last frost date is today, April 15, so basil and other annuals can start going in now. I visited the Carrboro Farmer's Market and found a vendor selling heirloom tomatoes - I love to eat heirlooms! My wife and I were thinking of growing some vegetables in pots with drip irrigation on the deck, as I've done in the past - so now we'll have heirloom tomatoes to grow!

I bought a small 4-pack "rainbow sampler" of:

• Green Zebra (80 days to fruit; we occasionally buy and enjoy this variety - rather hard, small, with green and light green stripes; not actually an heirloom, but an open-pollinated variety from 1985)
• Orange Oxheart (90 days, heart-shaped fruit, deep orange skin and flesh, dense flesh with few seeds, good for salsa and canning)
• Black Prince (70-90 days, introduced from Russia, small-medium size, red-brown with dark shoulders over green)
• Caspian Pink (80 days, also from Russia, large pinkish red beefsteak fruit, early and prolific)

(I hadn't heard of the last three varieties). I also bought some stevia and basil.

The following are not my pictures, but I thought I would include them to know what to expect in late June or early July. Picture of Green Zebra from seedfest.co.uk, Orange Oxheart from reimerseeds.com, Black Prince from tradewindsfruit.com, and Caspian Pink from victoryseeds.com: