Black Plum Received in Trade

[lavandula girl]

I apologize in advance for my newbie-ness in the world of tomatoes....

Okay - I rec'd some Black Plum seeds in trade, and started them about 3 weeks ago. Of the 12 started, I have germ. on 2, which is way below the rate on my other tomatoes. It was also a good deal slower to start. Is this a normal germ rate for this tomato? Also, is it normally a slow starter? (I rec'd other seeds from this person, and the eggplant she sent started late, but I have decent germ. on it, so it isn't neccessarily a seed saving issue.) I am also growing a beefsteak looking tomato out of a friend's garden - wonderfully tasty, large, and completely anonymous as of yet. And Roma, and a selection of stuff from wintersown.org that I got in the mail. All of them are up and running, and I'm hoping that the cold weather breaks very soon, or I'll be buying new lights again for the basement, since they're getting so large! I don't have the room for as many tomatoes as you all normally plant. If these don't work, it's no big thing, I'm mostly just curious...