The Half-Flat of Tomatoes

Last week I stopped at Shop Rite and there in the middle of the Horticulture section [that’s the plants on the sidewalk in front of the store] was a bunch of tomato plants with a sign: “1/2 flat $5.99 with Price Plus card”.

Well, this year - with the price of food and the nationwide tomato-salmonella scare - buying the half-flat seemed reasonable. Just a few extra plants to supplement the vegetable garden.

Now, for the uninitiated, a half-flat is 24 plants - which didn’t seem like a lot…at the time.

Early the next morning seven of them went directly into the vegetable patch. That was simple and it was only about 9 a.m. As the flat contained assorted varieties, there were three patio tomatoes that went into three large containers near the patio and swing. Ten down, fourteen to go. Easy. Four more go into the ground next to the containers.

Darn, there are still ten left and the temperature is going up.

The basically unused far side of the house is always sunny; so three more tomato plants join the pachysandra groundcover and the Rose of Sharon plants along the chimney. I will have to carry buckets of water over there for the rest of the hot summer, but that’s no problem, right? Right? [Okay, this is where you are supposed to say “Right!” Geez, do I have to tell you everything?]

There are now seven left. Oh, wait! Six! Happily one of the little cells is missing a live plant! [It’s not often that I am happy to see that I didn’t get what I paid for.]

My significant other is now thoroughly sick-and-tired of tomato plants and steals away with four of them as a gift for my mother-in-law. Somehow two of them are unaccounted for, but I’m not looking too hard.

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Google "too many tomatoes" and you get about 14,300 hits. This can't be good.

Planning ahead, I went to the Hillsborough Library and took out a book containing only tomato recipes.