Tomato Surprise–It’s a Whopper!
For relaxation I do gardening. I find that working in the soil and bringing plans to harvest from seed gives me peace and clears my mind of daily clutter. While working on my patio garden, I can get lost in the task and not think about work I need to do, or research that must be done. Gardening is my decompression zone.
And it pays off! Just check the size of this puppy I just harvested today. This whopper measures 4 inches across and weighs in at more than 12 ounces. It probably is one of the biggest tomatoes I’ve grown in a container.
I usually start my spring patio garden with tomatoes that I buy at Home Depot or some other Mega Box gardening outlet. In fact, I still have one plant, a Better Bush Hybrid, that’s more than 3 years old now and still going strong. It’s survived being broken by careless passersby, dumped, frosts, pest invasions, Santa Ana windstorms and 3 seasons of 110 degree heat.
You might get the idea that I’m attached to it.
Back to the whopper. This one was a Home Depot special called Celebrity Hybrid we bought in early spring. The package came with a nursery-grown plant about 14 inches tall in a good-sized pot with a wire support cage for $14. Best investment I’ve made in a while.
The season is just starting and this plant promises to be prolific, which is OK, ’cause I’m nuts about tomatoes. Got 3 varieties this year, including a beefsteak variety we got at Wal-Mart for just 50 cents. Call me Frugal Farmer John.
Growing tomatoes is a lot like growing a business. You start with a seed, apply fertilizer and water, add generous doses of maintenance, and tweak it as you go along and learn how to do it better. The results you can see, and plus I have the satisfaction of knowing I did it myself.
So….will it be salsa? or Tomato sandwiches? Decisions…Decisions…
Tagged: beefsteak, Better Bush Hybrid, celebrity hybrid, home depot, patio garden, tomato, tomatoes, wal-mart
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Congrats on Tomatozilla! I tip my tiara to your superior gardening skills. Having been on the receiving end of a litany of complaints from friends and relatives about their tomato trials and tribulations, I have never tried to grow tomatoes. I garden for fun and relaxation, and tomatoes just seem too darned contrary to be fun. Oh, and I vote for mater sammiches. Mmmmmmmm.