52 Tomato Plants

How did we arrive at so many tomato plants this year?

Last year we grew 34 tomato plants and my wife thought that was a bit much. She didn't want to plant along “Alongi Row” (a patch of dirt between us and our former neighbor to our north) anymore and was shooting for about 25 tomato plants this year.

Last year I dug up the area of land in the front yard (When dug out resembled a koi pond, thus the nickname), hauled it to the back to make a raised flower bed, added mulch, compost and planting mix, then brought back as much of the dirt necessary to fill it back to the normal level. This year I simply turned the soil and added nutrients.

This year I concentrated on the back yard planting area on the north side of the property. Digging with a shovel was proving to be too cumbersome to be ready for planting season so we bought a Rototiller. We quickly Rototilled the north side of the back yard and added compost in advance of a coming storm.

By this time we had planted some tomatoes in the front yard and had acquired some seedlings from seed as well. However, the batch of seedlings grown from seed was mostly wiped out. We lost a couple more due to broken stems just after planting.

Both my wife and I acquired a flat of tomatoes for volunteering at Tomatomania. A flat consists of 16 tomato plants. Originally, we planned to draw from our “stash” to give about 10 plants to my mother in law. But a friend who also volunteered told us it was okay to draw from his plants, as he wasn't planting any this year.

So we kept our 32 tomatoes and earlier this month I we began to plant them. By the time we found room for most all of them, our seed grower came back with a second batch of seedlings! We were unprepared for a second batch and had already emotionally committed to planting the rest of our Tomatomania seedlings.

And that's how we've ended up with 52 tomato plants.