Tomatomania! rocks!

I annually write the date for Tomatomania! in my calendar. Something always comes up that keeps me from going.

But this year was different. Karen and I drove over to Tapia Brothers and checked out the riches.

According to the website, Tomatomania! is what the New York Times calls "the tomato freaks' Woodstock."

It started in the early 90s at Hortus, a trend-setting nursery in Pasadena, CA, which regretfully closed in 2001, with classes, sales, "tomato tasting and impromptu social gatherings at nurseries and garden destinations across the state."

So instead of buying our usual pony pack of tomato plants from a standard chain nursery, we wandered the aisles looking at the wild and wonderful heirlooms -- Mortgage Lifters, Black Krims, Cherokee Purples, yellow ones, striped ones, deep purple nearly black ones.

We selected three indeterminate tomatoes and a couple of determinate ones. By the end of the weekend, we had the tomato trellis hung and the tomatoes planted along with marigolds to keep the bugs away and mixed flowers to bring in the bees. And we have our usual volunteer, of a type yet to be determined. It feels like we have the right amount of plants this year; the pony packs always gave us too many plants. Usually some died and the rest produced way more than we could handle.

Everything's moving on schedule for a change.

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