No stem cells were harmed (nor found) in the making of this picture.

Meantime, Janice  (Rav link) posted on FB that she had started her tomatoes a tad late,  but hey–and now she had way more seedlings than she could use. It seemed a shame to dump all that potential into the compost heap, did anyone want them?

A day later, nobody had taken her up on it so I said sure.

She dropped them by on Saturday, whereupon I learned a new use for the produce clamshells that are too shallow for my fruit trees–what a great idea!

Saturday and Sunday evenings were busy for us but tonight I finally had some no-UV time at home.

Last year I started my own tomatoes from seed, too, and dutifully thinned them down to one per pot but totally picked the wrong individuals: the sorriest one never got above 10″ high no matter how I tried to coax the darn thing. Big Boy my foot.

And that is why I bought Costco tomato plants a month ago and got them in the ground with bird netting rather than planning on hauling pots inside away from the squirrels once they set fruit. You need the outside heat for sweetness anyway. I wanted real homegrown tomatoes at last!

Tonight with easily 50 seedlings wanting to grow up, as the sun rapidly faded while I was trying to decide mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest plant of all, I hedged my bets and put two per pot in some of the pots. We’ll see how that goes as they grow and show themselves and I get more ruthless, but still: I filled sixteen pots. With two more seedlings plunked in the ground behind the Costco ones that have already set fruit (good luck, guys) because, well, the more the merrier.

Let me grow these up just a bit and then, or now if you want, if you’re local and you’d like an heirloom tomato plant let me know. Seems I have a few extra.