Oops, I did it again......

It's that time of year folks! Yep - getting ready for Spring, which for me means tomatoes. And this year - AGAIN - I planted way too many seeds. Now, in my defense, this IS the first year on the farm. More space, more seeds, more plants. Makes sense.

However, I went overboard. Again. Remember the year that I planted a bunch of seeds because I didn't know if I had saved them correctly? And they all grew? Yep - that was the year of 206 tomato plants. But the varieties were limited to 10 or 12, I think.

This year I did it differently. I have 'all this space', so I can plant all I want. Right? Well... no. I can't plant all I want. I need to determine what grows here and when it ripens so that next year when I will be selling, I have a good idea of what I can plant with success. Yet this year I actually have limited space because of two reasons: 1) the lovely deer that are so well populated around this area make it so I must fence where I grow and 2) the field where I planned to grow has trees on both sides, so I am limited to the beginning of the field where there are no trees and therefore the sunlight is not blocked. Next year said trees will be trimmed and much more light will get onto the quarter acre field.

But back to the very well thought out plan (said with HUGE sarcasm). I need to figure out what works well here at Seven Cats Farm. I'm thinking that I will plant all kinds of different varieties to see what grows. That goes for tomatoes as well as other things - yummy eggplant, fantastic beans (green and shell), melons, summer and winter squash, and on and on. This is the summer of experimentation! This is even more reason that my space is limited!

Do you remember last summer when LW gave me a bunch of tomatoes so I could save the seed? Ten varieties were saved here. Then there were some of the varieties that I grew last year and wanted to grow again, like Copia. That was a great tomato. And then (how could I resist), I went to a class last week on tomato seed starting, and got another (...... wait for it...... are you ready.....................)

48 varieties.

With my seeds from last year and with what I started from class, I have 66 potential varieties of tomatoes to plant at Seven Cats Farm. That's not individual plants, that's variety. If all the seeds sprout and grow into mature, fruiting plants... well, I don't want to even think about it. It will be well over 250 plants. I am thinking that there will be a plant sale in my future this year.

Anyone want to buy a really cool heirloom tomato plant that's been grown with love? I know where you can get some. They might have been sung to as well. Maybe. I'm just sayin'......