The agony-I made my first trip to the shop I have supplied for years today-where there should have been a wonderful display of quality tomato plants I found one tray of scrawny things of the variety-well best not to swear on a public site-hey ho.
The Ecstasy-later on my doorbell rang and one of my regular house customers was there asking if all was well cos he hadn`t seen my plants out this year.
At least nobody was stealing my market ;)
Quality will out. That's an old expression I've heard.
What I think it means is, that if you grow a quality product, and you have a good customer base, if your product is no longer available at the outlet they have bought it from before, they will come and seek you out.
Been to a Farmers Market today, and there was a stall there with weedy looking tomatoes at 80p each. We've got better in the greenhouse that (unless I can persuade OH otherwise) are going on the compost heap. He seems to think we have too many tomato plants, and I don't think we have enough ;D ;D
Wish you well cleo.
valmarg
You can't have too many tomato plants, too many varieties yes...
::)
And thereby hangs a tale.
I am in charge of buying seed, and OH is in charge of germinating/growing them.
I am cutting down on the varieties, honest.
Two I would really recommend are - beefsteak - Mountain Pride and plum variety - Olivade.
We also have to grow beefsteak Brandywine.
But then there are the cherry/type, yellow varieties, etc, etc.
Oooooooooooo, just looking forward to the first home grown :)
Went to Homebase at Ashbourn today, and they had tomato plants, complete with red and green tomatoes on at £6.99 per plant. Resisted the temptation.
valmarg
I noticed that some of the larger retail outlets who put quite a few small nurseries in the area out of business by underpricing had a lot of plants this Easter all ready for the greenhouse and borders.
These remained unsold and eventually got past their best (staff never water them) and were reduced in price. I heard a lot had to be 'disposed of'.
Did the early Easter catch the buyers out? They know that people buy plants at Easter to do their gardens. So, did they just order in a lot of plants to sell at Easter without any thought about the actual date?