Restraint?

[yotetrapper]

I always plant a garden that's a certain size, I'm not sure of its measurements but it's big enough, but not huge. In it, I usually plant some tomatoes, some carrots, potaoes, beans, peas, corn, watermelon, a squash, a zuke, maybe a pumpkin, etc.

Then my tomato obsession began. First, I determined I'd enlarge the garden enough for another few rows of maters. Then I decided I didnt really didn't need corn, as it never does very well here and is easily bought fresh here.

Now I'm sitting here looking at all the tomato varieties I want to try, trying to figure out what else I can cut from my garden.

Where does it end? How do you restrain the obsession?

[Blueaussi]

Ummmmm...



Well...



I dunno. Got any ideas?

[dice]

You use really crummy seed-starting mix (homemade with
less than optimum materials seems to work), and pack it
into seed-starting cells with your thumb until getting a root
through it or a drop of water to drain is a herculean task.
Then try to correct the problems with a pipette, peroxide,
and some strong phosphate fertilizer.

This induces a bunch of your seedlings to die off by the 4th
week, and by the time you need to transplant, there are only
enough left to plant into the garden, with a few left over for
friends. The ones that are still alive are the really tough
varieties that are going to make it through the summer no
matter what, and any variety where no seedlings survived
until transplant gets rescheduled for a future year.

[yotetrapper]

LMAO Dice. Sounds like you've got it figured out down to a science!

[newatthiskat]

OK as a Psych Nurse my first thought is restraints due to the title. You have a body net that straps the entire body down to a bed. That is my personal favorite. Now they are making us use a restraint chair that straps people in while sitting. Can't be in as long due to deep vein thrombosis. So that is probably out for you. 2 hours just will not do the trick. ALso Seclusion rooms work but you might try to dig yourself out and then work the garden and plant way too many seeds. I personally have never used a strait jacket so not sure how that would work for you.

You could be chemically restrained that might be your best bet. Multiple injections given in what we call a cocktail. That could have you pretty much not caring and if given at appropriate timelines might control your urges during the seed starting frenzy. You might end up addicted when all is said and done, but hey you will not have too many tomato plants.

I personally do not want to restrain myself and just start asking neighbors and friends to plant the plants for me in their yards.
Kat

[Worth1]

Don't sell your self short on the rest of the garden.
Most of this multi tomato stuff is just a bunch of hype, you only need what you can use or give away.
The rest is just waste I did it for a few years and decided that I would just have to restrain myself.
I doing much better now, really I am.
Worth

[SteveS]

I believe there is a 12-step program!!! Hehe

But seriously? I have had grave problems with this in the past. The only thing that has moderated this affliction is that I like to separate my maters by 7-8', for seed-saving, so you have to grow something in between. When the obsession really becomes severe, out comes the tiller to enlarge the garden. My long-suffering wife has permitted placing a few plants in out of the way sites in the landscaping also. And I have also resorted to giving a few plants to friends & begging for a fruit later in the summer. The sad thing is that the mortality rate(of the plants, not my friends!) was usually about 50%!

Steve

[amideutch]

Where does it end? How do you restrain the obsession?

It doesn't . And you don't . It's terminal . And Worth lies .

[bughunter99]

It doesn't end when you run out of bed space. That's when you begin hanging the tomato plants off the balconies in grow bags and making multiple trips to box stores for giant plastic containers to make your own grow boxes . No worries though, its only a problem if you have no way to get rid of all the extra salsa!

[Dukerdawg]

Some years I've really gone gung-ho and most of the reason is this and other tomato boards. The more you read with snow on the ground the more different tomatoes you want to try. And if there is space there is no problem with that. This time of year I have been known to talk about renting acreage for 10,000 tomato plants! No kidding?

As I get a bit older and my energy level has to be taken into consideration I realized that my 24x18 garden, 16x8 greenhouse and 75 containers and grow bags is enough! And this is only because my wife my eat 3-4 tomatoes a season! This year I will still grow about 60-70 tomato plants but I'm putting in raised beds this year so I want to plant 'taters, beans, peas, cabbage, lettuce, etc. too.

Tomatoes are the king of the garden though! Might have to check the local produce market to see if they have the 99 cent Compari's closeouts they get every once in awhile!

Go crazy! (If nothing else it might get it out of your system....unless you have a very selective memory like mine!)

Duane

[dustdevil]

I saw someone use an old toilet bottom for a planter, so you still have a ways to go before you hit bottom ;-)

[brokenbar]

I live on unlimited acreage...I have unlimited ten+ year old piles of composted horse manure...I have all the water I can use April to October for one flat fee of ten dollars per acre (we are all irrigated) what I DO NOT HAVE is the body of a twenty year old...thank God as this is the only thing that tempers my addiction and my ambition...500+ tomato plants is not enough and far too many...I will be thinking much smaller at my new home in Mexico...maybe...will have to wait and see...wonder how many I can plant on my half of 10 acres??? PS...the other 5 acres belongs to the Husband...I don't care what or how many of anything he plants...And I have already had 15 dumptruck loads of Donkey Poo put in while we are here in Wyoming...And I forgot to mention that I expanded my tomato growing acreage in Wyoming EVERY STINKIN' YEAR for 15 years...we are all decidedly twisted.

[yotetrapper]

Wow sounds like your place in Wyoming (judgin from this post and another I read you wrote here somewhere) is heavenly...makes me curious as to why you're moving?

[brokenbar]

Originally Posted by yotetrapper

Wow sounds like your place in Wyoming (judgin from this post and another I read you wrote here somewhere) is heavenly...makes me curious as to why you're moving?

I am such an avid gardener...I want more than 5 months to grow in. I have nearly 200 orchids INDOORS here (takes me two hours to water them all...every 3rd day...I run 250.00 per month of electricity for grow lights.)

While I love Wyoming with all my heart, I have wanted to leave since i retired. We lost our stud 3 years ago and it tweaked me forever. I got to where I could barely go outside and see his empty pen. I had a business to run and I just did not have my heart in it anymore. We stood 7 stallions belonging to other owners and our own. We shipped and received semen from all over the world. I did a lot of embryo transfer as well (I am a retired equine reproductive veterinarian.) We bred nearly 400 mares per year. Add in nearly 1000 head of cattle of our own and my passion for gardening and it was inevitable that I would just run out of "want to". I will never own another animal for the rest of my life. I have had to say goodbye to far too many that I loved and it broke my heart worse each time.

I was born and raised on a cattle ranch in the corner where California, Arizona and Mexico meet. My first language was very nearly Spanish as we had three Mexican families that lived on our ranch (three generations of those families...) I LOVE Mexico...I love the heat and the people and the geography and the history and the beaches and the food. I prefer a much slower pace of life than we are now all relegated to living in this country.

Add in that we are both ardent deep sea fishermen, that I am an archeology addict (there are more sites in South American that I can ever see in my lifetime) that I can grow 12 months out of the year and there you have it!

We gave the ranch and all the cattle to our son. I will never have to face another Wyoming winter, checking for new-born calves in 20 below zero weather or doing a midnight c-section on a cow when I am so sick with the flu, I had to turn my head and puke and continue on...5 months of inactivity drive me INSANE...I am about as "type A" as it gets.

For everyone, Wyoming is great! I go most of the winter with no snow. Our average precipitation is 10 inches, frozen or otherwise. We have no state tax and out property taxes are the lowest in the country. Oil, Gas, coal and Bentonite in abundance and Wyoming makes those Companies pay dearly for doing business her. They maintain ALL of our roads. They pay for ALL of our schools (average class size of 21) The entire state has a population of less than 500,000. I live in High Desert, backing up to the Big Horn and Prior Mountains and we are only 70 miles from Billings, Montana which is over 200,000 and NO SALES TAX (ours is only 5%.)
We pay 374.00 to license our three trucks, one car and two stock trailers per year. We don't even have a DMV and no smog requirements here. The Federal GOvernment owns 75% of all the land in Wyoming so it remains utterly unchanged from the days the Indians owned it all.
Hunting...Elk, Moose, Deer, Antelope and some of the finest trout fishing in the country and odds are...you will never see another person where you go to fish...Property is still reasonable here. Utilities are still cheap.
Wyoming has had a budget SURPLUS for 15 straight years. always over 10 million.
So there you have it...sorry for being so wordy! I will miss Wyoming deeply and the many friends I have here.

[stormymater]

Read this thread to DH who just sat & snickered the knowing snicker... rows, raised beds, grow bags, earth tainers, 30 gallon pots .... so far 165 plants on 0.2 acre lot here last year... 155 varieties... friends & family tried to extract a promise of not so many this year but FTR -
made 80 pints of salsa - 36 left
made 30 quarts of sauce - 6 left
made 18 1/2 pints of tomato marmalade - 6 left
so by my reckoning I actually need to can up about 20 more quarts of sauce (shooting for 50 quarts) for next year!
Am not promising anything to anyone about my precious, by gum & by Golly!
LOL (seriously)