Flowers and bee

Flowers and bee

Monday, May 08, 2006

How much is that homegrown tomato?

Hey, home vegetable gardeners! This book is for you. The $64 Dollar Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in Quest for the Perfect Garden by William Alexander is one of those great "we're all in this together, gardeners", kind of read. His stories about his gardening adventures in the Hudson Valley area of New York (he has a lot of clay soil - just like our area) are pretty darn funny. His critter fight ends up being summed up by his co-worker as - "You may be smarter - but they have more time."

The title comes from the estimate he makes to figure out how much one of his heirloom tomatoes ends up costing him. I think his cost is much higher than normal gardeners (and I don't think he had any appreciation in the figure). I know my tomatoes come out much more cheaply, but I am not having a landscaping professional making/creating my garden beds either!

A fun gardening read for the home grower - perhaps something for the long winter months - but publishers always seem to put this stuff out in the spring - when real gardeners are getting busy! Read it, after the crop is put in!

No comments: