How To Grow $30 Worth of Tomatoes Yourself For Just $300
You'll have plump, juicy Romas in no time
Before you read the piece below, an update on my book:
As I mentioned in my last post, the manuscript for Spoilers is DONE! That said, this Friday is the last day to get the book via the InDemand campaign. Ordering the book now as opposed to when it’s published ensures you’ll get your copy sooner, plus a greater share of the purchase price will go to me as opposed to a retail platform, so ordering the book now is a win-win!
And now, onto the humor:
I wrote the following piece last fall after trying (and mostly failing) to grow tomatoes that summer during what turned out to be a severe drought. I was going to submit the piece to humor publications, but I kept feeling like the piece wasn’t quite right, so I sat on it for several months—so long that the window for submitting a fall gardening-themed piece came and went. I dug this one back up because sometimes, as a writer, you have to recognize that a piece is as good as it’s going to get, and that continuing to tinker with it is starting to be counterproductive. So here’s the piece in all of it’s imperfect glory.
How To Grow $30 Worth of Tomatoes Yourself For Just $300
Tired of paying for bland, mushy tomatoes at the store? Looking for a fun summer hobby? Does your next door neighbor Craig keep coming by to show off all the zucchini he’s been growing and you want to grow something more impressive as a form of passive-aggressive revenge?
Then you should try growing your own tomatoes! With just a small investment, you too can grow a bountiful crop of tomatoes for sandwiches, sauces, or for shoving in the metaphorical face of your braggadocious neighbor.
Here’s a month-to-month breakdown of how to grow tomatoes, along with the costs you’ll incur along the way.
March
Gardening season is right around the corner and it’s time to buy some seeds. Lucky for you, tomato seeds are very cheap. A little sun and rain, both of which are free, are all you’ll need to turn these tiny seeds into big, beautiful tomato-makers.
Costs:
Tomato seeds: $2
April
Although you could wait until May to sow your tomato seeds outdoors, you’ll get a bigger harvest by starting your seeds indoors in early April. With a small seed-starting tray you can easily double your harvest. Plus, the sooner you start your seeds, the sooner you’ll have plump, juicy Romas to bring to Craig’s famous backyard potlucks.
Costs:
Seed tray: $8
Okay, that’s not totally true. To grow the seeds in the starting tray, you’ll also need dirt. And no, you can’t just use any dirt from the ground. It has to be special dirt. Good dirt. Unfortunately, dirt is a little more expensive than you’d think. In fact, it makes you wonder why anyone would coin the phrase “dirt cheap” when dirt is not actually that cheap.
Costs:
Seed-starting dirt: $15
May
May is the month when it’s finally time to move your tomato seedlings outside. The timing is crucial because if you move them outside too soon, they may get killed by a late frost, but if you move them outside too late, they may suffer from transplant shock. You have a 48-hour window to transplant them which varies from year to year. May is actually called “May” because it may or may not be the right time to move your tomatoes outside.
Transplant your seedlings to clay pots, which will give your seedlings better drainage, more room to grow, and will one-up Craig who skimped and bought cheap plastic pots for his zucchini. The extra cost is a small price to pay for the look on his face when he sees your beautiful terracotta tomato containers.
Costs:
Pots: $25
June
By June, your tomatoes should start growing nice and tall. You might even notice that, as they get taller, they begin to flop over. This is because tomatoes are vines, and require a structure to grow along. There are plenty of ways to stake your tomatoes, but whatever way you’re doing it is the wrong one.
Costs:
Tomato cages (wrong): $30
-or-
Plant stakes and twine (also wrong): $30
July
In early July, all of your tomatoes will die because you went out of town the one weekend it was 97 degrees and sunny. But you didn’t invest all this time and money just to walk away empty-handed. Craig’s zucchinis are already four inches long and it’s only a matter of time before he stops by just to “see if you want any because he has so many extra.” The good news is, you can find tomato plants that are already on the verge of producing fruit at your local garden store. You might even wonder why you didn’t just do that in the first place.
Costs:
Tomato plants: $40
August
By August, a moderate drought will have set in, and it will not have rained for weeks. No amount of watering will keep the soil moist enough for your tomatoes at this point. Luckily, there is a pagan rain ritual you can perform from the comfort of your own home for free (plus a few basic supplies). And given that Craig has already dropped off three loaves of zucchini bread at your door, you’ll do anything to keep these tomatoes alive.
Costs:
Bear pelt: $50
Pan flute: $10
1 qt. of goat’s blood: MKT (avg. $10)
September
The rain ritual will have brought some scattered showers here and there, but, by Labor Day, the ground will be so dry that many of your tomatoes will start to rot on the vine. Thankfully, you’ll check Craigslist (not to be confused with Craig’s List—the exclusive guest list for Craig’s potlucks). There you’ll find a mysterious old woman who lives alone in the woods (in other words, a typical New Hampshire resident) that claims to have a solution. She sells a tonic that cures tomato rot, but in order to get it from her, you’ll have to pay the ultimate price (seventy-five dollars, cash, plus round-trip travel to and from the backwoods of New Hampshire).
Costs:
Tonic: $75
Gas: $35
October
Once your tomato rot is cured, you’ll be able to enjoy fresh, ripe tomatoes for two entire weeks in October. Or whenever the first frost hits, whichever comes first. But for those beautiful, fleeting fall days, you can flaunt those slightly-better-tasting-than-store-bought tomatoes in front of Craig at every single opportunity.
Plus, now that you have all the equipment, all you have to do is grow tomatoes for the next 25 years and your investment will have paid for itself!