Some women have a thing about shoes or handbags or kitchen gadgets but me? Mine is tomatoes. This weekend I planted twenty-five (representing 21 varieties), twenty-seven if you count two tomatillos.

Did you know that tomatillos are not a variety of tomato, but they are part of the tomato family?

Anyway, twenty-five wouldn’t be so much if I lived on a farm, or had a large family, or a restaurant, or a friend with a restaurant. But I dont. I live in a subdivision and we are a family of 4 (one of which is a picky no-tomato-unless-it’s-in-salsa-form eater.)

My husband thinks I have issues. I think he doth protest too much. A little history…

Last year I decided to start much of our garden from seed. I was wanting to grow a variety of tomatoes, mostly heirlooms, some of which are hard to find at local garden centers.

After visiting a seed company, I came home with 5 or 6 varieties, not too bad. If I planted 2 plants of each type that would be a gracious plenty. Each packet contained 15+ seeds. Since I’d never started anything from seed indoors (other than some butter beans for a science project), I thought I should go ahead and plant all of the seeds in hopes that at least a few would germinate.

Within 2 weeks I had almost 100 baby tomato plants. And they grew, and they grew, and they grew some more, with only a handful of them biting the dust. They were my precious seedlings, and as planting time approached, I began to get a tad bit concerned that they would have no home.

And they needed a home. They had to be planted. Someone had to use them. They were my babies.

A final count totaled 86 tomato plants. To make a long story short, everyone who stopped by left with a few tomato plants in hand, friends, family, the UPS man. I even took some to a family reunion a state away to spread the love. I still ended up planting around 20.

Thank goodness we like salsa.

And tomato sandwiches. Sakes alive, I can’t wait for that first tomato sandwich.

Anyway, this year with no plans to start anything from seed, I had good intentions of scaling back.

Really I did.

We headed toward the garden center with my garden plan in hand. Maybe 10 to 12 tomatoes would be good? But they had so many varieties. So many heirlooms with different colors and shapes. And have you ever smelled a tomato plant? Oh my. For me (I know, I’m freaky) it’s an intoxicating smell.

Just give me some tomato plants and a gardenia and I’m good to go. I felt like I was in some kind of state of hoarding, grabbing almost one of every variety I saw.

When I met up with my husband to checkout I had to confess. Oh the look, followed by “I think I need to put a call in to our accountant to see if we will qualify as a farm for tax purposes.”

What?!?

It’s not as if I’m doing something illegal.

How are these sweet little tomato plants imposing on you?

Do you think I love them more than you?

And at $.99 to $1.29 per plant they’re cheaper than a pair of shoes. I could get a few more and still come in under a shoe budget.

And this attitude from a farmer’s son? I know he means well, he doesn’t want to waste good food. But leave me alone. And leave my tomatoes alone. They’re just innocent tomatoes looking for a good home.

I know it’ll be difficult to keep up with the yields from 25+ plants. Even with canning and freezing, I’ll be passing them off to friends and family by the basketful. That’s OK. I can spread the love.

And the salsa.

Are you gardening this year? What is your favorite plant to grow? Are you like me and have a tomato addiction?