Tomatoes in the Library

In May of every recent year, after the Book Fair is over, the Friends of the Pleasant Valley Library who start tomatoes from seed sell their excess in the Library Reading Room to benefit the Friends, which means to benefit the Library.  This year we started with plants from Barb Shapley, president of the Friends.  I know I bought a Sun Gold and a Green Zebra.  If you did not know that these were tomato plants, it would sound very weird.

I always buy a couple of plants or more that Barb started.  Usually I have a lot of plants that I started myself on sale, but this year there was what amounted to crop failure.  However, I salvaged a few that I started and planted the tiny plants in the garden about a week ago (along with the Sun Gold, the Green Zebra, and three plants I got at the Northern Dutchess Botanical Garden).  To my delight and surprise, the little plants I had started quickly caught up to the others.

Therefore I am adding the remaining plants to the sale, starting tomorrow (Tuesday, May 31) afternoon.  There are not many and they are still small, but they are two heritage varieties, Goldie and Rutgers, so they have good genes.  Because of their small size, these are priced at 50 cents a plant.

Also we have Mystery Tomatoes.  In return for help that he got from Daniela, a patron donated a half-dozen four-packs of quite large tomatoes, but he does not know what variety they were.  A four-pack will go for $2, or 50 cents a plant, a definite bargain.  And the grower will get a surprise when the tomatoes fruit--will they be cherries, will they be red or gold, will they be paste tomatoes, will they be beefstakes?  Take a chance.

Finally some non-tomato news.  We have a number of spider plants, a popular house plant, that will be added to the mix at $1 per plant.