Do you enjoy growing your own vegetables?
In the San Francisco Bay Area, if you are fortunate enough to have a backyard (or space) and a passion to grow your own vegetables, starting in April to June, you start to think about what to plant in your vegetable garden late winter - early spring.
You can either go to a garden nursery and buy vegetable plants already in pots. Or start from scratch and grow from seed before April.
I, personally, like to go buy small, 4-inch vegetable plants at a garden nursery because I don’t have the patience to grow from seed. I can selectively buy different types of vegetable plants for my small vegetable bed and large planter containers.
This year, I visited the first of three community garden sales events called “2019 The Great Tomato Plant Sale” in my area. This was sponsored by the volunteer gardener enthusiasts of the University of California Master Gardener Program.
This annual “Sale” began at 10 am. Ended at 3 pm.
My family and I went to this Sale close to 11 am. Because this Sale is so well-known to home gardeners in my local community, we learned while waiting in line for 20 minutes to enter that many shoppers came 2+ hours before the start of the Sale to stand in line to be sure they were the first to enter and had the best selection to choose from!
To help calm our nerves
As we were waiting to enter, we were told by few of the volunteer UC Master Gardeners that there were plenty of plants – 20,000 plants to be exact – for sale.
These gardeners had grown these 4-inch potted vegetable plants from seed since early spring for this day.
What was wonderful was that there were many of these passionate volunteer University of California Master Gardeners walking around the community garden ready to answer any tomato or vegetable-related questions.
Wonderful to ask and test these UC Master Gardeners’ knowledge and expertise!
Many of them had tomato and vegetable favorites because they had actually grown, or field-tested, many of these plants that were for sale in their own backyard home gardens in previous years. I found the 4 I talked to loved to share their personal “plant growing” stories. You don’t get this kind of level of service or advice from local San Francisco Bay Area garden nurseries.
What I also liked about this “Great Tomato Sale” was that there were dozens and dozens of heirloom and hybrid tomato plants to choose from - 75 in total. 25 pepper plants, dozens of summer vegetables and herb plants.
There were so many vegetable varieties, originating from Europe, Asia, and South America, I have never heard of. It was fun to just walk up and simply admire them.
By noon, many of the tomato and vegetable plants were completely sold out!
So, next year, I will definitely come prepared on what I want to buy and pick those tomato plants first.
I wasn’t fast enough, for example, to pick up beefsteak “Hawaiian Pineapple” (which has a pineapple taste and is pretty in a tomato salad) or Momotaro-Hybrid (which is a popular Japanese tomato and was sold for the first time this year at the Sale).
It was also great that the Sale was “dog-friendly” and “kid friendly.”
Many of the shoppers like my family brought either their fur babies or young children or both to the Sale. There was also a designated disability shopping area for shoppers who are wheelchair bound or using a walker to get special assistance for their shopping needs.
Very hard to narrow down the plant choices!
Wished we could have bought everything, but we don’t have enough space to grow everything!
We did end up buying 2 pepper plants and 1 herb plant besides 8 tomato plants.
August 24, 2019 Update
Finally, my summer harvest has started.
The Sun Golds (cherry tomatoes), Green Zebra tomatoes (yellow and green striped), Carbon (dark red), and Chef’s Choice Pink, and Shisinto peppers are here.
8 tomato plants, two kinds of peppers, and two Thai Basil leaf plants.
The tomato plants are raised vertically. The tallest plant almost 10 ft tall (or 305 cm) and still growing!
Are you a vegetable gardener? Have a local community vegetable garden sale event you want to share here on Connect? Please name your favorite local garden nursery you like to shop at or share your photos of your vegetable garden in the comments below. Or do you only grow from seed?
Cheers,
Karen
For more details about this San Francisco Bay Area community garden, please read my Local Guides review & check out my growing Great SF Bay Area Garden Nurseries
#LetsGuide Fact
Did you know California, in general, grows the most food in the U.S.?
. I’m not an expert but I do have a small back yard where I grow vegetables which are easy to grow and maintain.
and eat it without any fuss!
!
.