On tomato plantlings (and beer-drinking boyfriends)

Recently, I have learned that one tomato plant, which starts out as a wee, tiny plantling (is that a word?), grows up to be a ginormous, food-bearing monster. Who knew? Obviously no one in this family and after a relaxing shopping trip at our church's annual plant sale, we are now the proud owners of ten wee, tiny tomato plantlings. Yes, ten. And no, I do not have a huge garden...or any garden, for that matter. We just couldn't walk by all those plantlings without taking home ten (and we threw in six pepper plantlings, for good measure).


Being the experienced and worldly gardeners that we are, we put three tomato plantings and two pepper plantlings in decorative pots on our patio. They look cute and cozy all stuffed in there, and I could picture them talking about all the good meals they will make together. That is, until my even more experienced and worldly gardener friends told me that there is NO WAY three tomato and two pepper plantlings can coexist in one small pot for the entire summer (as their mouths gaped open and their eyeballs shot out of their heads - of all the gardening faux pas...what was I thinking?).

This whole crowded pot thing reminds me of my first college roommate...I was stuffed into a tiny dorm room with someone who cramped my style (and brought her beer drinking, boxer-short wearing, 20-something boyfriend in with her). Steve and I have discussed this situation (the plantlings, not the beer-drinking boyfriend) and have decided against creating a real garden at this late date. And so, we will leave the tomato and pepper plantlings to work it out amongst themselves. Oh, the excitement and drama that should ensue...I can't wait to see what will happen! I just hope those old pepper plants don't invite their beer-drinking, boxer-short wearing, 20-something boyfriends into the mix...things are sure to get ugly then!