Just Another Frugal Day for Michael
Over the weekend, I had to make a visit to a local nursery. I always enjoy my visits there because the people who work there actually know what they are talking about. In other words, they are not your typical minimum wage earners who are just there for the paycheck, they are gardeners who love plants.
While finding what I was looking for (citronella plants), I enlisted the assistance of one of these employees. During our conversation I shared with her that when I worked in a Florida nursery many years ago and my favorite thing to do was to fill my car with the throw-away plants – that is, the plants that are either so sickly or pot-bound that the owners don’t feel them worth bothering with – and take them home to my plant hospital.
The sweet lady’s eyes lit up as she said “come with me”. I followed only to be led to a cart in the far corner of the lot that was full of vegetable plants destined for the compost pile. She told me that I could have anything I wanted for free. Free is my favorite frugal word!
I jumped for joy when I saw two tired-looking heirloom tomato plants called “Mortgage Lifters”. Early in the season I wrote an article on the history of this beautiful heirloom tomato plant at another site I write for. You can read that article here.
Now these two plants were tall, dry and anemic but I couldn’t turn them down because I lost all of my heirloom tomatoes (that I started from seed) because of a recent and abrupt move. They quickly took their place along my back fence and will be treated to regular watering by the automatic sprinkler as well as frequent treats of lake water as needed.
I’m not sure how long it will take them to produce given the late start in life they are getting. For that matter I am not entirely sure they will produce at all. I just couldn’t bear to allow these two history-rich tomato plants to go gently into that good night.
Leave a Reply