Make A Sweet Million

Day 199: Two million a year. Pretty cool if you can pull it off. For all the years I have been growing two "Sweet Million" tomato plants, they have lived up to their name. I buy them as starts in late April or early May, tend them indoors until June when they can safely be put outside. They grow side-by-side in an enormous plastic pot sunk to its waist in the garden directly outside the kitchen door where, along with chives, they are easy to pick even when it's raining.

I always grow two, but one would keep one-inch, juicy tomatoes on my table in numbers larger than I can reasonably consume, or at least at the peak of their season. Two at the start of the season, however, barely seems like enough. Picking them on my way to the mailbox as soon as they first ripen, the inventory is depleted on a daily basis. But come September (barring a hard rain), I will be in tomatoes up to my eyes. For a gardener who has consistently failed to bring zucchini to fruit, a Sweet Million is better than a gold mine.