Sunshine Community Garden Sale

The first Saturday of each March, the Sunshine Community Garden has a fundraiser sale.  They sell 4" pots of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and herbs for $2 a pop. 

I went with my friend and fellow garden blogger, Roberta.  My sister (whom you can see in my March Wide Angles Post) was supposed to go with us, but bailed the night before because she didn't want to get up at 7 in the morning.  To be fair, she only was going to have to get up that early because she was staying with my parents in Georgetown and they wanted to have breakfast together at Kerbey Lane before the sale.

Anyway, the sale - we arrived probably around 10am, it was a relatively warm day, albeit muggy and yet windy.  By the time we arrived, there was only a line to go into the herb shed

But since we were there for the big guns (aka tomatoes), we bypassed the herbs.

The tomato tent.  They must have made an extra big order or tomatoes this year because there were still PLENTY available by the time we got there.

I managed to not buy any peppers - and that's mostly only because I have a gazillion that I dug up in the fall and have managed to keep them alive over the winter so I'll be transplanting them after this crazy cold snap.  After picking up our tomatoes, peppers and eggplants (and of course buying twice the tomatoes that we actually have room for), we were happy and content -

 

And then we decided to go look at some of the gardens.  One of the plots has a 3-year-old Collard Greens plant which has a trunk as thick as my arm - like seriously, that's impressive man!

 

My purchases:

 

Tomato "Blue Berries":  Specialty - Very dark purple color. At maturity they turn deep red where the fruit was shaded and almost black where it's been in full sun. Elongated clusters that look beautiful. Indeterminate. 75 days.

Tomato "Cherokee Purple": Heirloom - Dusky rose, purple fruit, large 10-12 oz, heavy producer. Very popular tomato from Tennessee. Sweet rich flavor. Indeterminate. 80 days. [some day I'll try to grow both Black Krim and Cherokee Purple at the same time so I can do taste tests]

Tomato "Chico III": Paste - Very early, oblong tomato developed in California. Wonderful disease resistance. Many consider this to be superior to Roma, as it is much earlier and a touch sweeter. Determinate. 70 days.

Tomato "Dwarf Arctic Rose":  Container - A 2012 release by the Dwarf Tomato Project. Topping out at about 3 feet, this is the shortest of the project releases to date. Determinate. 70 days.

Tomato "Japanese Black Trifele":  Heirloom - Potato leaf foliage. Black, pear-shaped tomato that looks like a little eggplant on the vine. It's a commercially grown tomato in Russia. Complex, rich sweet flavor. Determinate. 80 days.

Eggplant "Fairy Tale":  Early harvests of elongated lavender fruit with white stripes. Best picked when about 4X1 3/4 inches while the skin is still shiny. Plants are ideal for containers. 50 days.

Eggplant "Machiaw":  Pale lavender skin, 9-12" long. Mild tasting white flesh. 65 days.