Call me the Tomato Queen

I've started transplanting my tomato seedlings outside.

It's a bit early still, but I have to.

You see, I realized I have 57 tomato seedlings.

57. Individual. Tomato plants.

If all those take, I'll be swimming in tomatoes this summer. I could start my own tomato factory.

And that's not including all the other seedlings--peppers, squash, herbs, etc. And all the other seeds that have yet to get started at all--corn, beans, cucumbers, etc.

You're probably thinking, "You bit off way more than you could chew," but no! I refuse to admit defeat! I will find a place to put all these plants, or die trying!

Oh well. It's a good problem to have. It was all an experiment, anyway; I wasn't sure if the growing-seedlings-indoors thing would work at all, given my limitations (climate, unheated sunroom), so I know for next year that I can halve the number of seeds and still come out ahead. If you guys want any, you're welcome to them.

But still, I have all these plants, many of which are getting root-bound in their little containers, so I have to do something with them. I certainly don't have the room (or money, or equipment) to plow up an actual garden, and I don't have the money to buy a bunch of large containers and dirt, so I will just dig up holes along the sunnier edges of the yard, stick a tomato plant in each one, and see what happens.

If they all die, I still have plenty to spare.

In other news, there is a bunny rabbit in my yard. We watched him eat up all the dandelions one night. I think that could be a great cottage industry, actually--training domestic rabbits to eat dandelions, then hiring them out to people who want to get rid of their dandelions. Cheaper than pesticides, and cuter, too. But then one morning I caught the rabbit hanging around my containers of herbs and greenery, and while I don't mind him eating dandelions, I mind very much if he starts eating my garden. So I got some of that deer-and-rabbit-repellent stuff. I haven't seen him since; not sure if it's because of the repellent, or for some other reason, but as long as my spinach doesn't get nibbled, I don't care.

And we have quite the carpenter ant population, some of which have found their way indoors. I'm pretty sure there's a colony in the woodpile, which is along one wall of the house. I was going to move the woodpile to the far corner of the yard--until I discovered that our chipmunk has taken up residence inside the woodpile. Remember him? With the snow tunnel? Now he's inside the woodpile, making friends with all the ants, no doubt.

So I got some ant bait, too. Stupid ants.