Have you seen my lost tomato names? If so please call, I miss them.

Have you seen my lost tomato names?49 little seedlings all in a row (well, a square), happy, growing and…nameless. Well, maybe not nameless, per se.

They started out with names. Oddball names like “Japanese Black Trifele” and “Cosmonaut Volkov”. Names that I had found amusing and, knowing my absolutely mind boggleing ability to forget everything, I had written each one down on a neat, line piece of note book paper torn from my son’s notebook.

And as I was writing down those names, I said to myself “Hanna” (and I said Hanna because sometimes in my head I am not so certain who will answer if I do not direct the comments) “Hanna, ” I said, “Get you lazy ass up and go get your laptop and type these seed names and which hole they are into a spreadsheet like you did last year. You won’t lose it.”

I was going to type it into my computer. I really was. Then my youngest son brought home a whole stack of artwork and after I had waxed on to him about his Picasso like ability to fingerpaint, I whisked the stack surreptitiously to the trash when he wasn’t looking. I am fairly certain that my seed list was at the bottom of that pile.

It just goes to show that my second grade teacher did not know what she was talking about. Being a pack rat does indeed pay off as you will never permanently lose anything if you never throw anything away. At least it was not a computer.

So now I have 49 cute but frustratingly similar seedlings glaring at me accusingly. They have no names, no identity and I fear that I will be footing the bill for 49 sessions with the tomato therapist. *sigh* Maybe they can work in group therapy in their Compact Trainer before I transplant them to their individual pots.

19 thoughts on “Have you seen my lost tomato names? If so please call, I miss them.
  1. I need the name of that tomato therapist. I really really do.

  2. Awhile back I took a Vo-Tec course in Horticulture on the G.I. Bill. One of the teacher’s pet peeves was seeing a seed flat with 100 or so seedlings, all marked “Tomato”. As we were selling them, this could pose problems. As for the home gardener, it makes for some surprises. Of course you have all the details to deal with. But who cares about spacing or determinant species, just wing it!

  3. This scares me a bit. I labeled my tomatoes, just 14 varieties, as 1, 2, 3, etc. and carefully wrote those same numbers next to the names of the varieties on my printed seed list. I hope I don’t lose my list. If I do, I think I had listed the varieties in alphabetical order, I think.

  4. Save a space for me ………I’m so glad I’m not the only one ..this year I made a huge effort to have everyone ID’d ..then hubby cam along and thru them out(the ids ) !!!Only one I knew for sure was “First Prize” …

  5. Michelle McCluggage on

    This post was hilarious….and sounds exactly like myself…I was seriously considering whipping out some detailed, fancy looking spreadsheet….but ended up using those little plastic stick things that I know will never make it through the season…maybe there is still time!

  6. This was too much like my Life. Both the should-do-a-spreadsheet and admiration and disposal of artwork!

    I am so glad I only have three types of tomatoes growing right now.

  7. Yikes! That is similar to what I did last year after I put them out in the garden. At the seedling stage that would probably frustrate me enough for a complete do-over.

    Good luck and thanks for sharing in such a humorous way!

  8. We planted our first Toms of the year at the weekend and I *almost* didn’t label them out of lazyness till I realised I’d only regret it later. So out came the little plastic stick label things and I’m sorted… Although I do wonder what’ll happen when I pot them on as I’l need double the ammount of lables… 😉

  9. Any chance you still have the seed packets? That way you could ID them from the picture on the front when they ripen??
    I, unfortunately, don’t have enough space to forget what I’ve planted. I only have room for 2 tom plants every year. I never even get enough tomatoes to give away.

  10. Cheryl Christian on

    I agree with Dallas Meow. Is it already time to plant tomatoes? I actually do have some under lights, but still couldn’t plant in garden as of yesterday. Too wet just for the typical spring things. Tomatoes later

  11. Tamara on

    I never label my tomatoes. They hate being segregated. And labeled. They just want to live free.

    I just tell myself ‘if I can’t tell the difference when they fruit, does a label matter?’

  12. I guess this is where living in an apartment comes in handy. I really only have enough space on my balcony to grow a few tomato plants of one variety.

  13. John on

    Hanna,

    I can relate only too well. My first two years of daylily seedlings had labels of disappearing (and never re-appearing again) ink. Even now when there are labels AND maps some little seedlings mysteriously (not!) manage to loose their parents.

    As for thrown out computers – geeeeeze I am going to have bad bad dreams about that link for a long time ! I will have to dig in the garden for therapy… if this last batch of snow ever melts ! Is it the last batch of snow…it is spring now…. pleaseeeee Mother Nature.

  14. I did the same thing with daylilies once. Got 20 named varieties of daylilies. Planted them in a nursery bed, shortest in front. Drew a map and marked where each one was, then took off their tags. Lost the map. Now I know what each looks like, and have moved them to various parts of the garden, and they are known as Row 1, Row 2 etc. because I could figure out which row I must have put them in because of their heights.

  15. Man, I hate it when that happens…at least you know they are tomatoes…I do have a spreadsheet running this year and I have taped the names to the seedling trays…AND I don’t start more than one kind of the same plant in the same tray…we will see if that works.

  16. Ginger on

    Hanna,
    Sorry this happened to you!

    My yellow cherry tomato seedlings you sent last fall are coming up!!! I am so excited! Thanks again!

  17. Kae on

    The labeling used to make me crazy. Every year, I came up with a new identifying-scheme, every year my cats (or dog, or husband, or my own clumsy feet) would find a way to knock AT LEAST one flat of seedling helter-skelter around the seedling table. This year a sort of Zen serenity came over me as I came up the stairs, around the corner and into the FEMA like zone that is the garden-starting table.

    In a couple of weeks, I may be able to distinguish the peppers from the tomatoes… a couple of weeks after that, maybe the cherries from the beefsteak… certainly by the time they’re ready to go outside, I’ll have SOME idea of what goes where…

    🙂

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