TomatoMania is a traveling tomato show! It's a company that curates both common and unusual tomato seedlings to sell to backyard gardeners. Then, at various farmer's markets or nurseries, they offer their plants in a "fair like" atmosphere, with hundreds of varieties, and tomato flats for days.
The craziest thing about TomatoMania is that by the end of the weekend, literally all the plants were gone! I think, because of the virus, and our recent interest in our homes and our gardens, TomatoMania has become more popular than ever. Last year, I remember I was able to go to TomatoMania because we had cancelled our Spring Training vacation that weekend. Not quite a fair trade off -- but I enjoyed selecting more tomatoes than I needed that day.
It's hard to believe that it's been a year since lockdown began. I remember vividly being at Gelson's at 6:45 in the morning on March 14th .The manager didn't know what to do. Check out lines were 50 people long. And if you know Gelson's, you know they never make people wait. It's one of the hallmarks of their service. So when the manager saw that people were having to wait quite a while to check out, he was undone. He went on the store public address system, and informed everyone that shoppers would have to wait in line; he apologized profusely. That began the quarantine for me.
And I haven't been back to Gelson's since. One whole year. But TomatoMania was around the corner, and a year of gardening that has given me such great joy. That's the Silver Lining. And once I'm fully vaccinated, Gelson's will be the first store that I visit.