James wrote:

When it cost 10 cents just for the jiffy pellet, the only reason to
start your own is if you can't buy the seedlings.

For most gardeners, I don't think it's the 10 cent pellet or the $3.00
seeds...

Every Sep/Oct, when I start cleaning up the previous summer's garden "mess",
I vow that I'm not doing it again. Too much money, too much work, the price
of tomatoes is now $.50 lb/$12.00 bushel...green beans are free for the
picking and people will pay you to haul away their zucchini and yellow
squash...

By Nov, I'm looking at the back yard and everything is brown and dead. My
straggly house plants have become my best friends.

By Christmas, I've overdone the decorations, just so I can see something
GREEN!

By January, I've convinced myself that you can't leave your Christmas greens
up too long...until the first seed catalogue arrives. I toss it aside,
remember all the work of the previous summer and make plans to go to a 12
step program. I'm told that I can't bring tomato sandwiches to the meetings.

By February, I'm asked not to come back. Someone noticed potting soil under
one of my fingernails. Plain brown envelopes begin arriving in the mail. I
don't know anyone named Burpee or Parks. I shake them, it sounds
like.....SEEDS! Embarrassed, I hide them in the basement.

By March 1, I remember that there are a few peat pots left from the previous
year. What harm could be done by potting a few seeds?? I tell myself that
they look lonely....They need little more little friends...I need MORE!

By April, there are glass shelves in the windows, bright lights mounted next
to them, black trays full of tiny plants everywhere, more seed catalogues...
just in case...I black out and order some tomato varieties I don't
have...They arrive too quickly. I call in sick to work and rush to Lowe's
for just a few more peat pots and a pass through their garden
section...Wrong move.

May 1, everything is out of control!! My neighbor has dared to add another 2
feet of space to his pitiful little garden plot. I whip out the mother of
all rototillers and add 3 feet to mine. I have no intentions of planting all
of this space, but I want him to see that mine is bigger. The little plants
have to come out of the house and into the ground. It should only take a day
of work. I'm not planting much this year. I'll give away the extra seedlings
and let the grass grow back in that extended 3 feet I tilled.

May 10, Scratch the previous plan of cutting back. I'm almost done with the
planting. I just need to find a home in the ground for a few more of my
babies. We've bonded, I can't abandon them.

June...I wait...I water...I watch...I go to the grocery store and purchase
fresh salt, fresh pepper, new shakers, and only Hellman's mayonaise. I check
the price of tomatoes..."Vine Ripened" my a--!

July, August, September, October...Roadside/Store bought tomatoes...3 pounds
$1.00...MY tomatoes...PRICELESS!!

But I'm not going to do it again next year......