I saw a local feed/garden store selling 15 - 20-30" tall tomato plants in 3 gallon black nursery pots for $11.50 just last week! Good Heirlooms too, but they had tomatoes on them, ripening; and you could tell that they were stunted from being forced to stay in those smallish pots.

~* Robin

The dreaded wallyworld, (imho) had some varieties, Better Boy and Bradley, for $3 for a 9 pac. Those I bought.
$3.49 for Bonnies, hybrid stuff, 1 seedling. Not.

Calloways had 4 inch pot heirlooms for $1.99. (A good deal, one tomato pays for the plant, at Farmer's Market prices.) A 5 or 7 gallon pot of one tomato plant was $25 (that is scary, imho.)
I am giving away a bunch of what I raised from seed because I think even $3.49 for a Celebrity at Home Depot or Lowe's is usury.

[quote=gallaure

The WalMart near me doesn't seem to have a problem stocking the plants, but maybe they're just quick. Standard wallyworld prices. (still trying to wash the wally-ick off. They sucked me in to look at cheap tomato cages)





Tomato cages at walmart didnt look to bad - the 50+ inchers were 2.43 a piece. I wanna say 56, but it may have been 54....

3 legged, galvanized and seemed decent in terms of thickness...

Jackster

[QUOTE=Jackster;128748][quote=gallaure

The WalMart near me doesn't seem to have a problem stocking the plants, but maybe they're just quick. Standard wallyworld prices. (still trying to wash the wally-ick off. They sucked me in to look at cheap tomato cages)





Tomato cages at walmart didnt look to bad - the 50+ inchers were 2.43 a piece. I wanna say 56, but it may have been 54....

3 legged, galvanized and seemed decent in terms of thickness...

Jackster[/QUOTE]

You're right, the price was good. However, I'd need about 50 of them, and me BROKE!!! They were 54", btw. Good quality, and made in the USA. Other ones at twice the price @ Home Depot were from China.

I'm going to borrow some loppers and find a stand of bamboo. I've come up with a leaning trellis method which may take me a couple hours, but will only cost me $2. Total. I can afford that!

Last year, a fair portion of my tomato problems were due to lack of preparedness due to financial mishap. I'm going to fix that this year, if I can.

I stopped at our local Lowe's today. They had Better Boy tomatoes in 3 gallon pots. They were big and NICE. The price was 22.00. I don't think so :shock:
4 inch Bonnie tomatoes were in the 3.95 price range, and then going up to 9.95 for larger sizes of Mr. Stripey. So glad I don't have to rely on those places for my maters.

I'm 20 miles north of Pgh, Pa. Ma & Pa same as last year $1.69 for four pack hybred and $1.50 ea for hairlooms in 4" pots.
Ed

I feel bad saying that I have been getting $2.00 or 3 for $5 for my plants in 2401 packs (24 plants in a standard flat, aprox 2.5 x 3). The plants I have in gallon nursery pots sell for $5 or 6 and if I have any potted up in 3 gal pots I get $12-15 for them. I also do some 10" hanging baskets for $10.

I've been getting those prices for several years already with no problem. I have plenty of customers that claim my plants are the best they have ever bought so keep coming back year after year. Actually this year I will be a bit less than last year when the price of diesel was more that twice what it is now.

Where I sell I have plenty of competition too with prices higher and lower than me.

Carol

Why feel bad? If you can get the price, then you should! I would pay more at a mom and pop place than I would at the box store. I always try to support the small places anytime I can. The plants I was looking at yesterday were so dried out and stressed. It's been majorly windy the past few days and I know I have been watering my maters 3x a day. When you invest your time and money into something like this, you want them to look good. Obviously the place I was shopping was not as concerned about dried out plants.

Just came back from a trip to Lowes and Wally World. The 54" cages at Walmart are not made from as heavy gage wire as the ones at Lowes where the price is 4.58 per. The Lowes cages appear to have twice as thick wire. There is also a major difference in the welds on the Walmart vs. Lowes. The Walmart cages were galvanized and then welded. The Lowes cages were galvanized AFTER welding.

So, I guess we get what we pay for.

Yes, I'm cheap. I got 10 from Wally World.

Cheaply speaking, Ted

A locally owned garden centere here in West Monroe has several heirloom varieties in 3" pots for $3.98 if I remember correctly. We went ahead and bought three Black Krims that are already sizeable just to see if they would produce any faster than our plants we started from seeds. I thought that was a fairly reasonable price for heirlooms.

Thanks for the comparison shopping Ted!

I was wondering about that very same thing. I need a couple of small cages for some small tomato plants and vines I'm growing.

~* Robin

the smaller wal-mart cages were like 1.65 ish or so. 42" or so?

I bought big ones because I have a lot of faith this year :)

Jackster

Just got back from OSH (orchard supply hardware), and they had 6-packs of tomatoes for $2.49

The Target had 6-packs for $2.19, mostly varieties with "girl" or "boy" in the title. They had single plants also, some over 14" tall, still in the 3" pots! :O They had one Early Girl in a gallon pot, with flowers on it. It was $2.99. If I planned to grow such varieties, I would have bought in.

On a side note, Target's 54" cages were $11.99 *gasp*!!!! Of course, they were very heavily built. They might survive being run over by a car.

HEB Plus in Kyle TX, just south of Austin is selling their tomato plants for $0.50 each. They have the usual hybrids plus a bunch of heirlooms including black krim, cherokee purple, brandywine and others. They even have JD Special C-Tex, which I have not been able to find anywhere else.

I think they are trying to get rid of them as it is a bit late to be planting right now in Central Texas.

Nearby at a Ben Franklin store they are going to be selling them for 99¢ this year.

Dean