There are HOW many tomato varieties????

So I have all of my non-tomato items either picked out, or at least identified. Nice. That was fairly easy.

Now for "the" tomato plant. I envision row after row of identical plants, all direct offspring of the legendary mother-of-all-tomatoes. Ummm...no.

First I get to choose determinate or indeterminate. "Indeterminate"? Is that a tomato plant that's not sure what it wants to do? So I hit Wikipedia and see, "There are many (around 7500) tomato varieties grown for various purposes." Whaaaa??? I only want one plant. Well, maybe figuring out the determinate/indeterminate thing will help. And here is what Wikipedia says about that:

"Tomatoes are also commonly classified as determinate or indeterminate. Determinate, or bush, types bear a full crop all at once and top off at a specific height; they are often good choices for container growing. Indeterminate varieties develop into vines that never top off and continue producing until killed by frost. They are preferred by home growers and local-market farmers who want ripe fruit throughout the season."

 I was instructed that under no circumstances was the plant to reach the deck. Determinate. Check. Okay, so what kind of determinate? Well, it made no sense to worry about varieties that either were not sold around here or did not do well here. So I went to the local Home Depot. They carry Bonnie Plants brand. They had something like 15 or so different types, mostly indeterminate. I chose the Bonnie Select variety.

The plant was in a compressed peat container. If I was ground planting I would just put the entire thing in the hole. The good news was that the plant was a good size (about 8" above the pot) and seemed relatively healthy. I guess. It was green and had no obvious yellowing. The bad news was that the soil "ball" was 2-3x larger than the bag opening. So I did the only thing I could. I soaked the peat pot. Then I cut it from top to bottom in quarters. I then peeled off the sections. I then broke up/off the pot dirt around the root system until it was small enough to fit through the hole.

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