West County GTPS Serves Nearly 500 Residents

By Liz Rottger
Photos by Jim Marchetti

Perhaps the most challenging of all of the Contra Costa UC Master Gardener's Great Tomato Plant Sales is in West County. Growing plants in one place and then selling them in an entirely different place is simply crazy. It takes a lot of work to transport over 6000 plants safely from the Water Conservation Garden in El Cerrito to the Civic Center Library in Richmond, even if it's only 3 miles. Along with these plants, we also transport additional plants (peppers, herbs, and eggplants) from Central County to Richmond and all the equipment (tables, cash registers, popups, etc.) we need for the sale. We must finish transporting all the plants by 8:00 AM on the day of the sale itself! If that were not enough, a month earlier, we transported about 50 flats of tiny tomato seedlings from Our Garden to El Cerrito because the electricity required to germinate the tomato seeds is unavailable on-site in El Cerrito.

It's unlikely that many of our West County GTPS customers would be willing to make the long journey to Our Garden in Walnut Creek to purchase tomato plants. If the Contra Costa UC Master Gardeners aim to foster the sustainable gardening community in West County and make a lasting impact, a centrally located plant sale in the East Bay is a necessity. This would not only make it more convenient for our customers but also help us reach a wider audience.

Beyond serving local gardeners, the West County Great Tomato Plant Sale also nurtures a strong band of West County Master Gardeners who come together and have shown that they are up to all these challenges. For more than eight years, they have done a superb job of growing and caring for the plants we sell. This year's plants were the healthiest and most robust to date, if a tad tall. We were proud to offer them for sale, and many of the nearly 500 customers who came to the sale told us how happy they were that they could buy them in Richmond.