Tomatoes. A rant. Longish.
I just went out looking for tomato plants for my garden. Do you know that you can't find the little six-packs of tomatoes anymore? The stores want 3.49 for ONE plant in a pot!
This is kind of a long story, so you can quit here if you want. LOL
The past few years I have started my own tomatoes from seed. I always ended up with way too many plants because I had to plant just about every seedling. Well, last year Gurney's had a really good deal on heirloom plants. Maybe 6 plants for 5.99 or something like that. They were really huge and yummy, so I planned to just buy them again. However, they did not repeat this offer this year for whatever reason. And their plants were expensive.
In the middle of the pre-season, I ended up in the hospital with a long recovery afterwards. Now it is June and here I am without one lousy tomato plant.
I am ready to pull my hair out at this point. I am thinking if i wait a few weeks, the stores might mark down those individually potted plants. At least I hope so!
= new reply since forum marked as read
We are in PA and can't plant until Memorial Day, so it's not really too late for us. I will try some of the smaller places next. There are a couple of hardware stores on the outskirts that might still have plants.
I never have luck with volunteers getting fruit. 
Labor, effort, materials, and knowledge. I agree with you that paying over 3.00 for a single tomato plant from a box store is hard to swallow (and something I would never do).....there are simply too many ways that issues can arise (seed source, accuracy of variety, potential diseases in the seed or soil, or poor treatment by the box store). Yet....they clearly are successful at it, because they are at all the box stores.
I've been starting from seed for decades and am a history accuracy stickler - and am also aware, after purchasing the pots, labels, soilless mix and spending countless hours transplanting - that for a small producer that can be trusted, 3.00 is a good price for a plant - especially when it will produce 15-20 pounds or more of tomatoes. Think about the math. Think about the price of a perennial - 5 - 10 dollars - for something that will bloom for a week or two - and compare it to a veggie plant - pepper, tomato, eggplant - that will feed you for months.
So there are many sides to this most interesting topic! And if anyone thinks that there is not dirt in gardening (so to speak - even beyond controversy - there is envy, jealousy, lying, misrepresentation, gouging, soap opera battles, etc) - you are fooling yourself!
