In today's NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03... So far I haven't found any of the g'house tomatoes to be especially flavorful but it seems they're working on that. It's just the gargantuan size of these things and the humongous amounts of resources they use that is so interesting - and somewhat dismaying. Just another reason, I guess, to keep trying to grow tomatoes.

It's a fun article! I, too, am usually very disappointed in store-bought tomatoes. I have sometimes had campari tomatoes from Costco that I enjoyed in salads.

So far I've spent an unmentionable amount of money on soil amendments, seeds, seed-starting equipment, and beautiful stone raised beds. If all my tomato plants were to produce this year, I don't think I could bring the average price down to that of the much-storied $64 tomato. I'm still waiting to produce my first home-grown tomato here in Prescott.

In that light I wonder whether, perhaps, there is a kind of efficiency to the mega-greenhouses that we might grudgingly admire.