Comments on: Growing Tomatoes, Part IV: Productive Maturity http://countrylife.lehmans.com/2009/04/30/tomatoes-part-iv/ Your online simplicity village Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:07:56 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Sarah N http://countrylife.lehmans.com/2009/04/30/tomatoes-part-iv/comment-page-1/#comment-1036 Sarah N Mon, 04 May 2009 15:32:08 +0000 http://countrylife.lehmans.com/?p=2087#comment-1036 A newsletter reader submitted this comment: Hello; I was just reading the tomato post you had on the site. It reminded me of a funny story only someone who loves gardening can appreciate. I used to work for a large laboratory in the Chicago area. One day the management realized that lots of precious metals had been purchased over the years and they did not have a good record of where all of it was located and since this was several million dollars worth of stuff they figured they had better find out. So they began their search for all this metal. They tracked it by going to the different labs and taking inventory of the metals. They went to this one lab looking for a good number of 1/2" diameter 36" long platinum rods. These rods were worth several hundred thousand dollars. They searched the lab and couldn't find them and since they had been purchased several years ago no one seemed to know anything about them. They were all upset this was a lot of money just to be missing. So they continued their search by interviewing everyone who had worked in that lab. They found out one guy was out sick and decided to go to his home to interview him. When the got to the home they noticed the guy had a very nice garden growing in back. They sat down with the guy and explained why they were there. The guy looked really sick suddenly and said. "Are these rods sort of silver looking, about 3 feet long?" They told him yes and he began spitting and sputtering, and finally stood up and told the people to come with him. As they walked to the back yard the guy began to explain the rods had just been laying around the lab for a long time and no one seemed to know what they had bought them for. So thinking they were just some junk he didn't think anyone would mind if he borrowed them. As they came to the guys garden he walked over to the tomato plants and raised up the stems so they could look inside the plant, and there was a pretty silvery rod sticking in the ground to hold up the plants. The worlds most expensive plant stakes! The platinum rods, of course they guy immediately pulled them out and replaced them with some wooden dowel rods he had. I never did find out what happened to the guy, but I am pretty sure he didn't have a job anymore. A newsletter reader submitted this comment:

Hello;
I was just reading the tomato post you had on the site. It reminded me of a funny story only someone who loves gardening can appreciate.
I used to work for a large laboratory in the Chicago area. One day the management realized that lots of precious metals had been purchased over the years and they did not have a good record of where all of it was located and since this was several million dollars worth of stuff they figured they had better find out. So they began their search for all this metal. They tracked it by going to the different labs and taking inventory of the metals. They went to this one lab looking for a good number of 1/2″ diameter 36″ long platinum rods. These rods were worth several hundred thousand dollars. They searched the lab and couldn’t find them and since they had been purchased several years ago no one seemed to know anything about them. They were all upset this was a lot of money just to be missing. So they continued their search by interviewing everyone who had worked in that lab. They found out one guy was out sick and decided to go to his home to interview him. When the got to the home they noticed the guy had a very nice garden growing in back. They sat down with the guy and explained why they were there. The guy looked really sick suddenly and said. “Are these rods sort of silver looking, about 3 feet long?” They told him yes and he began spitting and sputtering, and finally stood up and told the people to come with him. As they walked to the back yard the guy began to explain the rods had just been laying around the lab for a long time and no one seemed to know what they had bought them for. So thinking they were just some junk he didn’t think anyone would mind if he borrowed them. As they came to the guys garden he walked over to the tomato plants and raised up the stems so they could look inside the plant, and there was a pretty silvery rod sticking in the ground to hold up the plants. The worlds most expensive plant stakes! The platinum rods, of course they guy immediately pulled them out and replaced them with some wooden dowel rods he had. I never did find out what happened to the guy, but I am pretty sure he didn’t have a job anymore.

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