For August, my initial harvest estimate was 2700 tomatoes. This was estimated again in the middle of the month upward to 3500 tomatoes. We ended up at exactly 3250 tomatoes harvested for the month.
Due to the significant drop in harvest numbers at the end of the month, we will not make 10,000 harvested tomatoes this year.
On August 1 we harvested 224 tomatoes. On August 31, 30 tomatoes. Quite a significant drop!
Last year, we harvested 1004 tomatoes in August and 204 in September. The September/August ratio comes out to 20.3% of the August harvest.
Two years ago, we harvested 2806 tomatoes in August and 647 in September. The September/August ratio comes out to 23.0% of the August harvest.
Using those figures as a guide for this year's numbers would make this year's September harvest from 660 tomatoes at the low end to 749 tomatoes at the high end. That would make 700 a reasonable estimate for September's harvest based strictly on numbers.
How about based on what I see? This hot weather will kill any August blooms. But both Snow White tomato plants have new tomatoes on them. Black Cherry still has about 75 tomatoes to ripen and looks strong enough for a second wind if the weather cools down.
But the container plants are basically done, though. White Currant still has a couple dozen growing tomatoes. Red Currant is basically done and I'm not expecting a second wind from that plant. Cherry tomatoes are a “cheap” way to get high harvest totals but outside of the plants mentioned in the last paragraph, we don't have those plants available.
However, there's a lot of tomato plants with 10 or 15 tomatoes on them, ready to ripen. This includes plants we haven't heard from recently, such as Black From Tula or Black Krim or Cuor de Bue. These plants are getting some of their strength back, even in this recent heat.
I can probably see around 400 or so growing tomatoes overall. Based on what I see, 700 harvested tomatoes for September seems like a reasonable estimate.
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