Saturday, September 12, 2009

I'll Pull Some Plants Tomorrow


And today's harvest includes 22 Black Cherry, 11 Babywine, 5 Garden Peach(2), 5 Tiger Paw, 5 Snow White(1), 5 Snow White(2), 4 Oaxacan Jewel(1), 4 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 4 White Currant, 3 Paul Robeson, 3 Orange Blossom, 3 Yellow Perfection, 3 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon , 3 Vintage Wine, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Plum Tigris, a front yard Husky Cherry Red, a back yard Husky Cherry Red, a sun scalded Black From Tula, Japanese Black Trifele, a back yard Green Grape, German Orange Strawberry and Black Krim (6 ounces) for a total of 91 tomatoes.

On Thursday my wife watered the front yard. Yesterday she watered the back yard.

My wife has been getting on me to pull out some of the tomato plants. Since we harvested the last Speckled Roman in the front yard, that one can definitely go. But the ones that are hanging on she'd like them to go as well.

Unfortunately...this makes a lot of sense.

I like to keep the tomato plants going and going until they're completely exhausted. But my wife is doing a vast majority of the watering and also we're in a water shortage. Why water for weeks on end for just a couple of small tomatoes?

It's bad enough that she's correct, she's both logical and correct. ;) I'll be looking to pull out some of the tomato plants after tomorrow's harvest.

For no particular reason, here's our top 10 producers for 2009 at the moment:

Red Currant – 1277 tomatoes

Snow White(1) – 1136 tomatoes

Black Cherry – 854 tomatoes

Yellow Perfection – 469 tomatoes

White Currant – 366 tomatoes

Babywine – 365 tomatoes

Husky Cherry Red (back yard) – 357 tomatoes

Jaune Coeur de Pigeon – 346 tomatoes

Red Grape – 336 tomatoes

Snow White(2) – 285 tomatoes.


Friday, September 11, 2009

Reached 9000 Harvested Tomatoes For The Year!


Today's harvest includes 13 Black Cherry, 12 Babywine, 8 Yellow Perfection, 6 Snow White(1), 6 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 5 Garden Peach(2), 5 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 4 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Japanese Black Trifele, 3 Snow White(2), 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 White Currant, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Black From Tula (6 ounces, 9.5 ounces), 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Orange Blossom, Turkish Striped Monastery, Sweet 100, Tiger Paw, German Orange Strawberry, Amazon Chocolate, White Zebra, Vintage Wine, Black Krim, Oaxacan Jewel(1) and Dr. Wyche's Yellow for a total of 87 tomatoes.

Today's harvest is a significant drop off compared to yesterday's harvest. We're on the far side of the heat wave harvest bump.

Having said that, it did get up to 101 yesterday.

Thanks to this recent harvest bump, we've reached over 9000 harvested tomatoes for the year (9040)! It's been a very good year with a very good month so far.


Thursday, September 10, 2009

Harvested Over 800 Black Cherry Tomatoes!


Today's harvest includes 24 Babywine, 23 Black Cherry, 16 Yellow Perfection, 8 Garden Peach(2), 7 Snow White(2), 5 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 4 Paul Robeson, 3 Snow White(1), 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Black Krim, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Oaxacan Jewel(1), 2 Oaxacan Jewel(2), Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, Vintage Wine, Mong, Silvery Fir Tree, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Cuor de Bue, Garden Peach(1), German Orange Strawberry, Sweet 100, White Currant, White Zebra, Husky Gold and Mexico (10 ounces) for a total of 118 tomatoes.

I think we'll have only a couple more days of elevated totals before we get back to a “normal” September. If you notice, the “flurries” started with the container plants (small cherry tomatoes), graduated to the larger cherry tomatoes (Black Cherry) and now is up to the plum sized tomatoes (Yellow Perfection, Babywine, lesser extent Garden Peach(2)).

Back to the container plants – we're hardly picking from them anymore.

Outside of the Snow White(2) plant, there's no other plant that will get “hot” and have a steady harvest of tomatoes. After the “flurries” are over, we'll have to wait for new blooms and tomatoes on old plants – if they're still healthy enough to continue to grow.

We've obliterated my original September estimate of 700 tomatoes (now at 817). I have no new estimate. But I will say if we harvest another 650 tomatoes this month, we'll have a shot at harvesting 10,000 tomatoes for the year.

We haven't picked from Cuor de Bue in over a month! However, today's harvested tomato was healthy, but shaped differently than a normal Cuor de Bue.

We've now harvested over 800 Black Cherry tomatoes for the year (819)!


Wednesday, September 9, 2009

L. A. Times -- 30 Days of Ripe Tomatoes


Here's a tomato article in today's Los Angeles Times with 30 days of recipes.

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-calcook9-2009sep09,0,7475928,full.story


Reached 4500 Harvested Back Yard Tomatoes!


Today's harvest includes 41 Black Cherry, 18 Babywine, 15 Yellow Perfection, 8 Snow White(2), 6 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 6 Snow White(1), 4 Garden Peach(2), 4 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (7 ounces, 13 ounces, 6 ounces, 9.5 ounces), 4 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Black From Tula, 3 Plum Tigris, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Orange Blossom, Garden Peach(1), White Zebra, White Currant, Sweet 100, Husky Gold, Italian Ice, Japanese Black Trifele, Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, Vintage Wine and Red Currant for a total of 128 tomatoes!

Well, I don't know what to write that hasn't already been written about this heat wave harvest bump. But I'll try...

Now we have gone over 4 times the harvest amount than just seven days ago. On September 2 we harvested 31 tomatoes.

My original harvest estimate for September 2009 was 700 tomatoes. As of today, we've harvested 699 tomatoes for the month.

I had concerns when I made that estimate that we wouldn't reach 9000 tomatoes for the year. 10,000 harvested tomatoes was out of the question. Now 9000 harvested tomatoes for the year will happen (at this pace, it will happen in two days!) and the magic 10,000 mark is now an outside possibility.

We will have a drop off. I guarantee that. But every time I write it in this blog, I harvest more the next day.

The weather has settled down. Yesterday was quite pleasant and even had a touch of crispness in the air. Fall?

We've reached over 4500 harvested back yard tomatoes for the year (4527)!

Today's harvested Dr. Wyche's Yellow look great!


Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Nearly 4x The Harvest Than Eight Days Ago!


Today's harvest includes 32 Black Cherry, 16 Babywine, 14 Yellow Perfection, 11 Snow White(1), 10 Garden Peach(2), 5 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 5 Snow White(2), 3 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Paul Robeson, 2 Orange Blossom, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Silvery Fir Tree, Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, Mong, Red Currant, Amazon Chocolate and Plum Tigris for a total of 113 tomatoes.

32 harvested tomatoes is the highest harvest total for Black Cherry in 2009. It makes little sense that the highest harvest day is September 8 when the first rush came in late July. Not that I'm objecting, mind you, I just can't fully explain it!

Well, I guess I can explain most of it if you add the heat wave harvest bump to a second wind for the Black Cherry tomato plant.

I see very few new blooms on the tomatoes. The heat wave has burned them out and sterilized them, as expected. When these numbers settle down, they will drop down hard and stay down.

Still, today's harvest total is 377% more than just eight days ago. Crazy!

Babywine has reached 300 harvested tomatoes for the year.

My wife made tomato sauce yesterday afternoon. I helped out this time but she's the one that made it. It took a couple of hours but it was fun!

Today (again) we didn't harvest from a single container plant.


Monday, September 7, 2009

Made a Compost Bin; The Bump Continues


Today's harvest includes 17 Black Cherry, 10 Snow White(2), 8 Babywine, 8 Yellow Perfection, 5 Garden Peach(2), 5 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 5 Paul Robeson, 4 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 Oaxacan Jewel(1), 2 Snow White(1), 2 Black From Tula, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, a front yard Speckled Roman, Black Krim, Mong, SunSugar, White Currant, Orange Blossom, Amazon Chocolate and Garden Peach(1) for a total of 82 tomatoes.

The amazing heat wave harvest bump continues! I don't know how long this will continue but we're happy about it, certainly.

On Saturday I added fertilizer to the back yard container plants and watered them. My wife watered some of the back yard tomato plants. Yesterday I watered the front yard while my wife completed watering the back yard.

Saturday I prepared to take out the front yard Speckled Roman. As I prepared, I noticed a good looking tomato growing in the center of the plant. That tomato was harvested today, having matured quite quickly.

Yesterday we made a compost pile made of wire fencing curled into about a four foot circle. We pulled Berkeley Tie Dye and placed it in the compost pile. There was other gardening done before the evening sun set and any organic materials were placed in the new wire compost bin.

The front yard Husky Cherry Red has now reached over 200 harvested tomatoes (203)! Also, the back yard Paul Robeson has now reached over 100 harvested tomatoes (101).


Sunday, September 6, 2009

Harvested Over 8500 Tomatoes For The Year!


Today's harvest includes 18 Black Cherry, 11 Garden Peach(2), 11 Snow White(2), 6 Babywine, 6 Yellow Perfection, 6 Snow White(1), 4 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 4 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 Black Krim (one 6 ounces), Oaxacan Jewel(1), Silvery Fir Tree, Vintage Wine, Japanese Black Trifele, Amazon Chocolate and Orange Blossom for a total of 84 tomatoes.

We've now reached over 8500 harvested tomatoes for the year (8512)!

Also, we've already reached more than half the estimated harvest total of 700 tomatoes for September (376) on the 6th of the month.

The tomato “bump” is both a happy and bewildering event – the tomatoes look pretty good (in some cases quite good) but there was no way to predict this rise in the harvest totals! Exactly one week ago we picked 30 tomatoes for the day. Today, we're nearly triple that amount.

Today we didn't harvest from our container plants! The last day we did not harvest from a container plant was June 13.

We've now harvested over 1100 Snow White(1) tomatoes (1103)! Also, we've now harvested over 700 Black Cherry tomatoes (706) and over 400 Yellow Perfection tomatoes (405).

Now we have a good idea why we're having trouble finding caterpillars! Last night my wife and I were sitting near the back yard Husky Cherry Red plant. I hadn't mentioned yet that this plant has suffered some minor damage due to caterpillars simply because I can't find them! Nevertheless, my wife found one near the top of a damaged stem.

I looked it over (the caterpillar was at an odd angle) and yep, that's our second caterpillar! So I grabbed it, tossed it to the ground...and there was a praying mantis attached to the other end, eating it! That explains everything! The praying mantis bugs are taking care of the caterpillars for us!

We haven't harvested Black Krim or the Oaxacan Jewel(1) tomatoes in nearly a month.