Thursday, July 15, 2010

Harvested Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart!


Today's harvest includes 21 SunGold, 18 Violet Jasper, 12 White Currant, 6 Red Grape, 5 Red Currant(2), 4 Marianna's Peace, 3 Snow White (back yard), 2 Zapotec Pleated, 2 Thessaloniki, 2 Gypsy, 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow(2) (one 6 ounces), 2 Red Currant(1), 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 Snow White (front yard), 2 Husky Cherry Red, 2 Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge (6 ounces, 9.5 ounces, still no purple smudges), 2 Babywine, 2 Stupice, 2 Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart (new, 7.5 ounces, 13.5 ounces), Sweet Tangerine, Speckled Roman, Michael Pollan, Patio, Jaune Flamme(2), Nyagous, Topaz, Carmello, Principe Borghese, Black Krim, SunSugar, Miss Elliotte Black, Poma Amoria Minora Lutea, Garden Peach and Japanese Black Trifele for a total of 108 tomatoes.

Yesterday it got up to 102 and it looks like it will be even hotter today.

When I got home one of our crepe myrtle trees had fallen to the ground (the supporting stake broke) and several of the tomato plants needed staking. I got three front yard tomatoes staked while we were working on propping up the crepe myrtle tree. This morning I tied the wayward branches to these new stakes as needed.

Yesterday's harvest came in at 6 pounds, 6 ounces.

The Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart tomatoes look great. I've actually tossed out over a half dozen of these tomatoes because of blossom end rot. Not these.

The birds got to a Thessaloniki...

We're halfway through the month and have harvested approximately 1400 tomatoes (1378). So we'll never reach the 6800 estimate. What's interesting is that even though it's gotten hotter over the last two days, our harvest numbers have fallen – 132/111/108. Last year at this time the harvest totals were 116/127/155. And that's with 25 percent less plants than this year.

Stay patient. The heat will accelerate tomato ripening. This can be seen in the tinier tomatoes – SunGold's numbers are climbing, White Currant is strong, Violet Jasper is strong. As time marches on, the slightly larger tomatoes will mature like Garden Peach, Poma Amoria Minora Lutea, Babywine and Nyagous. That plant that isn't Azoychka start to ripen and produce in numbers.

The tide is coming – just wait and see.


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