Friday, August 5, 2011

Harvested Over 1000 Tomatoes For August!

Today's harvest includes 67 Matt's Wild Cherry, 19 Snow White, 7 Garden Peach, 5 Orange And Green Zebra, 5 Husky Cherry Red(2), 5 Haley's Purple Comet, 4 Large Pink Anna(2), 4 Husky Cherry Red(1), 4 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 3 SunSugar, 2 Cassidy's Folly, 2 Coyote (not Coyote), 2 Green Zebra(2) (not Green Zebra), 2 Green Grape, 2 Green Zebra(1), 2 Golden Mama, 2 SunGold(1), Pineapple (7.5 ounces), Portuguese Neighbor (8 ounces), Southern Night, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Yellow Brandywine (10.5 ounces), Black Krim(1) (7.5 ounces), Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Hungarian Heart (8 ounces), Green Doctors Kiwi(2), Sweet Carneros Pink, Large Pink Anna(1), Husky Gold, Quedlinburger Fruehe Liebe, German Orange Strawberry and Vorlon for a total of 152 tomatoes.

While harvesting I noticed pretty quickly that Kellogg's Breakfast had fallen down. I picked it back up and it seemed okay. I added a stake to Orange And Green Zebra.

We've now harvested over 1000 tomatoes for the month of August (1017). Again, a lot of this is inflated due to the fact I didn't harvest on July 31.

The volume of the tomatoes is dropping pretty dramatically. The pile is getting smaller...

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Harvested Over 5000 Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 66 Matt's Wild Cherry, 17 Snow White, 11 Garden Peach, 7 Haley's Purple Comet, 6 Husky Cherry Red(2), 6 SunGold(1), 5 Golden Mama, 5 Orange And Green Zebra, 4 SunSugar, 3 Pineapple (11 ounces, 10 ounces), 3 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye (7 ounces), 3 Aunt Ruby's German Green(1), 3 Sweet Carneros Pink, 3 Green Zebra(2) (not Green Zebra), 2 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 Kellogg's Breakfast (8 ounces), 2 Large Pink Anna(2), Persimmon (9 ounces), Neves Azorean Red (7.5 ounces), Bloody Butcher, Porkchop, Big White Pink Stripe, Portuguese Neighbor (9 ounces), Southern Night, Dr. Wyche's Yellow (6.5 ounces), Cassidy's Folly, Australian Giant Oxheart, Paul Robeson(2) (8 ounces), Hungarian Heart (10 ounces), Coyote (not Coyote), Jaune Flamme, Large Pink Anna(2), Honkin' Big Black Cherry and Green Doctors Kiwi(2) for a total of 169 tomatoes.

We have now harvested over 5000 tomatoes for the year! The tomato total will slow down dramatically when Matt's Wild Cherry gets exhausted, but we are on a pace to harvest about 10,000 tomatoes this year (my guess). Speaking of Matt's Wild Cherry, we've now harvested over 1100 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes this year.

As you saw in my previous posting, my wife has laid down hay in the "koi pond". This will help keep the ground more temperate and the hay will eventually work into the soil.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Hay In The "Koi Pond"

Today my wife has added hay to the front yard "koi pond".

 

Harvested Over 1000 Matt's Wild Cherry, 500 Snow White Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes 71 Matt's Wild Cherry, 31 Snow White, 10 Garden Peach, 10 Husky Cherry Red(2), 7 Golden Mama, 6 Haley's Purple Comet, 5 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 5 SunGold(1), 4 Michael Pollan, 4 Crimson Cushion(2), 4 Orange And Green Zebra, 4 Husky Cherry Red(1), 3 SunSugar, 3 Coyote (not Coyote), 3 Sweet Carneros Pink, 3 Green Grape, 3 Green Zebra(2) (not Green Zebra), 3 Stupice, 3 Green Zebra(1), 2 Kellogg's Breakfast (14 ounces), 2 Cassidy's Folly, 2 Hungarian Heart (11 ounces, 10 ounces), Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Portuguese Neighbor (7.5 ounces), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Southern Night, Australian Giant Oxheart (6 ounces), Yellow Brandywine (9 ounces), Jaune Flamme, Green Doctor's Kiwi(1) (not Green Doctor's Kiwi), Chocolate Stripes(1), Indian Stripe, Persimmon (16 ounces), Mexico and Black Seaman(1) for a total of 201 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 1000 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes (1039)! It's pretty easy because the plant is sprawling everywhere and the tomatoes aren't big at all. There's plenty more tomatoes to come but the plant will slow down soon.

We've now harvested over 500 Snow White tomatoes (515)! Snow White is strong enough to have a second wind after this initial harvest flush dies off. We could do 1000 tomatoes on this plant.

There are a couple of good sized tomatoes in this batch -- Persimmon comes to mind. However, the overall harvest weight is clearly dropping.

A Sweet 100 is maturing but this maturing tomato doesn't look like Sweet 100. It looks like another SunGold or SunSugar. I'll keep an eye out for this.

My wife watered the front and back yards over the past couple of days.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

August 1 Harvest Image

This is most, if not all of our harvest on August 1, 2011. Enjoy!

 

Harvested Over 4500 Tomatoes For The Year!

Today's harvest includes 55 Matt's Wild Cherry, 20 Snow White, 14 Garden Peach, 10 Husky Cherry Red(2), 10 SunGold(1), 9 Husky Cherry Red(1), 9 Haley's Purple Comet, 8 Orange And Green Zebra, 5 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, 3 SunSugar, 3 Stupice, 3 Golden Mama, 3 Jaune Flamme, 3 Green Zebra(2) (not Green Zebra), 3 Cassidy's Folly, 2 Quedlinburger Fruehe Liebe, 2 Kellogg's Breakfast (9.5 ounces), 2 Crimson Cushion(2) (7.5 ounces, 6 ounces), 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (8 ounces), 2 Sweet Carneros Pink, 2 Coyote (not Coyote), 2 Green Grape, 2 Hungarian Heart (11.5 ounces, 17 ounces), 2 Mexico, 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Green Zebra(1), Portuguese Neighbor (11 ouncesa), Pineapple (13.5 ounces), Southern Night, Australian Giant Oxheart (8.5 ounces), Red Zebra, Yellow Brandywine (10.5 ounces), Oaxacan Jewel(2), Aunt Ruby's German Green(3) (10 ounces), Honkin' Big Black Cherry, Green Doctor's Kiwi(1) (not Green Doctor's Kiwi), Aunt Ruby's German Green(1), Big Zebra (6.5 ounces), German Orange Strawberry and Persimmon for a total of 194 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 4500 tomatoes for the year (4644), surpassing the total for all of 2008.


Last night we tried the 22.5 ounce Pineapple tomato at our computer user group's board meeting. Everyone liked it! Many tomatoes were handed out as well.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Harvested Aunt Ruby's German Green(1) and Mexico!

Today's harvest includes 92 Matt's Wild Cherry, 45 Snow White, 22 Husky Cherry Red(2), 18 Garden Peach, 12 Haley's Purple Comet, 11 Husky Cherry Red(1), 9 Portuguese Neighbor (13.5 ounces, 12 ounces, 12 ounces, 11.5 ounces, 8.5 ounces), 7 Coyote (not Coyote), 7 Golden Mama, 7 SunGold(1), 7 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (8 ounces, 10.5 ounces, 11.5 ounces, 12.5 ounces, 7 ounces, 6 ounces), 5 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye (12 ounces), 4 Southern Night, 4 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 4 Sweet Carneros Pink, 4 Hungarian Heart (6 ounces, 9 ounces, 10 ounces, 10.5 ounces), 3 Kellogg's Breakfast (7 ounces, 8 ounces, 11 ounces), 3 Paul Robeson(2) (9 ounces, 9.5 ounces, 8 ounces), 3 Green Zebra(2) (not Green Zebra), 3 Green Grape, 3 Black Krim (7.5 ounces), 2 Mexico (9.5 ounces) (new), 2 Pineapple (22.5 ounces), 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Quedlinburger Fruehe Liebe, 2 Large Pink Anna(1), 2 Cassidy's Folly, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Orange And Green Zebra, 2 Green Zebra(1), Aunt Ruby's German Green(1) (new), Vorlon, SunSugar, Red Zebra, Australian Giant Oxheart, Honkin' Big Black Cherry, Stupice, Michael Pollan, Aunt Ruby's German Green(3) (10 ounces) and Green Doctor's Kiwi(1) (not Green Doctor's Kiwi) for a total of 301 tomatoes!

Well, now you see the effect of not having harvested the day before...

This will be the largest harvest day of the year, though it was pumped up artificially due to yesterday's morning rain. For a piece of trivia, the .07 inch of rain in Woodland Hills was the largest rain total ever for July 31 since measurements had been taken (1949).

The remarkable thing about today's harvest is the number of good sized tomatoes that came in the batch, including Portuguese Neighbor, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Paul Robeson, Kellogg's Breakfast and others. Pineapple tied our heaviest tomato of the year at 22.5 ounces.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

July 2011 Tomato Analysis

Here are our July harvest numbers, by year:

2007 -- 6154
2008 -- 1629
2009 -- 4576
2010 -- 4108
2011 -- 3876

Our numbers for July are solid. If it weren't for the lack of a harvest today, we would have easily had over 4000 tomatoes harvested for the month.

What's notable in these numbers is that the months for July 2007 and July 2009 were greater than all of my harvest for 2008, just over 4500 tomatoes.

To repeat, we planted later this year than we have in other years. This is the first year we took a "mulligan" -- Nyagous only produced one bad tomato. We pulled it early and planted SunGold(2). If that plant takes off we'll have a strong August and September.

The tomatoes have been notably tasty this year. The only "miss" I can think of is Black And Brown Boar. Everything else has been good to outright amazing.

Solid numbers this year, with the potential for stronger numbers (as compared to prior years) in the upcoming years.

June 2011 Tomato Analysis

This analysis is quite late, a month late in fact.

Here are our June harvest numbers, by year:

2007 -- 1259
2008 -- 1538
2009 -- 299
2010 -- 536
2011 -- 273

Strangely, our best June number was in 2008. That was our worst harvest year, by the numbers. We harvested just over 4500 tomatoes that year.

Based on my memory at the end of June, I wasn't worried about the poor numbers. The tomato plants were very tall and looked quite healthy. This is just a reflection of a late planting (early to mid April) than anything else.

Harvested Pineapple; We Like Hungarian Heart

Saturday's harvest included 47 Matt's Wild Cherry, 35 Snow White, 13 Husky Cherry Red(2), 11 Garden Peach, 8 Husky Cherry Red(1), 7 Haley's Purple Comet, 6 Southern Night, 5 Golden Mama, 5 Green Zebra(2) (not Green Zebra), 5 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, 4 SunGold(1), 4 Cassidy's Folly, 4 Oaxacan Jewel, 4 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 4 Orange And Green Zebra, 3 SunSugar, 3 Kellogg's Breakfast (7 ounces, 12 ounces, 8 ounces), 3 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (11 ounces, 9 ounces, 13 ounces), 3 Quedlinburger Fruehe Liebe, 3 Coyote (7 ounces, 6 ounces) (not Coyote), 2 Black Krim(1) (6 ounces), 2 Sweet Carneros Pink, 2 Aunt Ruby's German Green(3) (11.5 ounces, 11 ounces), 2 German Orange Strawberry, Pineapple (17 ounces) (new), Vorlon, Neves Azorean Red (17 ounces), Persimmon (9 ounces), Stupice, Jaune Flamme, Large Pink Anna(1), Patio, Green Grape, Green Doctor's Kiwi(1) (not Green Doctor's Kiwi), Michael Pollan, Honkin' Big Black Cherry, Big White Pink Stripe (8.5 ounces), Portuguese Neighbor (14 ounces), Yellow Brandywine (13.5 ounces), Large Pink Anna(2), Australian Giant Oxheart (13.5 ounces) for a total of 202 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 4000 tomatoes for the year, over 2000 tomatoes in the front yard and over 2000 tomatoes in the back yard.

In the afternoon we had a small tomato party with my wife's parents, the "seed lady" and her nine year old along with Tom and Eugenia and their children. We met Tom and Eugenia through this blog! We roasted potatoes harvested earlier in the day from our garden on our new barbeque. Later, my father in law worked the barbeque with skirt steak and chicken. My wife made gazpacho and of course, made a sliced tomato salad. We cut up Pineapple, Black Krim, Aunt Ruby's German Green and German Orange Strawberry. The party was fun -- it was good catching up with Tom/Eugenia and the two year old twins. All the tomatoes worked real well but we all had special praise for the first harvested Pineapple. It was big, pretty and tasted really delicious. German Orange Strawberry was heavily praised by Tom.

But...the tomato jelly was astonishingly good. Amazing!!

At the end of the party the twins picked a few tomatoes. I counted them as best I could.

Everyone went home with a generous amount of tomatoes.

To our surprise, it rained Sunday morning. It rained so much that I didn't harvest. I just counted the ones the children picked: 8 Matt's Wild Cherry, 3 Husky Cherry Red(1), Husky Cherry Red(2) (all eaten) and Green Zebra(2) (not Green Zebra and not eaten) for a total of 15 tomatoes.

This morning we tried Hungarian Heart. I liked it, it's a good tomato. But my wife absolutely loved it, declaring it the best red tomato she ever had! Wow! If we see it, we'll grow it every year.

After Canning

These are the some of the canning results after my wife worked 7 hours of processing tomatoes last week. She worked her ass off.

Thanks for the results!