Saturday, September 3, 2011

Friday, September 2, 2011

Sweet Carneros Pink Having a Second Wind

Thursday's harvest includes 11 Matt's Wild Cherry, 10 Sweet Carneros Pink, 9 Husky Cherry Red(2), 7 Snow White, 5 SunGold(1), 4 Stupice, 3 Orange And Green Zebra, 3 Kellogg's Breakfast, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Yellow Brandywine, 2 Coyote (not Coyote), 2 Red Zebra, 2 Vorlon, 2 Neves Azorean Red, 2 Porkchop, Green Zebra(1), Haley's Purple Comet, Persimmon(1), Golden Mama, Green Grape, Big White Pink Stripe, Garden Peach, Black Krim(1) and Aunt Ruby's German Green(3) (6 ounces) for a total of 75 tomatoes.

I added fertilizer to the back yard container plants. Also, I passed out bags of tomatoes to a couple friends of ours.

Today's harvest includes 12 Sweet Carneros Pink, 11 Matt's Wild Cherry, 7 Husky Cherry Red(2), 7 SunGold(1), 5 Snow White, 4 Garden Peach, 4 Kellogg's Breakfast, 3 Orange And Green Zebra, 3 Stupice, 3 Coyote (not Coyote), 2 Persimmon (8 ounces), 2 Michael Pollan, 2 Crimson Cushion(2), Large Pink Anna(1), Green Doctor's Kiwi(1) (not Green Doctor's Kiwi), Big White Pink Stripe, Oaxacan Jewel(2), Australian Giant Oxheart and Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red for a total of 71 tomatoes.

Sweet Carneros Pink is having a good second wind. The fruits look good and are about 60 percent of the size of the first wave. Stupice is coming off a good second wind, the second wind tomatoes looking as good as the first wind tomatoes.

Other than that, plants are burning out. Sweet 100 has a disease where it looks like it's covered in a spider web material. But we're both busy so we haven't taken it out yet.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

August 2011 Harvest Analysis

The August harvest numbers were excellent, 3863 tomatoes. Putting it in context, July 2011 had 3876 harvested tomatoes. July is always our high harvest month.

The extra high numbers are due partially to the fact that there was no harvest on July 31. If I had harvested that day I would have harvested over 4000 tomatoes for the month and the August total would have been less about 200 tomatoes.

The bigger reason for the high number was simply one tomato -- Matt's Wild Cherry. I'm sure this monthly harvest number (1637) is by far the highest number for a month I've ever had. Looking it up, it's actually closer than I thought. In June 2008 I harvested 1337 Red Currant tomatoes.

The August total for this year (3863) is the highest August I've ever had. The previous high was 3250 harvested tomatoes in 2009.

My wife has been processing a lot of these August
tomatoes in the dehydrator. It's been an excellent way of handling tomatoes that are on their "second wind" -- the tomatoes that are 1/2 to 1/3 the size, okay tasting but nothing special, with a thicker skin.

At the beginning of the month, the front yard/back yard totals were even. During the month the front yard tomato harvest increased by nearly 1000 tomatoes over the back yard tomatoes. That started to turn about a week ago with more harvested back yard tomatoes than front yard tomatoes. Now the front yard harvest is about 850 more tomatoes than the back yard.

Regardless of the final totals, we'll have had a successful year. Lots of very tasty tomatoes.
 

Harvested Over 8000 Tomatoes For The Year!

Today's harvest includes 14 Matt's Wild Cherry, 14 Snow White, 11 Husky Cherry Red(2), 7 Stupice, 6 Orange And Green Zebra, 5 Sweet Carneros Pink, 4 Coyote (not Coyote), 4 SunGold(1), 4 Sweet 100, 3 Garden Peach, 3 Kellogg's Breakfast, 3 Yellow Brandywine, 3 Paul Robeson(2), 3 Haley's Purple Comet, 3 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 2 Porkchop, 2 Jaune Flamme, Vorlon, Large Pink Anna(1), Patio, Green Grape and Michael Pollan for a total of 96 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 8000 tomatoes for the year (8012)! The harvest numbers are staying surprisingly steady and in fact have gone up over the last couple of days. I suspect this is due to the recent heat wave and the numbers will drop shortly.

Yesterday's and today's harvest has been more "substantial" than it has been in a while. I'm not talking just about numbers, but about size as well. A lot of beefsteaks are having a second wind, such as Yellow Brandywine, Paul Robeson(2) and Kelloggs' Breakfast. Having said that, these tomatoes are only one to two ounces. Still, that weighs more than a Matt's Wild Cherry! My wife noticed the difference immediately.

We've also harvested over 1500 back yard tomatoes for the month of August (1522). Also, we've harvested over 150 Orange And Green Zebra tomatoes (153) as well as over 50 Porkchop (51) tomatoes -- wow, this tomato is so memorable you'd have thought we'd harvested much more than that.

I should have mentioned yesterday that we've now harvested over 900 Snow White tomatoes (931).
 

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Harvested Over 3500 Back Yard Tomatoes For The Year!

Today's harvest includes 21 Snow White, 17 Matt's Wild Cherry, 6 Sweet Carneros Pink, 6 SunGold(1), 6 Husky Cherry Red(2), 4 Stupice, 2 Orange And Green Zebra, 2 Kellogg's Breakfast, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Green Grape, 2 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 2 Paul Robeson(2), 2 Coyote (not Coyote), Large Pink Anna(1), Vorlon, Porkchop, Haley's Purple Comet, Persimmon(1), Golden Mama, Michael Pollan, Big White Pink Stripe, Persimmon(2), Big Zebra and Aunt Ruby's German Green(3) for a total of 85 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 3500 back yard tomatoes for the year (3524)! Our back yard harvest is now a larger quantity than the front yard for about the past week due to the fading Matt's Wild Cherry and the large Snow White harvest.

We've now harvested 50 Kellogg's Breakfast tomatoes.
 

Monday, August 29, 2011

Harvested Over 2400 Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes!

Sunday's harvest includes 23 Matt's Wild Cherry, 20 Snow White, 5 Husky Cherry Red(2), 4 SunGold(1), 4 Stupice, 3 Yellow Brandywine, 3 Persimmon(1), 3 Garden Peach, 3 Orange And Green Zebra, 3 Sweet Carneros Pink, 2 Large Pink Anna(2), 2 SunSugar, 2 Persimmon(2), 2 Quedlinburger Fruehe Liebe, 2 Haley's Purple Comet, Patio, Kellogg's Breakfast, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Husky Gold and Aunt Ruby's German Green(3) for a total of 86 tomatoes.

I realized a day or two ago that we had grown Speckled Roman from seed. So the fact that it looks like Persimmon isn't a coincidence. It is Persimmon. So I've renamed the two tomatoes to Persimmon(1) and Persimmon(2).

Four tomato plants were pulled: Quedlinburger Fruehe Liebe, Large Pink Anna(2), Green Zebra(2) (not Green Zebra) and Cassidy's Folly.

Today's harvest includes 23 Matt's Wild Cherry, 14 Snow White, 9 SunGold(1), 9 Husky Cherry Red(2), 6 Stupice, 5 Orange And Green Zebra, 4 Sweet Carneros Pink, 3 Green Grape, 2 Haley's Purple Comet, 2 Yellow Brandywine, Coyote (not Coyote), Vorlon, Neves Azorean Red, Persimmon(1) (6.5 ounces), Honkin' Big Black Cherry, Kellogg's Breakfast and Husky Gold for a total of 84 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 2400 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes (2427)! Also, we've harvested over 500 Husky Cherry Red(2) tomatoes (501), over 300 SunGold(1) tomatoes (307) and over 100 Sweet Carneros Pink tomatoes (106).