Italian Tree Has A Growing Tomato!

Today's harvest: 3 Husky Cherry Red(1) and SunSugar for a total of 4 tomatoes.

My wife and I watered the back yard tomato plants today. While watering I spent a lot of time training the back yard tomatoes. I trained the front yard tomatoes last night.

My wife cleaned up Green Zebra Thursday night -- it had a fair amount of black and decaying leaves on it.

Italian Tree has a growing tomato on it. Sweet Baby Girl has a mature tomato in the middle of the plant. I may harvest it tomorrow.

Here's an image of the Indigo Rose. Yes, the tomato is dark blue/purple. We are definitely looking forward to this!!

Indigo Rose

Go Kings!! 

3 More Plants With Tomatoes; 2 More Plants With Maturing Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes SunGold, SunSugar and Red Currant for a total of 3 tomatoes.

I spent yesterday evening training the back yard tomatoes. This morning I did the front yard tomatoes.

More plants with tomatoes include Omar's Lebanese, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red and Paul Robeson.

Two more plants have maturing tomatoes. These are Sweet 100 and Sweet Million. 

Harvested SunGold and SunSugar!

Today's harvest: 2 SunGold (new), SunSugar (new) and Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 4 tomatoes.

Yesterday there was no harvest because I left for work as the sun was just breaking on the horizon.

I did do a lot of training on Tuesday evening. I didn't notice any plants with new tomatoes. The only thing of note is Paul Robeson is behind the other tomato plants planted at the same time. It's too early to worry but I'll keep an eye out for it. 

Haven't Done Much...

Today's harvest: Husky Cherry Red(1).

There was no harvest yesterday. I left for work before the sunrise.

Sunday evening I moved Yellow Currant again to a shadier area under the patio cover. We exchanged it with Copper River.

My wife watered the front yard tomatoes yesterday.

Not much happening -- The past couple of days I'm haven't been inn the garden when the sun is up! 

May 2012 Tomato Analysis

For the month of May 2012, we harvested 22 tomatoes -- 12 Husky Cherry Red(2), 9 Husky Cherry Red(1) and a Red Currant.

How does this compare to other years? It's in the middle of the pack.

2012 -- 22
2011 -- 0
2010 -- 1
2009 -- 11
2008 -- 60
2007 -- 98

What does this tell us? Not much of anything. 2007 was our best year but 2008 was our worst year -- we had planted too early.

However, we can get some clues by the plants I was having concerns about.

I had issues with leaf curl with Big Zebra. Not now. It's sitting directly under the lemon tree so it gets the least amount of sun. The two heat waves helped to dry the underside of the leaves. The plant lost the slight gray look and appears quite healthy. Recently I discovered a growing tomato on it.

There were issues with Red Boar(2) planted in the redwood raised bed. The main stem seemingly split into two twin stems. These stems got long enough to start splitting open the stem at the fork but not long enough to get supported by the cage. Eventually the cage was able to supply support. The plant still has an main stem issue but looks really healthy. It has a really good color with new blooms.

Italian Heirloom looked quite thin and wispy for a beefsteak plant. It's taken off and the main trunk is thickening.

We had pulled Bloody Butcher and Vorlon(2). We replaced them with Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red and Aunt Ruby's German Green. The two new plants look great. They're a little behind the others only because they were planted later than the others. They're doing just fine.

Pineapple(2), the grafted tomato was planted on May 12. It was looking okay when originally planted. The lower leaves were yellowing and it had a scrawnly look. No longer. It's only about a foot tall but the color is gorgeous and it's reaching for the sky.

Both Snow White plants didn't look too great about three weeks ago. Scrawny and small. However, both have taken off and both have growing tomatoes on them. However, the plant grew sideways until it reached the cage, then grew vertically. Three or four of our plants have a pronounced "elbow" before growing vertically. This appears to be a downside of a wide cage.

The only plant that looks like it's struggling a bit is Kellogg's Breakfast. The plant is actually rather tall at about four feet in the air. But it has only two real branches. It's quite leggy with yellowing leaves at the bottom. I think we'll get a few tomatoes off of this plant but not many.

But...we have one somewhat struggling plant out of 93. That is great! However, last year we had several plants just stop once they got growing tomatoes on them. Assuming that doesn't happen this year, look out. We're going to have a great 2012 harvest. 

13 More Plants With Tomatoes; 2 Plants With Maturing Tomatoes!

Yesterday's harvest: 2 Husky Cherry Red(1). Today's harvest: 2 Husky Cherry Red(1).

Now Husky Cherry Red(1) has passed Husky Cherry Red(2) in total production: 14 tomatoes for Husky Cherry Red(1) and 12 tomatoes for Husky Cherry Red(2).

I took a closer look at the tomato plants over the last couple of days. You know the story, more "training". I added a stake to Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1). I used tomato tape for a wayward branch on Husky Cherry Red(1). As the plants get taller and there's less cage room for training, I'll simply use tomato tape to tie back some of the wayward branches. As the weeks progress there will be more and more rolls of tomato tape and stakes being used.

In my last blog post I indicated that I knew there were more plants with tomatoes. Uh, I wasn't kidding. There are 13 more plants with growing tomatoes. The lastest list includes Amana Orange, Noire Charbonneuse(2), Snow White(2), Big Zebra, Green Zebra, Nebraska Wedding, Pierce's Pride(1), Vorlon, Marmara, Snow White(1), Speckled Roman(3), Delicious and Ramapo.

SunGold and SunSugar have maturing tomatoes. SunGold has already reached the top of the cage. In fact, let me see if I can get a reasonable picture of it.

SunGold tomato plant over my wife's right shoulder

As you know, it's only June 3. How tall will this plant get in 60 more days? It's only been in the ground for 57 days.

Having said that, the height of the plant isn't the payoff window. It's the tomatoes! You may be able to tell from the image that the plant is not only tall, it's quite thick. There are hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes on the plant. We'll see how they taste. We'll have plenty to choose from in the upcoming weeks.