Friday, July 19, 2013

Harvested Three New Tomatoes and a 30 Ounce Dr. Wyche's Yellow!

Today's harvest includes 18 Black Cherry, 7 Supersweet 100, 6 Indigo Rose, 4 Blue Beauty, 3 Jersey Giant, 3 Husky Cherry Red, 3 Pineapple Pig (13 ounces, 8 ounces), 3 Missouri Pink Love Apple, 2 Garden Peach, 2 Japanese Black Trifele, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Isis Candy, 2 Shah/Mikado, SunGold(2) (new), Cuor de Bue (8.5 ounces, new), "Something Orange" (11 ounces, new), Hungarian Heart (6 ounces), Porkchop, Yellow Perfection, Black Krim, Speckled Roman(1), Dr. Wyche's Yellow (30 ounces), Speckled Roman(2), Sweet 100 and Husky Red(1) for a total of 69 tomatoes.

The Dr. Wyche's Yellow tomato was a big, big surprise. The tomato was buried in the middle of the plant. I had no idea we had a tomato that big. This ties the 30 ounce Mexico tomato I harvested a few years back.

I use a child's bowl as the receptacle for holding tomatoes. I needed two hands to harvest this tomato so I set the bowl with the Black Cherry and Speckled Roman(1) tomatoes down on the ground. When I pulled off the Dr. Wyche's Yellow tomato, the tomato fell out of my hands and caught the lip of the bowl. That put an ugly gash in the Dr. Wyche's Yellow tomato and sent the harvested tomatoes in the bowl scattering everywhere. I'm still not sure I found them all.

The new Cuor de Bue tomato looks nice but it still needs a day or two to fully mature.

The "Something Orange" tomato looks nice but we don't know what it is. On the online spreadsheet I labeled it as Orange Paruche?. The tomato is orange, I'll grant you that but it sure isn't Orange Paruche. Orange Paruche is a cherry tomato and this 11 ounce tomato isn't a cherry tomato. My best guess right now is that it's another Kellogg's Breakfast. But for now it's a mystery.

All in all it was a pretty good haul today.
 

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Harvested Kentucky Beefsteak!

Tuesday's harvest includes 13 Black Cherry, 6 Snow White, 5 Sweet 100, 5 Supersweet 100, 3 Husky Red(1), 2 Speckled Roman(1), 2 Isis Candy, 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (14.5 ounces), 2 Indigo Rose, 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Piement, 2 Husky Cherry Red, 2 SunGold(1), 2 Porkchop, Hungarian Heart (7 ounces), Jersey Giant, Missouri Pink Love Apple, Green Grape, Speckled Roman(2), Amos Coli (8 ounces), Ananas Noire (16 ounces) and Juliet for a total of 58 tomatoes.

Most if not all of today's harvest was brought to my in-laws later in the day.

Wednesday's harvest includes 7 Garden Peach, 6 Black Cherry, 4 Shah/Mikado, 3 Husky Cherry Red, 3 Supersweet 100, 3 Blue Beauty, 2 Missouri Pink Love Apple, 2 Black and Brown Boar, 2 Green Grape, 2 Berkeley Tie Dye, 2 Crynkovic (7 ounces), 2 Isis Candy, 2 Juliet, 2 Sweet 100, 2 Japanese Black Trifele, 2 Speckled Roman(1), 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (13 ounces, 9.5 ounces), 2 Stupice, Hungarian Heart, Vorlon, Jersey Giant and Pineapple Pig for a total of 54 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 1000 tomatoes for July! Some of Wednesday's harvest was brought to a barista in Tarzana.

Today's harvest includes 15 Black Cherry, 8 Shah/Mikado, 6 Sweet 100, 6 Supersweet 100, 5 Isis Candy, 5 Garden Peach, 3 Snow White, 3 Juliet, 2 Missouri Pink Love Apple, 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Jaune Flamme, Kentucky Beefsteak (new), SunGold(1), Green Grape, Husky Cherry Red, Hungarian Heart, Porkchop, Yellow Perfection, Berkeley Tie Dye, Jersey Giant and German Orange Strawberry for a total of 67 tomatoes.

This ends a four day slide in the harvest numbers. But having noted that, it's clear it will not only be a bad year according to the numbers, it may be an atrocious year. Still, I've been pleased with the full sized tomatoes so far. But there's been a lot, and I mean a lot of tomatoes that are miniature-sized versions of their full sized brethren.
 

Monday, July 15, 2013

Harvested Five New Tomatoes; Pineapple Pig Was Extraordinary!

Saturday's harvest includes 15 Black Cherry, 10 Sweet 100, 9 Supersweet 100, 5 Garden Peach, 5 Isis Candy, 4 Indigo Rose, 4 Husky Cherry Red, 4 Juliet, 2 Crynkovic (6 ounces, new), 2 Husky Red(1), 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 Hungarian Heart, 2 Berkeley Tie Dye, 2 Snow White, 2 Speckled Roman(1), 2 Jaune Flamme, Pineapple Pig (14 ounces, new), SunGold(1) (new), Green Grape (new), Vorlon, Black Krim (7 ounces), Paul Robeson, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(1), Dr. Wyche's Yellow (9 ounces), German Orange Strawberry, Jersey Giant, Missouri Pink Love Apple, Black and Brown Boar, Speckled Roman(2) and Anana's Noire (7 ounces) for a total of 86 tomatoes.

In the morning the gardeners pulled out six dead tomato plants. They were Pierce's Pride, Brad's Black Heart, Black Seaman, Nyaguos, Green Zebra and Michael Pollan. There were about 50 Michael Pollan tomato plants littered on the ground in two spots within the back yard. It's really sad to see Michael Pollan go away because the tomatoes were meaty and tasty.

But we did harvest four new tomatoes today. By far the most spectacular was the beautiful 14 ounce Pineapple Pig tomato. Here's an image of that tomato.


In the afternoon my wife, her parents and I went to a restaurant. We brought along three tomatoes to eat with our meal: Piement, Green Grape and Pineapple Pig. We tried them in that order. Again, Piement had an amazing texture. My wife declared that it was the best tasting tomato skin she's ever tasted, and I can understand that sentiment. Especially so if I want to remain married. In all seriousness I'd have to agree with her about the skin of this tomato.

Green Grape tasted good as usual, though it's hard to divide up such a small tomato into four parts. I think it may have been only cut up in three parts.

Pineapple Pig tasted as good as it looks. Inside it truly looked like a pineapple. It was entirely yellow inside with a slight pink blush in one spot. The tomato tasted as good as it looked. I think we had that 14 ounce tomato eaten among the four of us in about 90 seconds. It was truly delicious.

I now know I harvested last year's Pineapple Pig a little early. I would harvest it when it had a mostly yellow color among green striping. Now I know to wait until the green color is pretty much completely gone. Wow, it was a real pleasure to eat part of this tomato!

Afterward my in-laws left with a bunch of our tomatoes.

Sunday's harvest includes 17 Black Cherry, 10 Green Grape, 9 Sweet 100, 5 Supersweet 100, 5 Garden Peach, 3 Juliet, 3 Husky Cherry Red, 3 Blue Beauty, 2 Berkeley Tie Dye, 2 Speckled Roman(1), 2 Speckled Roman(2) (6 ounces), 2 Snow White, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(1), Stupice, Hungarian Heart, Yellow Perfection, Paul Robeson, Missouri Pink Love Apple, Black and Brown Boar, Jaune Flamme, German Orange Strawberry (9 ounces), Japanese Black Trifele, Isis Candy and Husky Red(1) for a total of 75 tomatoes.

Sunday was the first (annual?) Popsiclelooza held in the West Adams district of Los Angeles. This was a neighborhood event and roughly 40 - 50 people attended. The popsicles were made by my wife's maid of honor. Everyone had a good time. We brought more tomatoes to give away.

Today's harvest includes 9 Shah/Mikado, 9 Sweet 100, 7 Black Cherry, 6 Snow White, 5 Juliet, 4 Blue Beauty, 4 Green Grape, 3 Supersweet 100, 3 Berkeley Tie Dye, 3 Jaune Flamme, 2 Piement (6 ounces), 2 Indigo Rose, 2 Isis Candy, 2 Husky Cherry Red, 2 Stupice, 2 Jersey Giant, 2 Garden Peach, Amos Coli (new), Vorlon, Speckled Roman(1), Dr. Wyche's Yellow (7 ounces), Missouri Pink Love Apple, Crynkovic and Speckled Roman(2) for a total of 74 tomatoes.

Here's a troubling sign: The harvest numbers are dropping and some of the producing tomato plants look spent. We may be on a pace for some terrible numbers this year.

Amos Coli looks like a cross between Speckled Roman (hand grenade shape) and Piement (color).