Harvested Over 350 Black Cherry Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 14 Sweet 100, 13 Black Cherry, 11 Snow White, 8 SunGold(2), 4 Supersweet 100, 4 Isis Candy, 3 SunGold(1), 3 Juliet, 3 Green Grape, 2 Husky Cherry Red, 2 Grande (9 ounces, 10.5 ounces), 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Indigo Rose, 2 Blue Beauty, Pineapple, Paul Robeson, Piement (6 ounces), Japanese Black Trifele, Speckled Roman(2), Garden Peach and "Rosella Purple" (Aunt Ruby's German Green) (11 ounces) for a total of 80 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 350 Black Cherry tomatoes this year (356)! The Black Cherry crop has been fairly plentiful and good tasting this year so we're happy for that.

The larger tomatoes look nice. There were a lot of cherry tomatoes in today's harvest. Most of these cherry tomatoes will be given to cleaning people that come to our house every other Thursday. 

July 2013 Tomato Analysis

In July 2013 we harvested 1970 tomatoes, of which 770 were in the front yard and 1200 in the back yard.

Let's compare this year with prior harvests...

2013 -- 1970 -- Sixth
2012 -- 6068 -- Second
2011 -- 3863 -- Fifth
2010 -- 4108 -- Fourth
2009 -- 4576 -- Third
2008 -- 1629 -- Seventh
2007 -- 6154 -- First

This year barely beats out the worst harvest month, 2008. Bleah.

As you can see it's not a good year. Why?

I don't think the seedlings were as solid as other years. I simply think the plants were weaker and that's the main issue. What I've been keeping an eye on is beware of windstorms within a week or two of when you purchase your seedlings. I believe that occurred this year. The plants start strong and get to a reasonable height. Up to this point there appears to be nothing wrong with the seedlings. The plant starts to produce fruit and then "hits the wall". The plant starts to turn a grayish color and the fruit stays seriously underdeveloped.

There's so many tomato seedlings like this I can't list them all. Pierce's Pride, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(1), Green Zebra, Blue Beauty, Berkeley Tie Dye, Pineapple, Stupice, Nyagous, Jersey Giant...all produced severely undersized tomatoes. Or in the case of Green Zebra, no edible ripe fruit at all.

The second thing that possibly affected the seedlings are that we took to long to actually put them in the ground. In some cases I think it took us over two weeks before we acquired the seedling and actually put it in the ground. That's too long. I'll think about digging some holes before we acquire seedlings next year.

I believe we fertilized pretty well in preparation for this year. One can always do more but I thought we were well prepared. Speaking of which, we still have some hay bales acquired about a month ago that we still need to spread on the ground.

The third thing was that we got hot early. No, we didn't hit 110 like we did in June of 2008 but there were several early heat waves.

So two out of three items we really didn't have control but we'll work on the third for next year.

August may not turn out so bad. We've had some relatively mild weather for the past week or so. I expect some of the remaining plants to recover somewhat and have a second wind. Let's see what happens. 

Harvested 50 Isis Candy Tomatoes This Year

Today's harvest includes 16 Sweet 100, 6 Snow White, 6 Garden Peach, 4 Black Cherry, 3 Blue Beauty, 3 Jaune Flamme, 2 Speckled Roman(1), 2 SunGold(1), 2 Jersey Giant, 2 Isis Candy, 2 Shah/Mikado, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Porkchop, Husky Cherry Red, Vorlon, Pineapple, Missouri Pink Love Apple, Black and Brown Boar, SunGold(2), Green Grape, Indigo Rose, German Orange Strawberry, Amos Coli (6.5 ounces), "Something Orange" (14 ounces), Juliet, Supersweet 100 and Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(2) for a total of 66 tomaotes.

Outside of the nice looking "Something Orange" (which I think is another Dr. Wyche's Yellow), today's harvest was a little bit...meh. I did add fertilizer to the container plants and in the raised beds.

On the plus side there was leftover pasta for dinner with the roasted tomatoes and zucchini, both picked from our garden. That was even a bigger hit than it was the day before.

We've now harvested 50 Isis Candy tomatoes this year and harvested over 150 Sweet 100 tomatoes for July (158). 

Harvested Over 1000 Front Yard Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 11 Sweet 100, 7 SunGold(1), 6 SunGold(2), 5 Green Grape, 4 Isis Candy, 3 Speckled Roman(1), 3 Amos Coli, 3 Yellow Perfection, 2 Pineapple, 2 Snow White, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 "Rosella Purple" (Aunt Ruby's German Green(2)), 2 Indigo Rose, 2 Black Cherry, 2 Supersweet 100, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Jersey Giant, 2 Husky Cherry Red, Porkchop, Shah/Mikado, Gold Medal, Black and Brown Boar, Garden Peach, "Something Orange" (10 ounces) and Juliet for a total of 69 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 1000 tomatoes in the front yard for 2013 (1014)! And we've now harvested over 150 Sweet 100 tomatoes (155). 

Harvested Three New Tomatoes!

Wednesday's harvest includes 9 Garden Peach, 8 Yellow Perfection, 8 Black Cherry, 6 Blue Beauty, 5 Green Grape, 5 Jaune Flamme, 4 Pineapple, 4 Isis Candy, 4 Jersey Giant, 3 Shah/Mikado, 3 Piement, 3 Indigo Rose, 3 Husky Cherry Red, 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(2) (new), 2 SunGold(2), 2 Kellogg's Breakfast (8 ounces), 2 "Something Orange" (20 ounces, 14 ounces), 2 Husky Red(1), 2 Supersweet 100, 2 Speckled Roman(2), 2 Speckled Roman(1), Hungarian Heart, Porkchop, Paul Robeson, Missouri Pink Love Apple, SunGold(1), Grande (11 ounces), Snow White, Juliet and Husky Red(2) for a total of 90 tomatoes.

This will in all probability be our high harvest day (90 tomatoes). That's...not very high. However, the "Something Orange" tomatoes look great and the Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(2) looks pretty good for being in the raised bed.

I believe most of these tomatoes were brought down to my in-law's residence by my wife.

Thursday's harvest includes 6 Yellow Perfection, 5 Jersey Giant, 5 Black Cherry, 4 Aunt Ruby's German Green (8 ounces, 6 ounces, new), 4 Green Grape, 4 Garden Peach, 4 Indigo Rose, 4 Blue Beauty, 2 Kellogg's Breakfast, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Pineapple, 2 Supersweet 100, 2 Speckled Roman(2), 2 Porkchop, 2 Shah/Mikado, 2 Paul Robeson (6 ounces), 2 Amos Coli (7 ounces), 2 Isis Candy, 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Husky Cherry Red, Crynkovic, Ananas Noire, "Something Orange" (14.5 ounces), Cuor de Bue (10 ounces), Juliet and Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(2) for a total of 65 tomatoes.

The Aunt Ruby's German Green look quite good. Most of the tomatoes have a very light red blush to go along with the darker green mature color.

Friday's harvest includes 9 Black Cherry, 7 Jersey Giant, 4 Supersweet 100, 4 Yellow Perfection, 3 SunGold(1), 3 Isis Candy, 3 Green Grape, 3 Shah/Mikado, 2 Juliet, 2 Porkchop, 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Garden Peach, Amos Coli, Indigo Rose, Husky Cherry Red, Pineapple, SunGold(2), Blue Beauty, Pineapple Pig, Snow White, Ananas Noire, "Something Orange" (12 ounces), Sweet 100 and Husky Red(1) for a total of 60 tomatoes.

Saturday's harvest includes 7 Snow White, 5 Black Cherry, 5 Sweet 100, 5 Shah/Mikado, 4 Garden Peach, 3 Supersweet 100, 3 Porkchop, 2 Husky Cherry Red, 2 Cuor de Bue (6 ounces), 2 SunGold(1), 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Pineapple Pig (6 ounces), 2 Isis Candy, 2 Garden Peach, Amos Coli, Piement, Japanese Black Trifele, Kellogg's Breakfast (6 ounces), Pineapple, Dr. Wyche's Yellow (7 ounces), Aunt Ruby's German Green (13 ounces), Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(2) (6.5 ounces) and Husky Red(2) for a total of 54 tomatoes.

I went down to Orange County in the morning. I brought two days harvest of tomatoes. I gave a bag to a barista in Tarzana, two bags of tomatoes to my mechanic in Westminster, and two bags of tomatoes to my mother. Later on I visited my in-laws. My wife and I got back late in separate cars.

Sunday's harvest includes 9 Sweet 100, 8 Black Cherry, 6 Blue Beauty, 5 Snow White, 5 Garden Peach, 5 Jaune Flamme, 4 Rosella Purple (8 ounces, new), 4 Shah/Mikado, 3 Indigo Rose, 3 Husky Cherry Red, 3 Pineapple, 2 Amos Coli (6.5 ounces, 6 ounces), 2 Jersey Giant, 2 Speckled Roman(2), 2 Pineapple Pig (6 ounces), 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (9 ounces, 12 ounces), 2 Isis Candy, 2 Yellow Perfection, Hungarian Heart, Vorlon, Speckled Roman(1), Black and Brown Boar, SunGold(1), Japanese Black Trifele, Cuor de Bue, Juliet and Supersweet 100 for a total of 78 tomatoes.

"Rosella Purple" is another Aunt Ruby's German Green. First off, it's not purple, it's green. We tried it for dinner. It was delicious but it was Aunt Ruby's German Green. I'll need to adjust the spreadsheet at some point...

Earlier we had tried Paul Robeson and it was actually pretty good. The skin was a bit tough but otherwise was just fine.

Today's harvest includes 14 Snow White, 4 Husky Cherry Red, 4 Pineapple, 4 Black Cherry, 4 Jaune Flamme, 3 Indigo Rose, 3 Yellow Perfection, 3 Green Grape, 3 Blue Beauty, 2 Porkchop, 2 Amos Coli, 2 Supersweet 100, 2 Isis Candy, 2 Piement, 2 Jersey Giant, 2 Aunt Ruby's German Green (6 ounces, 6 ounces), 2 SunGold(2), 2 Shah/Mikado, Paul Robeson, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Garden Peach and Husky Red(2) for a total of 64 tomatoes.

My wife roasted today's tomatoes for tonight's dinner. They were terrific with the pasta.

During this period we harvested over 2000 tomatoes for the year (now we stand at 2157) and over 1000 harvested tomatoes in the back yard for July (now stands at 1093).

I know updates have been spotty but we've been busy with life...