Today's harvest includes 17 Orange Paruche, 13 Sunchocola, 12 Matt's Wild Cherry, 7 SunGold, 6 Husky Cherry Red(1), 5 Indigo Rose, 5 Snow White, 4 Garden Peach(3), 3 Jaune Flamme, 3 Black Cherry, 3 Husky Cherry Red(2), 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 Blue Beauty (6 ounces), 2 Stupice, 2 Beauty King, Great White (new, 13 ounces), Bloody Butcher, Indian Stripe, German Orange Strawberry (11.5 ounces), Blue Gold, Pineapple, Speckled Roman(2), Volunteer(4), Black Krim, Green Grape and Sugar Snack for a total of 97 tomatoes.
The Great White tomato was both a surprise and a beauty. Here's an image of it.
The harvested German Orange Strawberry tomato is another beauty.
For those not in our area, we are in the middle of a pretty big heat wave. Two days ago it got up to 101; yesterday it got up to 105.
My wife watered the front yard tomatoes last night. I gave another light spritzing of the back yard tomatoes in the ground this morning.
I started to pull out the cage around Garden Peach(3) in order to pull out the plant. But in so doing I saw one more immature tomato on the vine. When that matures this plant will be pulled.
We've now harvested exactly 350 SunGold tomatoes this year and exactly 300 SunGold tomatoes this July!
Today's harvest includes 23 Matt's Wild Cherry, 16 Sunchocola, 15 Orange Paruche, 11 SunGold, 5 Indigo Rose, 4 Husky Cherry Red(1), 4 Sugar Snack, 3 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 3 Pineapple, 3 Garden Peach(1), 3 Husky Cherry Red(2), 3 Garden Peach(3), 2 Beauty King (new), 2 Stupice, 2 Garden Peach(2), 2 Michael Pollan, Bloody Butcher, Yellow Perfection, German Orange Strawberry, Bread and Salt, Snow White, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(2) and Black Cherry for a total of 108 tomatoes.
As mentioned yesterday, the harvested Beauty King tomatoes appear undersized. We grew these from seeds and our seeds are old...
After the harvest I pulled out Earliana and Berkeley Tie Dye. I added stakes to Hungarian Heart, Sunchocola and German Orange Strawberry. They were only partially successful as I didn't have enough tomato tape. I changed the cage for Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, but in the process I lost about two dozen unripe tomatoes. Looking back on it I should have used three wooden stakes to prop up the cage, but what's done is done. The cage was too small, not secured and was hindering the plant...but losing two dozen tomatoes in the process is too much.
I can't think of the last time when the high harvest total for the day wasn't led by Orange Paruche or Sunchocola. Today the high harvest amount was led by Matt's Wild Cherry.
We've now harvested exactly 1100 Orange Paruche tomatoes and over 300 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes (313) this year!
Today's harvest includes 24 Orange Paruche, 15 Matt's Wild Cherry, 14 Sunchocola, 11 SunGold, 10 Sugar Snack, 8 Husky Cherry Red(1), 8 Husky Cherry Red(2), 4 Indigo Rose, 4 Evan's Purple Pear, 4 Stupice, 3 Pineapple (6 ounces), 3 Black Cherry, 3 Garden Peach(1), 2 Speckled Roman(1), 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 German Orange Strawberry (7.5 ounces, 7 ounces), 2 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), 2 Speckled Roman(2), 2 Snow White, 2 Garden Peach(2), Bloody Butcher, Adriana's Grande, Earl of Edgecombe, Hungarian Heart (10 ounces), Blue Beauty (6 ounces), Paul Robeson and Garden Peach(3) for a total of 132 tomatoes.
I was very close to harvesting an undersized Beauty King. It was completely ready by sight, but by feel it wasn't there yet. I'll probably harvest one or two tomorrow.
After harvesting the back yard I did a five second plant watering of each tomato in the ground. We have a heat wave coming and I wanted to give the plants a little drink.
We've now harvested over 3000 tomatoes for July (3058)! It looks like we'll harvest a little less than 4000 tomatoes this month, less than the estimated 5250 at the beginning of the month. Also, we've harvested over 1500 tomatoes in the back yard for this year (1503).
Today's harvest includes 30 Orange Paruche, 18 SunGold, 17 Matt's Wild Cherry, 15 Sunchocola, 6 Garden Peach(1), 5 Husky Cherry Red(1), 4 Jaune Flamme, 4 Green Grape, 3 Bloody Butcher, 3 Indigo Rose, 3 Evan's Purple Pear, 3 Black Cherry, 3 Husky Cherry Red(2), 3 Garden Peach(3), 3 Sugar Snack, 2 Paul Robeson (new), 2 Speckled Roman(2), 2 Snow White, 2 Stupice, 2 Michael Pollan, Porkchop(2) (new), Japanese Black Trifele (new), Indigo Apple, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Yellow Perfection, Hungarian Heart (7.5 ounces), Blue Beauty, Ananas Noire (7 ounces), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(2) and Garden Peach(2) for a total of 140 tomatoes.
The Japanese Black Trifele was no surprise, neither was Paul Robeson (not sure if I mentioned this tomato as maturing) but Porkchop(2) was a bit of a surprise. However, the Paul Robesons and Porkchop(2) are undersized. Japanese Black Trifele, in a container, isn't undersized.
I had a screw up in yesterday's blog post. I originally posted it as 39 Sunchocola/15 Orange Paruche. These totals were switched; it was 39 Orange Paruche/15 Sunchocola. The blog post was fixed as well as the Orange Paruche total for the year at the bottom of the post. Exciting news to read, I'm sure...
Today marks a significant event: It's the first date in July where the back yard total is larger than the front yard total. And it wasn't close (88 back yard, 52 front yard). There were three or four dates where the harvest numbers were close, but not until today did it cross over. The three new tomatoes are all from the back yard.
The first wave from the front yard is over. Sunchocola numbers are down significantly and Orange Paruche numbers will fall soon. This does not mean there won't be a second wave for these two tomato plants -- in fact I expect it -- but the numbers for the next several weeks will be weak. Meanwhile, the back yard is still in the first wave.
Last night we tried some Blue Beauty tomatoes in a salad. Blue Beauty tomatoes taste good but the taste is not nearly as memorable as the tomato's exterior (which is near spectacular, I think).
I found the tomato dehydrator in our garage this morning. We may have dehydrated tomato chips in the very near future...
We've now harvested over 3500 tomatoes for the year (3581)! We've also harvested over 800 Orange Paruche tomatoes in July (804) and over 600 Sunchocola tomatoes in July (603)!
Today's harvest includes 39 Orange Paruche, 15 Matt's Wild Cherry, 15 Sunchocola, 9 SunGold, 3 Earl of Edgecombe, 3 Speckled Roman(2), 3 Black Cherry, 3 Husky Cherry Red(1), 3 Husky Cherry Red(2), 2 Indigo Apple, 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Adriana's Grande, 2 Indigo Rose, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Nyagous, 2 Persimmon (not Persimmon), 2 Sugar Snack, Yellow Perfection, Earliana, Berkeley Tie Dye, Blue Beauty (11.5 ounces), Volunteer(4), Snow White, Evan's Purple Pear, Garden Peach(2) and Garden Peach(3) for a total of 118 tomatoes.
Well, today's harvest is nearly half of the harvest of two days ago. The tide is going out...
I tried to beat the Monday back yard sprinklers by harvesting the back yard first...but couldn't do it. I got wet.
Blue Beauty continues to impress.
A Japanese Black Trifele is near maturity.
We've now harvested over 1000 delicious Orange Paruche tomatoes (1031) and over 300 SunGold tomatoes (303) this year!
Sunday's harvest includes 33 Sunchocola, 33 Orange Paruche, 19 Matt's Wild Cherry, 16 SunGold, 8 Garden Peach(1), 7 Yellow Perfection, 6 Evan's Purple Pear, 6 Sugar Snack, 5 Earliana, 4 Bloody Butcher, 4 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 4 Blue Beauty (10.5 ounces, 8 ounces, 8 ounces, 7.5 ounces), 4 Indigo Rose, 4 Husky Cherry Red(2), 3 Adriana's Grande (6 ounces), 3 Snow White, 3 Garden Peach(2), 2 Speckled Roman(2), 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Nyagous, 2 Stupice, 2 Husky Cherry Red(1), Indigo Apple, Bread and Salt, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) (7 ounces), Green Grape and Garden Peach(3) for a total of 177 tomatoes.
The party was quite a success. I've been told that everyone had a good time though the participation was lighter than in years past. The weather was fabulous. It's almost guaranteed to be the coolest party in July, temperature-wise. I think it got up to 83 degrees. One of the parties had highs of 104 degrees. Let's say most of that party was indoors. That year we had window air conditioners which couldn't keep everything temperate (now we have an HVAC installed).
The dishes we put out were loved by just about everyone. A green chili salsa was brought by my mother in law and a caprese salad showed up, both simply great. A cheesecake showed up, people brought wine and whatnot. We're immensely grateful. My wife and cousin are deserving of all the accolades. I just stand around and look pretty.
The Blue Beauty tomatoes are just that, absolutely beautiful tomatoes. They are the highlight of today's harvest.
We've now harvested over 2500 tomatoes in July (2668), over 1500 front yard tomatoes in July (1579) and over 700 Sunchocola tomatoes this year!
