Saturday, August 9, 2014

Harvested Over 200 Sugar Snack Tomatoes This Year!

Saturday's harvest includes 9 Matt's Wild Cherry, 8 Orange Paruche, 6 Black Cherry, 5 Indigo Rose, 5 SunGold, 5 Evan's Purple Pear, 5 Garden Peach(1), 5 Sugar Snack, 3 Snow White, 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Porkchop(1) (8 ounces), 2 Blue Gold, 2 Speckled Roman(2), 2 Black Icicle, 2 Nyagous, 2 Green Grape, Bloody Butcher, Indigo Apple, Sunchocola, Bread and Salt, Volunteer(4), Aunt Ruby's German Green (6 ounces), Solar Flare, Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), Stupice, Husky Cherry Red(1) and "Green Zebra" (not Green Zebra) for a total of 76 tomatoes.

After the harvest I pulled out Stupice, Black Krim and Paul Robeson. Black Krim still had some ripening tomatoes but they were quite "wobbly" -- the maturation of the Black Krim tomatoes was not uniform. These tomatoes were blotchy and stripey and nothing like normal Black Krim tomatoes. So I pulled it out.

I was waiting for the gardeners to come. I was going to have them pull Adriana's Grande, but the gardeners never showed.

After pulling out the three back yard tomatoes, I double watered the back yard tomatoes in the ground. They really needed watering.

We've now harvested over 200 Sugar Snack tomatoes this year (202)!
 

Friday, August 8, 2014

A Little Butter in the Tomato Sauce Rocks!!

Today's harvest includes 17 Matt's Wild Cherry, 8 Orange Paruche, 8 SunGold, 8 Sugar Snack, 7 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 7 Sunchocola, 5 Jaune Flamme, 5 Black Cherry, 4 Indigo Rose, 4 Stupice, 4 Husky Cherry Red(2), 3 Yellow Perfection, 3 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Blue Gold, 2 Nyagous, 2 Purple Bumble Bee, 2 Garden Peach(1), Bloody Butcher, Indigo Apple, Adriana's Grande, Earl of Edgecombe, German Orange Strawberry, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Green Grape and Michael Pollan for a total of 99 tomatoes.

Today's harvest was nice, but nothing really outstanding. I needed to make up some time at work so I didn't pull any plants.

However, last night's pasta sauce was worth crowing about. My wife tried making sauce in a slightly different fashion. She didn't peel the tomatoes before boiling. Instead, she took out the skins as they separated during the boiling process. I don't think that made much of a difference with the final product, it was just faster to do it that way. More importantly, she added a little butter (and probably other things as well). That gave the sause a fuller texture...and it was wonderful.

We've now harvested over 550 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes (554), exactly 125 Evan's Purple Pear tomatoes and exactly 50 Green Grape tomatoes.
 

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Pink Berkeley Tie Dye and Great White are Winners!

Today's harvest includes 15 Matt's Wild Cherry, 9 Sunchocola, 8 SunGold, 8 Sugar Snack, 6 Evan's Purple Pear, 5 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 5 Orange Paruche, 5 Stupice, 5 Husky Cherry Red(2), 4 Bloody Butcher, 4 Bread and Salt (7 ounces, 6.5 ounces), 3 Indigo Rose, 3 Neves Azorean Red (13 ounces, 6 ounces), 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Aunt Ruby's German Green (6 ounces), 2 Garden Peach(1), Speckled Roman(1), Indigo Apple, Porkchop(1) (6 ounces), Yellow Perfection, Adriana's Grande, Blue Gold, Pineapple, Speckled Roman(2), Jaune Flamme, Black Icicle, Solar Flare and "Green Zebra" (not Green Zebra) for a total of 98 tomatoes.

Today's harvest star is Neves Azorean Red. My wife instantly noticed the large Neves Azorean Red on the counter this morning, even though we still have parts of prior harvests on the counter as well.

Last night my wife made a two panini sandwiches. Inside one of them was Pink Berkeley Tie Dye and the other had Great White. Both were warm. The Pink Berkeley Tie Dye was delicious and almost refreshing, though it had the high acid kick at the end. Great White was quite good, too. But I think Great White makes a good "support" tomato, such as in a warm panini sandwich. If Great White were eaten standalone, it might be a little dull while Pink Berkeley Tie Dye can certainly be eaten solo and have it be memorable.

There are several plants to be pulled. Adriana's Grande is ready to go after an excellent July. I don't like the output of the current Black Krim tomatoes and Stupice is ready to go.

I beat the Thursday sprinklers this morning (Woo-hoo)! However, I tend to harvest quicker than normal. I've noticed that I tend to skip Black Cherry on sprinkler days, for what that's worth...

No milestones today.
 

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Harvested Over 900 Sunchocola Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 10 Matt's Wild Cherry, 10 Husky Cherry Red(2), 8 Orange Paruche, 8 SunGold, 7 Volunteer(4), 7 Black Cherry, 5 Bread and Salt (6.5 ounces, 6.5 ounces, 7.5 ounces), 4 Sunchocola, 4 Indigo Rose, 4 Stupice, 4 Sugar Snack, 4 Michael Pollan, 3 Bloody Butcher, 3 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 3 Pineapple, 3 Green Grape, 2 German Orange Strawberry (6 ounces), 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Nyagous, 2 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Husky Cherry Red(1), Porkchop(1), Yellow Perfection, Adriana's Grande, Speckled Roman(2), Black Icicle, Cherokee Purple and "Green Zebra" (not Green Zebra) for a total of 104 tomatoes.

In what alternate universe does Bread and Salt have a higher harvest total than Sunchocola? Bread and Salt keeps cranking them out -- it's making a believer out of me.

I was less aggressive with today's harvest. I didn't have the right clothes and shoes for the job and didn't "dig in" like I normally do. Because of the wrong garb I didn't pull out any tomato plants. Still, the numbers look all right.

I know I need to report on how Purple Bumble Bee tastes. But all of the Purple Bumble Bee tomatoes have been given away to others.

We've now harvested over 500 back yard tomatoes this month (503). What's a little more interesting is that the back yard harvest number is now essentially even with the front yard harvest numbers (2604 back yard, 2608 front yard). When I was harvesting nearly around 100 combined Sunchocola and Orange Paruche tomatoes a month ago there was no way to anticipate the back yard catching up. But the back yard will pass up the front yard tomorrow.

We've now harvested over 900 Sunchocola tomatoes (902) this year, over 450 SunGold tomatoes this year (456) and over 150 Husky Cherry Red tomatoes this year (157)!
 

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Harvested Over 5000 Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 27 Matt's Wild Cherry, 21 Sunchocola, 19 Husky Cherry Red(2), 10 Orange Paruche, 10 Husky Cherry Red(1), 7 Evan's Purple Pear, 6 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 6 Indigo Rose, 6 SunGold, 5 Bloody Butcher, 5 Black Cherry, 5 Garden Peach(2), 5 Green Grape, 4 Bread and Salt (6 ounces, 9 ounces, 8.5 ounces, 10 ounces), 4 Volunteer(4), 4 Snow White, 4 Sugar Snack, 4 Michael Pollan, 3 German Orange Strawberry (7 ounces), 3 Black Krim, 3 Nyagous, 3 Garden Peach(1), 2 Earl of Edgecombe, 2 Great White (7.5 ounces), 2 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), 2 Jaune Flamme, Porkchop(1), Yellow Perfection, Hungarian Heart (14 ounces), Blue Gold, Blue Beauty (8 ounces), Pineapple, Ananas Noire (6 ounces), Speckled Roman(2), Neves Azorean Red (12 ounces), Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Solar Flare, Stupice, Porkchop(2), Cherokee Purple and "Green Zebra" (not Green Zebra) for a total of 187 tomatoes.

Today's harvest numbers were goosed by the fact that there was no harvest yesterday.

The harvested Neves Azorean Red and Hungarian Heart tomatoes were beauties. And I continue to be impressed with the size and production of Bread and Salt.

After the harvest I pulled out Garden Peach(2). There were no more tomatoes to be harvested and the plant could have doubled for tumbleweed. There are a couple more to be pulled but we'll see if I find the time to pull them...

We've now harvested over 5000 tomatoes this year (5108)! Also, we've harvested over 2500 back yard tomatoes this year (2528), over 1200 Orange Paruche tomatoes this year (1207), over 500 tomatoes in August (569) and over 500 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes this year (512)!
 

Monday, August 4, 2014

Harvested Over 2500 Front Yard Tomatoes This Year!

Sunday's harvest includes 16 Matt's Wild Cherry, 12 Sunchocola, 12 Husky Cherry Red(1), 8 Husky Cherry Red(2), 7 Volunteer(4), 7 Evan's Purple Pear, 6 Orange Paruche, 6 SunGold, 5 Pineapple, 5 Michael Pollan, 4 Bread and Salt (9 ounces, 6 ounces), 4 Speckled Roman(2), 4 Indigo Rose, 4 Black Cherry, 4 Green Grape, 3 Bloody Butcher, 3 Blue Beauty, 3 Jaune Flamme, 3 Garden Peach(2), 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), 2 Black Krim, 2 Nyagous, Speckled Roman(1), Blue Gold, Ananas Noire, Neves Azorean Red, Black Icicle, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Odoriko, Sugar Snack and Golden Rave for a total of 134 tomatoes.

I harvested in three sections on Sunday, as I commonly do. First, the front yard is harvested. This haul is brought in and a count is done. Second, the raised beds and the containers are harvested, brought in and counted. And third is the back yard tomatoes planted in the ground. When I brought in the third round, my wife had taken all the cherry tomatoes from the first two rounds and made a morning tomato salad for breakfast.

Before I brought in the third round I had added fertilizer to the container plants, the tomato plants in the raised bed area, Sunchocola and Orange Paruche. I pulled out the Odoriko tomato plant.

The tomato salad was excellent! We also had some of our "tomato chips", which are sliced tomatoes placed in the dehydrator and "cooked" for a couple of days. They were quite good as well.

Pierce College reported measurable rain last night, one hundredth of an inch. We had some trace amounts of rain a couple of times Sunday afternoon and evening. The muggy weather existed for another day.

No harvest done on Monday.

We've now harvested over 2500 tomatoes in the front yard this year (2526)! Also, we've harvested over 100 Indigo Rose toamtoes this year (101) and exactly 100 Garden Peach(2) tomatoes this year.