Those Were The Days...

I opened up the 2007 tomato spreadsheet recently. 2007 was a much better year for tomatoes for me than this year.

Here's what I harvested on Monday, July 9 2007. This date was not the largest harvest date for the month.

The haul included: 92 SunGolds, 47 Garden Peaches, 40 Husky Cherry Reds, 36 Snow Whites, 23 Red Pear Italians, 19 Health Kicks, 17 Black Cherries, 12 Red Currants, 10 Jaune Flammes, 9 Speckled Romans, 7 Green Grapes, 7 Kellogg's Breakfasts (12 ounces, 8 ounces, 13.5 ounces, 12 ounces, 9.5 ounces), 5 Mr. Stripeys (19 ounces, 21 ounces, 10 ounces, 11.5 ounces, 10 ounces), 5 Patios, 5 Mortgage Lifters (13 ounces, 14 ounces, 8.5 ounces, 12 ounces), 4 Green Zebras, 4 Noire Charbonneuse, 4 Jeff Davis (16 ounces, 12 ounces, 19.5 ounces, 23 ounces), 4 Gargantuas (7.5 ounces, 7 ounces, 8 ounces, 14 ounces), 3 Cherokee Purples (8.5 ounces, 6 ounces), 3 Garden Peaches (container) and 3 Black Krims (9.5 ounces, 8 ounces, 13 ounces). 359 tomatoes!

By comparison, the largest harvest total in 2008 was 164. The blog entry for this date can be found here.

My brother was married the day before. Those were the days!

KCRW -- Evan Kleiman Interview

Here's an interview I did with Evan Kleiman on KCRW last year.

Evan Kleiman Interview

This interview occurred nine days after our marriage ceremony. The tomato pictures on the page are from our 2007 harvest.

Jeff Davis, July 2007 Harvest

In another blog post, I noted that I estimated that last year's Jeff Davis tomato plant had about 70 pounds of tomatoes on it. I'll do an analysis of the results and see if I can verify it.

I had purchased a postal scale to get the weight of the tomato. I round it to the nearest half ounce. If it's 6 ounces or above, I record the weight.

Here's the results for Jeff Davis in July 2007...

July 3 -- Picked 1 tomato, 21.0 ounces.
July 5 -- Picked 2 tomatoes, 10 ounces and 11 ounces.
July 6 -- Picked 7 tomatoes, 11 ounces, 14 ounces, 20.5 ounces, 17 ounces, 15.5 ounces, 15 ounces, 13 ounces
July 7 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 20.5 ounces, 11 ounces, 10 ounces.
July 8 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 10 ounces, 14 ounces, 12 ounces
July 9 -- Picked 4 tomatoes, 16 ounces, 12 ounces, 19.5 ounces, 23 ounces
July 10 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 11 ounces, 20.5 ounces, 13 ounces
July 11 -- Picked 4 tomatoes, 14 ounces, 8.5 ounces, 24 ounces, 16 ounces.
July 13 -- Picked 6 tomatoes, 11 ounces, 16.5 ounces, 15 ounces, 12.5 ounces, 22 ounces, 23.5 ounces
July 14 -- Picked 8 tomatoes, 24 ounces, 13 ounces, 7.5 ounces, 9 ounces, 25 ounces, 11.5 ounces, 13 ounces, 16.5 ounces
July 15 -- Picked 6 tomatoes, 12 ounces, 10.5 ounces, 15.5 ounces, 9 ounces, 12 ounces, 15.5 ounces
July 16 -- Picked 5 tomatoes, 8.5 ounces, 7 ounces, 8 ounces, 14.5 ounces, 11 ounces
July 17 -- Picked 1 tomato, 11 ounces.
July 18 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 13 ounces, 8 ounces, 7.5 ounces
July 19 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 9 ounces, 10 ounces, 11 ounces
July 20 -- Picked 5 tomatoes, 20.5 ounces, 10 ounces, 10 ounces, 8 ounces, 7.5 ounces
July 21 -- Picked 2 tomatoes, one was 10.5 ounces.
July 22 -- Picked 1 tomato, 6 ounces.
July 23 -- Picked 1 tomato, 20.5 ounces.
July 25 -- Picked 1 tomato, 11 ounces.
July 27 -- Picked 1 tomato, 10 ounces.
July 30 -- Picked 1 tomato.

There were only two harvested Jeff Davis tomatoes that were less than six ounces in July.

I only did the math once, but tallying all this up comes to 58 pounds of tomatoes. Clearly some of the tomatoes grew as the month progressed, but it wouldn't be unreasonable at all to say that on July 1, Jeff Davis had 50 pounds of tomatoes growing on the vines.

2007 Tomato Totals By Tomato

SunGold -- 1791 tomatoes.
Snow White -- 1771 tomatoes.
Red Pear Italian -- 1218 tomatoes.
Garden Peach -- 1197 tomatoes.
Husky Cherry Red -- 1116 tomatoes.
Black Cherry -- 535 tomatoes.
Jaune Flamme -- 479 tomatoes.
Red Currant (in a container) -- 388 tomatoes.
Green Zebra -- 247 tomatoes.
Health Kick -- 234 tomatoes.
Red Lightning -- 207 tomatoes.
Green Grape (in a container) -- 203 tomatoes.
Mr. Stripey -- 160 tomatoes.
Speckled Roman (front yard) -- 156 tomatoes.
Noire Charbonneuse -- 137 tomatoes.
Kellogg's Breakfast -- 121 tomatoes.
Snow White (in a container) -- 109 tomatoes.
Heart of the Bull -- 109 tomatoes.
Roughwood Golden Tiger -- 107 tomatoes.
Box Car Willie -- 101 tomatoes.
Jeff Davis -- 74 tomatoes.
Omar's Lebanese -- 64 tomatoes.
Purple Calabash -- 62 tomatoes.
Patio (in a container) -- 56 tomatoes.
Mortgage Lifter -- 56 tomatoes.
Speckled Roman (back yard) -- 53 tomatoes.
Cherokee Purple -- 52 tomatoes.
Black Krim -- 52 tomatoes.
Taxi (in a container) -- 47 tomatoes.
Bush Big Boy -- 36 tomatoes.
Gargantua -- 31 tomatoes.
Homestead -- 15 tomatoes.
Mr. Brown -- 6 tomatoes.
Pink Ping Pong -- 0 tomatoes.

2007 Tomato Totals By Month

May 2007 -- 98 tomatoes.
June 2007 -- 1259 tomatoes.
July 2007 -- 6154 tomatoes.
August 2007 -- 2806 tomatoes.
September 2007 -- 647 tomatoes.
October 2007 -- 26 tomatoes.

Total: 10,990 tomatoes.

We stopped counting when we went on our three week honeymoon in October.

As mentioned earlier, Husky Cherry Red continued producing until January, putting us somewhere over 11,000 picked tomatoes for the year.

2007 Tomato -- Homestead

Given to us late, it produced about 15 tomatoes, if memory serves. I remember having to jump on my shovel four times just to break the ground. It got watered on every day.

Well, the plant did the best it could under the circumstances...

2007 Tomato -- Pink Ping Pong

Good looking plant that got to about 4, 4 ½ feet tall...and produced no tomatoes.

2007 Tomato -- Mr. Brown

Bought and planted late. Planted in a poor area. The sprinklers hit it with water every morning.

Still, we got a few, reasonably good tomatoes out of this plant. I'd try it again under better conditions.

2007 Tomato -- Heart Of The Bull

Good tasting tomato that fooled me.

Everything I read indicated that this was a red tomato. Ours came out orange, similar to Kellogg's Breakfast. Taste was similar, too, though smoother and not as bright. I wonder if this was another mislabel...

2007 Tomato -- Box Car Willie

An okay to good tomato. Not too memorable, but memorable enough that I'd like to try this one again and give it better preparation.

2007 Tomato -- Roughwood Golden Tiger

Kind of an odd tomato. The tomato was very similar in size and striping to Red Lightning. Not good, not bad, just not very memorable taste.

Buster, our Manchester Terrier, liked to pick this one off the vine before it was ripe and eat it, play with it, or whatever.

2007 Tomato -- Speckled Roman

This plant did a little better underneath the lemon tree than the front yard plant. The shade delayed the ripening, but in this case I think it's a good thing. Similar pastel-like colorings as the front yard tomato, but not nearly as vibrant as the ones we grew in 2006.

2007 Tomato -- Taxi (in a container)

Determinate medium-sized tomato that turns bright yellow (thus the name) when ripe. I call it “fire engine” yellow because when it's ripe it looks like it's polished. When it ripens the color seems to change by the hour.

Delicious lemony tomato, but you have to eat them right away as they don't last long. That's okay, eating three or four of these tomatoes in one sitting is no problem.

2007 Tomato -- Green Grape (in a container)

I don't have much memory of this one. I do remember that there were a couple days I really liked it, but that's all. We are growing this one in the ground this year.

2007 Tomato -- Patio (in a container)

A tomato that seemed to duplicate what we got from Husky Cherry Red. At one time, we decided not to get this for this year, but we did and we've even put it in the same pot. Go figure.

2007 Tomato -- Red Currant (in a container)

This was a rather fun tomato. The tomatoes are real small, roughly pea sized, about 3/8 inches in diameter. The taste kind of reminds me of the candy SweeTarts – a tomato taste with a bite at the end. Great for salads.

This plant produced well in the early summer, then had a second wind and had hundreds of tomatoes that hung on for months and didn't turn red. I think the plant got too warm in the container and couldn't quite get over the hump with the second batch. This year we've planted it in the ground and it's already taken off.

2007 Tomato -- Snow White (in a container)

We thought we planted Snow White, but the tomatoes sure looked and tasted like Garden Peach. Garden Peach needs more room than what this container provided. For that matter, this would have been true for Snow White as well...

2007 Tomato -- Red Lightning

This was a rather nice looking tomato but the taste was only so-so for us. This plant may have been hurt by the late start growing from seed.

The tomatoes are about 1 ¼ inches in diameter, round, with red and yellow streaking.

2007 Tomato -- Bush Big Boy

A good, but not memorable, tomato. What was remarkable about this tomato was it produced 8 to 12 ounce tomatoes on a Husky Cherry Red sized tomato plant. This plant, though is determinate so once it's done, it's done.

2007 Tomato -- Black Krim

Another winner.

This (and the next two) plants were grown from seed from a friend of ours and later transplanted in our garden. I think this is my wife's second favorite tomato of last year, just behind Show White Cherry. It has a great, smooth, smoky tomato taste. It looks like we'll grow two of them this year.