Harvested Over 625 SunGold Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 8 SunGold, 6 German Orange Strawberry, 4 Sugar Snack, 2 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), Bread and Salt (8 ounces), Blue Beauty, Speckled Roman(2), Black Icicle, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon) and Dr. Wyche's Yellow for a total of 30 tomatoes.

Today's Bread and Salt was the star of the show while the rest was rather ordinary.

I got started a little early today and may have missed some Sunchocola tomatoes to harvest. I was going to pull out Speckled Roman(1) but the trash pickup came too soon. So I left it in the ground.

This morning's air had a crisp fall feel to it. It was refreshing!

We've now harvested over 625 SunGold tomatoes this year (631)! SunGold is about to pass Matt's Wild Cherry in total harvest for the year. This should happen later this week. 

Rain!

No harvest Saturday.

Sunday's harvest includes 11 German Orange Strawberry, 6 Evan's Purple Pear, 3 SunGold, 3 Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), 3 Husky Cherry Red(1), 3 Husky Cherry Red(2), 3 Sugar Snack, 2 Speckled Roman(1), 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Aunt Ruby's German Green, Pineapple, Speckled Roman(2), Black Icicle, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Solar Flare, Black Cherry and Beauty King for a total of 45 tomatoes.

After the harvest I pulled out 4 back yard tomatoes -- Solar Flare, Beauty King, Neves Azorean Red and Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon). Later on in the day I determined that Speckled Roman(1) can go but it hasn't been pulled yet.

No harvest today. But there's an explanation...

My alarm went off at 6:15AM. I got up and heard a noise I was unfamiliar with. Can that be rain?!?! So I looked out the front door...and it was pouring rain! After 10 minutes the rain had basically stopped but it was too wet to harvest. In taking a look at the nearby Pierce College Weather web site, they got .06 inches of rain between 6:10 AM and 6:20 AM. Not much, of course but for a 10 minute span that's not bad. And in Southern California, we'll take anything. And our Monday sprinklers went off at 6:22 while the rain was still occurring.

Anyway, this "storm" only dropped .07 of an inch so far, but WE WILL TAKE IT, THANK YOU!

To give you an idea how surprised we were about this rain, we had a couple pieces of clothing on a clothesline outside drying overnight... 

Harvested Over 225 Husky Cherry Red(1) Tomatoes This Year

No harvest Thursday.

Today's harvest includes 9 German Orange Strawberry, 5 SunGold, 4 Pineapple, 4 Black Cherry, 4 Husky Cherry Red(1), 3 Blue Beauty, 3 Solar Flare, 2 Bread and Salt (8.5 ounces, 6 ounces), 2 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), 2 Beauty King, 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), Indian Stripe, Sunchocola, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Icicle, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Sugar Snack and Michael Pollan for a total of 50 tomatoes.

I don't know if I've ever harvested as many as 9 German Orange Strawberry tomatoes before. That's quite a haul for an oxheart tomato. However, all of them were somewhat undersized. The Indian Stripe tomato was quite nice as well as both Bread and Salt tomatoes.

We hit several milestones today. We've now harvested over 225 Husky Cherry Red(1) tomatoes this year (228)! Also, we've harvested over 150 Black Cherry tomatoes this year (151), over 50 German Orange Strawberry tomatoes this year (55) and over 50 Blue Beauty tomatoes this year (52). 

Harvested Over 6500 Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 3 Sunchocola, 3 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Porkchop(1), 2 Blue Beauty, 2 SunGold, 2 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Beauty King, Indian Stripe, Earl of Edgecombe, Bread and Salt, Pineapple, Speckled Roman(2), Black Icicle, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Solar Flare, Husky Cherry Red(1), Sugar Snack and Michael Pollan for a total of 27 tomatoes.

After this morning's harvest I pulled out Earl of Edgecombe. My wife wanted it out so she could plant sweet peas. I was waiting for one more tomato. The tomato was maturing but I picked it a day or two early -- today was trash pickup day (delayed a day due to Labor Day). So I harvested and pulled out the plant.

We haven't had a double figure harvest in the front yard in several weeks. Today we harvested 11 in the front yard. I didn't harvest on August 25 so I'm not counting the August 26 front yard total of 13...we have to go back to August 20 to find the last double figure front yard harvest of 11.

The Indian Stripe tomato was nice and the Bread and Salt tomato was all right. The rest was unremarkable.

It looks like I missed a milestone that occurred a few days ago. We've now harvested over 6500 tomatoes this year (6566)! It looks like we crossed the 6500 threshold on Monday and I missed it. If Sunchocola gets a second wind we should get past 7000 harvested tomatoes. Then again I may just get tired of it and pull 'em out before the 7000 mark. But for the forseeable future, we continue on... 

Harvested 175 Evan's Purple Pear Tomatoes This Year

Monday's harvest includes 9 SunGold, 5 Evan's Purple Pear, 3 Black Cherry, 3 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Sunchocola, 2 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), 2 Pineapple, 2 Black Icicle, 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), Porkchop(1), Blue Beauty, Neves Azorean Red, Solar Flare and Sugar Snack for a total of 37 tomatoes.

I pulled out five tomato plants. These were Momotaro, Blue Gold, Volunteer(4), Porkchop(2) and "Green Zebra" (not Green Zebra). All were back yard tomato plants. I was tempted to pull out more but decided at the last minute not to do so. Black Cherry, you're on borrowed time...

I did water the remaining back yard tomatoes in the ground one more time.

We did hit one milestone. We've now harvested exactly 175 Evan's Purple Pear tomatoes.

Today's harvest includes 4 SunGold, 2 Speckled Roman(1), 2 Porkchop(1), 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Matt's Wild Cherry, 2 Black Cherry, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Pineapple, Black Icicle, Evan's Purple Pear, Beauty King, Husky Cherry Red(2) and Sugar Snack for a total of 21 tomatoes.

Again, the Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) tomato was nice while the rest was unremarkable.

The only thing notable for today was that I've been miscounting Beauty King as Solar Flare. Oh well. I won't go back and fix it. 

Harvested Over 100 Husky Cherry Red(1) Tomatoes in August

Today's harvest includes 6 Husky Cherry Red(1), 5 Evan's Purple Pear, 5 Black Cherry, 5 Husky Cherry Red(2), 4 Pineapple, 4 SunGold, 4 Sugar Snack, 2 Sunchocola, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Aunt Ruby's German Green, Speckled Roman(1), Porkchop(1), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Blue Beauty, Black Icicle, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Solar Flare and Michael Pollan for a total of 47 tomatoes.

The Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) tomato was nice and the Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes were nice to see. The rest was unremarkable.

We'll stretch with the milestones...here goes: We've now harvested over 100 Husky Cherry Red(1) tomatoes in August (104). We're approaching 6500 harvested tomatoes this year and 1500 harvested tomatoes in the back yard in August. SunGold approaches 600 harvested tomatoes...but we're not there yet. 

Happy Birthday!

No harvest Monday.

Today's harvest includes 19 Husky Cherry Red(2), 12 SunGold, 10 Black Cherry, 8 Sunchocola, 8 Sugar Snack, 7 Husky Cherry Red(1), 3 Blue Beauty, 3 Pineapple, 3 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Porkchop(1), Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, German Orange Strawberry, Bread and Salt (6 ounces), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Icicle and Porkchop(2) for a total of 82 tomatoes.

The Bread and Salt was nice and felt heavier than the reported six ounces. The Porkchop tomatoes were small but nice to see. And the mass of Husky Cherry Red tomatoes are always welcome.

No tomato milestones today though we should hit one or two tomorrow.

But I do want to wish a Happy Birthday to my wonderful wife! It was her birthday yesterday. And I'm very lucky to have married her. I love you! 

Harvested Over 550 SunGold Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 10 SunGold, 6 Sunchocola, 6 Husky Cherry Red(1), 6 Husky Cherry Red(2), 5 Sugar Snack, 3 Porkchop(2), 2 Pineapple, 2 Speckled Roman(2), Speckled Roman(1), Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Blue Gold, Blue Beauty, Volunteer(4), Black Icicle, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Solar Flare, Black Cherry, Green Grape and Michael Pollan for a total of 51 tomatoes.

Last night I had a turkey sandwich with sliced Blue Gold tomato. From what I could tell, Blue Gold is a good tomato.

Today's Blue Beauty was a fairly nice tomato, so was Blue Gold. The rest was fairly routine. Notable was the lack of any harvested Matt's Wild Cherry.

We've now harvested over 550 SunGold tomatoes this year (554)! 

Harvested Over 6000 Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 9 SunGold, 8 Sunchocola, 7 Sugar Snack, 5 Husky Cherry Red(2), 3 Matt's Wild Cherry, 3 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 Black Cherry, 2 Green Grape, Bread and Salt (6 ounces), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) (6 ounces), Volunteer(4), Black Icicle and Michael Pollan for a total of 44 tomatoes.

The Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) and Bread and Salt tomatoes were nice, the rest was pretty much unremarkable.

We've now harvested over 6000 tomatoes this year (6041)! We've had a great tomato tasting year but the numbers aren't going to be as good as the taste. There's a good chance that we do not make it to 7000...but we'll see. We've also harvested over 1500 tomatoes in August (1502). 

Harvested 150 Husky Cherry Red(1) Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 6 Matt's Wild Cherry, 5 SunGold, 5 Husky Cherry Red(2), 3 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 3 Sunchocola, 3 Indigo Rose, 2 Indian Stripe, 2 Volunteer(4), 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Porkchop(1), 2 Garden Peach(1), Speckled Roman(1), Orange Paruche, Bread and Salt, Speckled Roman(2), Black Icicle, Solar Flare, Purple Bumble Bee, Husky Cherry Red(1), Sugar Snack and Michael Pollan for a total of 47 tomatoes.

After I harvested the front yard I pulled out Adriana's Grande and Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(2). Yellow Perfection and Orange Paruche aren't that far behind. I don't want to pull out Orange Paruche, but it is showing no sign of a second wind whatsoever. At this pace Orange Paruche may be gone by the end of the week.

Outside of the Indian Stripe tomatoes, there wasn't much to today's harvest. The two Indian Stripe tomatoes looked pretty good.

We've now harvested exactly 150 Husky Cherry Red(1) tomatoes this year! 

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)! 

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. 

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)! 

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. 

Harvested Black Icicle!

Today's harvest includes 48 Orange Paruche, 36 Sunchocola, 20 SunGold, 16 Matt's Wild Cherry, 8 Garden Peach(2), 7 Husky Cherry Red(1), 6 Black Cherry, 6 Sugar Snack, 4 Earliana, 4 Nyagous, 4 Garden Peach(3), 3 Jaune Flamme, 2 Black Icicle (new), 2 Bloody Butcher, 2 Indigo Apple, 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Adriana's Grande (6 ounces, 7.5 ounces), 2 Pineapple (7 ounces, 6 ounces), 2 Speckled Roman(2), 2 Indigo Rose, Berkeley Tie Dye, German Orange Strawberry, Ananas Noire (10.5 ounces), Snow White, Evan's Purple Pear, Green Grape and Michael Pollan for a total of 185 tomatoes.

We have a couple of nice Black Icicle tomatoes today. These were a surprise. Not that I didn't have mature Black Icicle tomatoes, it's just that these tomatoes didn't have blossom end rot. I've probably thrown away 20 of these tomatoes before getting these two flawless tomatoes.

Today's harvest is our highest this year so far. The front yard amount (98) ties the July 3 front yard harvest amount, while the back yard amount (87) is the largest amount so far this year. 10 days ago we harvested 21 from the back yard, today 87. That's where the higher numbers are coming from.

I watered the back yard tomato plants in the ground. My wife indicated that she gets to the ones in the raised bed and in the container plants. I added fertilizer to them last night and they'll be watered in some time in the future.

Ananas Noire and Adriana's Grande continue to impress.

A Blue Beauty is maturing. And true to the name, it's a beauty. I may supply an image once I harvest it.

We've now harvested over 2500 tomatoes for the year (2542), over 800 Orange Paruche tomatoes for the year (820), over 500 Sunchocola tomatoes for the year (535) and over 100 Sugar Snack tomatoes for the year (102)! 

A Sunchocola Tomato Is Maturing

Friday's harvest: 2 Stupice.

Before my wife watered the back yard tomatoes, I added tomato fertilizer to all of them. We also remade about a dozen "moats". That was the hard work and my wife did most of it. Some of the "moats" we had remade just two or three weeks ago.

I noticed that Black Icicle had growing tomatoes.

Today's harvest: Stupice.

I did some more training of the front and back yard tomatoes. I noticed that Pineapple has a growing tomato.

Also, a Sunchocola tomato is turning brown and will be our next harvestable tomato. It looks like we're going to get an awesome production from this plant.  

Catching Up On Some Back Yard Plantings(1)...

So let's catch up on some of the back yard plantings...

On Tuesday my wife replaced the back yard Berkeley Tie Dye (from seed) with Odoriko, replaced Evan's Purple Pear (grown from seed) with Cherokee Purple and replaced the now non-existent Pineapple Pig(2) with Red Pear Piriform.

On Wednesday I dug the holes and my wife planted Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Black Icicle, Paul Robeson, Nyagous and Evan's Purple Pear. I pulled out about a gallon and half of rocks and asphalt.

The dirt for the back yard and "koi pond" tomatoes looks great. After I dig out the dirt I've been adding some kelp meal, a handful of worm castings and a handful of tomato fertilizer, then mix it all together. This is on top of all the compost we added a few months back.