Purchased Two Husky Cherry Red Tomatoes!

Okay, let's get caught up on things, shall we?

I harvested a Tumbling Tom on June 1. I tried it and found it a bit mealy but otherwise acceptable.

Last Saturday we harvested an Isis Candy and an Indigo Rose. My wife tried the Indigo Rose and said it wasn't quite ready yet. I don't know what happened with the Isis Candy, but I know the dogs have been picking off some of the mature ones before I can harvest them.

We harvested a Tumbling Tom last Monday. My wife tried it and found it a bit mealy as well.

Over the Memorial Day weekend we purchased two Husky Cherry Red tomato plants! We were surprised to find them. We won't have Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red or Vorlon or SunGold or Orange Paruche but at least we'll have Husky Cherry Red!

I dug holes last weekend but my wife expected me to plant them and I expected her to plant them. One hole is in the "koi pond" and the other hole is where Kellogg's Breakfast was planted. Kellogg's Breakfast did nothing and was starting to wither away.

This year will not be a normal year. We planted late (and are still planting!) due to a number of factors. I have pruned the branches off the ground in the "koi pond" over the Memorial Day weekend, but by last week it needed to be done again. I haven't gotten to the back yard pruning at all.

Normally I'd be "training" the tomato plants every morning, but even that has been temporarily curtailed. If the weather is cool enough and I have the time, I'll do a little bit of tomato work at night. But a vast majority of the work is done over the weekend, weather permitting.

I haven't even started on the on-line spreadsheet this year. There's too much to do around the house.

And as it stands, I may not do daily blog updates when the harvest rolls in. I used to be able to handle this in the early morning, but no longer. If it happens, it will be at night when I have the time to get things posted.

I'm not complaining about it, it's just the way things are.

On the plus side, the growth of Hungarian Heart has been truly amazing. It's already approaching 5 feet tall. By comparison, I don't think any tomato plant in the "koi pond" has reached two feet in height.

Almost all of the plants look quite good but will mature in the middle of the summer heat. 

September 2014 Tomato Analysis

Let's take a look at the September numbers from top to bottom...

2011 -- 768 tomatoes
2010 -- 717 tomatoes
2012 -- 700 tomatoes
2007 -- 647 tomatoes
2014 -- 372 tomatoes
2008 -- 204 tomatoes
2013 -- 199 tomatoes
2009 -- 181 tomatoes

This year was fifth out of eight years. That has been fairly consistent throughout the year.

My original estimate of 550 tomatoes was far enough away to be a miss. The adjusted estimate of 400 was good.

German Orange Strawberry and Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red were pretty productive for the month of September. SunGold started fairly strong while Matt's Wild Cherry got a second wind toward the end of the month.

We're down to five plants now, four in the back yard and Sunchocola in the front yard. Sunchocola is getting a lot of blooms but we're due for a heat wave very soon.

However, I'm getting bored with the remaining plants. I'll keep 'em around for a bit but they may not make it to the end of October. We'll see. Because of that I won't make an estimate for October. 

Harvested 650 SunGold Tomatoes This Year!

Last Tuesday's harvest includes 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Matt's Wild Cherry, Porkchop(1), SunGold, Husky Cherry Red(1), Husky Cherry Red(2) and Sugar Snack for a total of 9 tomatoes.

Wednesday's harvest includes Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Matt's Wild Cherry and Husky Cherry Red(2) for a total of 3 tomatoes.

Thursday's harvest includes 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Porkchop(1) and Matt's Wild Cherry for a total of 4 tomatoes.

Friday's harvest includes 2 Matt's Wild Cherry, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Indian Stripe and Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 5 tomatoes.

Saturday's harvest includes 8 Matt's Wild Cherry and Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 9 tomatoes.

I pulled out Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Indian Stripe, Porkchop(1) and Sugar Snack. The gardeners threw them away. I gave the gardeners all of our remaining tomatoes.

We're down to five plants...

No harvest on Sunday.

Monday's harvest includes 4 SunGold and Matt's Wild Cherry for a total of 5 tomatoes.

Today's harvest includes 5 Matt's Wild Cherry, 4 Husky Cherry Red(2) and 3 SunGold for a total of 12 tomatoes.

We've now harvested exactly 650 SunGold tomatoes this year! SunGold still resides in fourth place on the harvest list but could make a comeback.

Some of the Sunchocolas are maturing but look "wobbly" at the moment. We'll see how that goes. Meanwhile, there's another big heat wave coming. That will wipe out the second wave Sunchocola tomato blooms that have been increasingly appearing... 

Harvested Over 650 Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes This Year!

So let's catch up on things...

No harvest on Tuesday. But Tuesday only got to 100.4 degrees (that's bad enough). The prior three days were over 107 degrees.

Wednesday's harvest includes 5 Michael Pollan, 2 Matt's Wild Cherry, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Porkchop(1), SunGold and Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 11 tomatoes.

Thursday's harvest includes 3 SunGold, 2 Matt's Wild Cherry, Sunchocola, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Husky Cherry Red(1) and Michael Pollan for a total of 9 tomatoes.

No harvest on Friday.

Saturday's harvest includes 6 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 5 Matt's Wild Cherry, 3 Michael Pollan, 2 SunGold, Sunchocola, Husky Cherry Red(2) and Sugar Snack for a total of 19 tomatoes.

Sunday's harvest includes 4 Matt's Wild Cherry, 3 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Michael Pollan and Indian Stripe for a total of 10 tomatoes.

I pulled out seven tomato plants on Sunday. These included Michael Pollan, Captain Lucky, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Pineapple and Speckled Roman(2).

There are nine remaining plants, four in the front yard and five in the back yard. The strongest remaining plant is Sunchocola.

We've now harvested over 650 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes (651)! Also, we harvested over 100 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red tomatoes this year (102).

The Matt's Wild Cherry totals in relation to SunGold have been interesting. Originally, SunGold was out in front but was passed by the hard charging Matt's Wild Cherry. Matt's Wild Cherry was comfortably in third place behind Orange Paruche and Sunchocola but well over 100 tomatoes in front of the fourth place challenger, SunGold.

Then SunGold got a second wind after Matt's Wild Cherry went into recovery mode. Day by day I'd harvest SunGolds while Matt's Wild Cherry lay idle. I'd harvest several SunGolds a day, nothing dramatic. But day after day the SunGold totals began creeping up to where it was approaching the third place total of Matt's Wild Cherry. At that point (a week or two ago) Matt's Wild Cherry appeared to wake up while SunGold was running out of juice. SunGold got to within one tomato of Matt's Wild Cherry (639 to 638) but could not cross into third place. I started harvesting Matt's Wild Cherry again while SunGold appears exhausted. Now Matt's Wild Cherry has a nine tomato lead, 651 to 642 for SunGold.

Today's harvest includes 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Matt's Wild Cherry, Husky Cherry Red(2) and Sugar Snack for a total of 4 tomatoes. 

Harvested 325 Sugar Snack Tomatoes This Year

Today's harvest includes 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 Sugar Snack, Pineapple, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Porkchop(1), Bread and Salt (6 ounces), Speckled Roman(2) and SunGold for a total of 15 tomatoes.

Bread and Salt and the German Orange Strawberry were good tomatoes, the rest was ordinary.

It got up to 99.9 degrees yesterday. A heat wave has arrived and records may be broken this weekend. On another note, the .08 inches of rain on September 8 broke the previous record of .07 inches of rain on September 8, 1982. Tell your friends!

We've now harvested exactly 325 Sugar Snack tomatoes this year! Not too bad for a container plant.

It looks like I won't be hitting any imminent milestones so I'll start to combine multiple harvest days in a single post. 

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 3500 Back Yard Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 8 Husky Cherry Red(1), 7 Black Cherry, 6 Sugar Snack, 5 Husky Cherry Red(2), 4 Pineapple, 3 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), 3 SunGold, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Evan's Purple Pear, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Porkchop(1), Sunchocola, Blue Beauty, Neves Azorean Red (8 ounces) and Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon) for a total of 46 tomatoes.

The Neves Azorean Red is nice but it needs to lose the uneven maturing over the next day or so. One of the Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) tomatoes was nice, most of the Husky Cherry Red tomatoes are nice and the rest was unremarkable.

We've now harvested over 3500 tomatoes in the back yard this year (3535)! The back yard tomatoes keep chugging along. Also, we've harvested over 300 Sugar Snack tomatoes this year (302)! 

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 1250 Orange Paruche Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 6 SunGold, 4 Sunchcola, 4 Matt's Wild Cherry, 4 Husky Cherry Red(1), 4 Michael Pollan, 3 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 3 Sugar Snack, 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Garden Peach(1), 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), Orange Paruche, Speckled Roman(2), Volunteer(4), Indigo Rose, Beauty King and Green Grape for a total of 40 tomatoes.

There really wasn't much of anything to today's harvest.

It looks like there may be a lot of tomato plants pulled tomorrow. I think I'll not only be pulling out the ones with no more tomatoes left, I'll also pull out the ones that have just a few left. Also on the target list are ones like Ananas Noire, Snow White, Jaune Flamme, Indigo Rose and Garden Peach(1) in the back yard. The plants for Hungarian Heart and Earl of Edgecombe are okay but I don't remember any fruit on them. If there are none I may pull them.

We've now harvested exactly 1250 Orange Paruche tomatoes this year! And that may be it for Orange Paruche... 

Harvested Over 3000 Back Yard Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 7 Sunchocola, 7 SunGold, 7 Husky Cherry Red(2), 6 Matt's Wild Cherry, 6 Michael Pollan, 5 Sugar Snack, 3 Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), 3 Garden Peach(1), 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Solar Flare, Bloody Butcher, Great White, Volunteer(4), Indigo Rose, Snow White, Evan's Purple Pear, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Porkchop(2) and Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 57 tomatoes.

Outside of Great White and perhaps Aunt Ruby's German Green, there wasn't much to today's harvest. Well, 6 Michael Pollan tomatoes was nice to see.

If the gardeners come on Saturday I'll have them be aggressive in pulling out the burned out tomato plants.

I just checked on my original harvest prediction for August -- 1650 tomatoes. We've harvested 1226 so far this month, but the harvest numbers are falling fast. It looks like this prediction will be accurate.

We've now harvested over 3000 back yard tomatoes this year (3020)! Also, we've harvested over 600 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes (604) and over 500 SunGold tomatoes (506) this year! 

Harvested 100 Garden Peach(1) Tomatoes This Year

Today's harvest includes 11 Sugar Snack, 9 SunGold, 7 Matt's Wild Cherry, 4 Orange Paruche, 3 Sunchocola, 3 Indigo Rose, 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), 2 Nyagous, 2 Black Cherry, Speckled Roman(1), Indian Stripe, Porkchop(1), Jaune Flamme, Evan's Purple Pear, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(2), Garden Peach(1), Green Grape, Husky Cherry Red(1), Husky Cherry Red(2) and Michael Pollan for a total of 56 tomatoes.

Not much to say about today's harvest. The two Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) tomatoes look pretty nice.

The front yard tomatoes are nearly burned out. As mentioned several times, Adriana's Grande is ready to be pulled. Yellow Perfection has one more tomato to go before it is ready to go. Orange Paruche looks like it will not recover and will be pulled in about a week. Bloody Butcher isn't long for this world. Look at the harvest totals for the last three days for the front yard -- 16/14/12. They are just burned out, simple as that.

In the back yard, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(2) can now be pulled.

We've now harvested 100 Garden Peach(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)! 

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. 

A Much Better Harvest

Today's harvest includes 19 Matt's Wild Cherry, 13 Sunchocola, 11 Indigo Rose, 11 SunGold, 10 Evan's Purple Pear, 9 Black Cherry, 9 Husky Cherry Red(2), 8 Orange Paruche, 5 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 5 Bread and Salt (7.5 ounces, 7.5 ounces, 7 ounces), 5 Husky Cherry Red(1), 4 Speckled Roman(2), 3 Pineapple (8.5 ounces), 2 Porkchop(1) (8 ounces, 7 ounces), 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), 2 Garden Peach(1), 2 Garden Peach(2), 2 Green Grape, 2 Sugar Snack, Bloody Butcher, Great White (9 ounces), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Volunteer(4), Garden Peach(3) and Michael Pollan for a total of 134 tomatoes.

Today's harvest was *much* better than yesterday's harvest. Not only did we have 7 tomatoes that were 6 ounces or more, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) was larger than anything harvested yesterday.

A lot of the smaller tomatoes over the past few days were given to our cleaning people.

After the morning's harvest I pulled out Garden Peach(3). My wife will be happy -- this plant was affecting her view of the back yard garden.

No tomato milestones today. 

Harvested Beauty King!

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! 

A Successful Party!

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! 

Harvested Over 3000 Tomatoes This Year!

Saturday's harvest includes 47 Orange Paruche, 42 Sunchocola, 26 Matt's Wild Cherry, 17 SunGold, 10 Garden Peach(2), 7 Garden Peach(1), 7 Husky Cherry Red(1), 7 Husky Cherry Red(2), 6 Jaune Flamme, 4 Bloody Butcher, 4 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 4 Yellow Perfection, 4 Speckled Roman(2), 4 Indigo Rose, 4 Garden Peach(3), 4 Sugar Snack, 3 German Orange Strawberry (9 ounces, 13 ounces), 3 Earliana, 3 Snow White, 3 Evan's Purple Pear, 3 Black Cherry, 2 Hungarian Heart (8 ounces, 6.5 ounces), 2 Adriana's Grande, Indigo Apple, Earl of Edgcombe, Berkeley Tie Dye, Pineapple, Odoriko and Golden Rave for a total of 222 tomatoes.

And again, today is the high harvest amounts for both the front and back yards (114 and 108 respectively) so this is the highest harvest amount for the year.

Today's German Orange Strawberry tomatoes look really nice (again).

My wife and her cousin spent most of Friday preparing for our tomato party this afternoon. I helped out a little bit last night. We hope the party goes well but one never knows until it happens... We've prepared cherry tomatoes stuffed with goat cheese, salsa from our tomatoes, pasta with sauce from our tomatoes, someone is bringing gazpacho and other items.

Berkeley Tie Dye and Earliana are ready to be pulled but I'm not sure when we'll get around to it...The harvested tomatoes we're getting from these plants are tiny and unpalatable.

We've now harvested over 3000 tomatoes this year (3146), over 1000 back yard tomatoes in July (1004) and over 200 Matt's Wild Cherry (224) this year! 

Harvested Blue Gold and Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(2)!

Today's harvest includes 51 Orange Paruche, 41 Sunchocola, 20 Matt's Wild Cherry, 18 SunGold, 15 Garden Peach(1), 12 Garden Peach(2), 7 Husky Cherry Red(2), 7 Sugar Snack, 4 Yellow Perfection, 4 Jaune Flamme, 4 Evan's Purple Pear, 3 Bloody Butcher, 3 Bread and Salt, 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Adriana's Grande (6 ounces), 2 Earliana, 2 Indigo Rose, 2 Snow White, 2 Nyagous, 2 Garden Peach(3), Blue Gold (new), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(2) (new), Hungarian Heart (15 ounces), Pineapple (7 ounces), Speckled Roman(2), Volunteer(4), Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), Green Grape, Black Cherry and Michael Pollan for a total of 214 tomatoes.

Today was our largest front yard harvest of the year (barely, yesterday was one tomato less) and our largest back yard harvest of the year...so today was our largest overall harvest this year.

The Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(2) looks nice, though small. Blue Gold wasn't a complete surprise. I had forgotten to mention a tomato was maturing a few days ago, then forgot about it. As I mentioned yesterday I was going to take a longer look harvesting the back yard, and the numbers show it (105 tomatoes).

I'm slightly bewildered where all these mature Garden Peach tomatoes came from. I did a pretty good job of going through the raised beds yesterday. It was the ones in the ground where I slacked off somewhat. Today, bam! 29 mature Garden Peach tomatoes among the three volunteers.

Today's Hungarian Heart is an absolute beauty, but I didn't get an image of it yet. Yesterday's Blue Beauty changed color! The burnt orange turned into a reddish color. That also indicates that I harvested it a day or two early. It's still a beautiful tomato as well.

We've now harvested over 900 Orange Paruche tomatoes (912) and over 600 Sunchocola tomatoes this year! We'll easily hit over 1000 harvested Orange Paruche tomatoes and there's a very good chance we'll get over 1000 Sunchocola tomatoes by the time the year is out. 

Harvested Speckled Roman(1)!

Today's harvest includes 47 Orange Paruche, 33 Sunchocola, 19 Matt's Wild Cherry, 17 SunGold, 11 Sugar Snack, 7 Garden Peach(2), 4 Husky Cherry Red(2), 3 Berkeley Tie Dye, 3 Indigo Rose, 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Adriana's Grande (11 ounces, 12.5 ounces), 2 Pineapple, 2 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Black Cherry, 2 Garden Peach(1), Speckled Roman(1) (new), Bloody Butcher, Earl of Edgecombe, German Orange Strawberry (6 ounces), Earliana, Bread and Salt (6 ounces), Hungarian Heart, Snow White, Persimmon(1), Husky Cherry Red(1) and Garden Peach(3) for a total of 167 tomatoes.

I figured it was time for Speckled Roman(1) to have a growing tomato so I knelt down next to it. As I knelt I saw a maturing tomato. When I touched the tomato it fell right off into my hands. Sightwise it didn't seem quite ready but all other indicators said it was. So we have another new tomato harvested!

During the harvest I was telling myself that yesterday will probably be the high water mark for the year. But when I put in the numbers I was very surprised to see we had the same total as yesterday (167). Yesterday had larger tomatoes, however.

Afterwards, I pulled out Pierce's Pride and Brad's Black Heart. I noticed some SunGolds I should have harvested, but left them on the vine. So today's total could have been bigger than yesterday.

Scott: Here's the Green Zebra tag...

In general, I have better luck with the yellow tagged tomato seedlings at Tomatomania events. The seedlings from other growers act as if they've been more exposed to the elements. They tend to not grow has high nor flourish as much. For instance, I don't think I have a non-yellow tag this year whose plant five feet tall or more.

While I have several yellow tagged tomato plants over six feet tall, I've had some poor luck with yellow tagged brown heirloom tomatoes this year. Vorlon, Brad's Black Heart, Pierce's Pride and Black Seaman have all died early. And come to think of it, in general, I can't think of the last brown heirloom tomato that has gone bonkers in several years. Perhaps Black Krim or Black From Tula from a few years ago. Sunchocola has gone absolutely bonkers this year but that's a hybrid.

We've now grown over 1500 front yard tomatoes for the year (1524), over 1000 front yard tomatoes in July (1058) and over 200 SunGold tomatoes (211) this year!