It's Over for 2014

It's over for 2014.

The tomato plants were pulled last Saturday. They were meant to be pulled the prior Saturday but the gardeners didn't show.

I didn't harvest at all during the week but I did pick off a few tomatoes before the plants were pulled last Saturday. Sunchocola, which looked pretty darn good and strong three weeks ago, got the fungal disease. The top of the plant looked like it had spider webs on it. For what it's worth the Sunchocola plant also had a couple of hornworms on it, though that's not related to the fungal disease.

Our total harvest for the year ended up at 6904 tomatoes. Here are our top ten harvest totals for 2014:

Orange Paruche -- 1250
Sunchocola -- 1015
Matt's Wild Cherry -- 683
SunGold -- 666
Sugar Snack -- 333
Husky Cherry Red(2) -- 332
Husky Cherry Red(1) -- 245
Evan's Purple Pear -- 189
Black Cherry -- 153
Indigo Rose -- 139

We added a lot of compost in preparation for this year. The plants started out strong but more importantly we were very pleased with the taste of this year's crop. However, most of the plants "hit the wall" relatively soon. Why?

Well, one never knows. For instance, it could have been a weak year for seedlings...but barring a few tomato plants that didn't seem to be the issue. The soil was prepped moreso than in other years. But there were two factors overriding everything else: This was the hottest year on record and we got very little rain during the prior winter.

This record's record heat is consistent with how our plants seemed to peak and die about two to three weeks earlier than before. That is clear. But what about fall and winter rains? We're warming to the opinion that the rains in the fall/winter affect next year's crop. We're beginning to believe that rain brings worms up to the top of the soil, depositing worm castings where the tomato plants can later use it.

2013 was our worst harvest year on record. In that year we had little rain the prior fall/winter and I did not prepare the soil like I did in the fall of 2013. And it showed. In 2007 I could find plenty of worms in our front yard. This year I don't think I saw a single worm anywhere in our growing area.

Our plans for 2015 will involve prepping the soil similar to what we did late last year. That means we should acquire compost in the near future. But if we have a low rain amount during the next fall and winter, we may not plant tomatoes for 2015. Or we'll scale back and try to not "fight nature" as much as in prior years. 

Harvested Over 3000 SunGold Tomatoes This Year!

Tuesday's harvest includes 24 SunGold tomatoes.
Wednesday's harvest includes 25 SunGold, Husky Cherry Red(1) and Snow White(2) for a total of 27 tomatoes.
Thursday's harvest includes 37 SunGold, 2 Snow White(2) and Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 40 tomatoes.
Today's harvest includes 33 SunGold, 2 Snow White(2) and Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 36 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 3000 SunGold tomatoes this year (3013)! The scary thing is this plant has a lot of new blooms and may have another large harvest in the next month or so.

Having noted that, I'm pleasantly surprised by the SunGold harvest during this month. My internal harvest prediction for October was going to be 200 tomatoes and after the first week I thought that would be too high. We've harvested 320 SunGold tomatoes this month, 395 overall so far.

We've had Santa Ana winds the past couple of days. Both Snow White(2) and SunGold are noticeably less tall -- they've been blown to the west. It's unclear what damage has been done, if any.

Our new dog found a hornworm on Snow White(2).

We have definitely passed our all time harvest high for a year (2009/11,155 tomatoes). We are currently at 11,267 harvested tomatoes and the number will continue to rise. 

Harvested Over 11000 Tomatoes This Year!

Monday's harvest: 20 SunGold, 3 Snow White(2) and 2 Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 25 tomatoes.
Saturday's harvest: 23 SunGold, 5 Snow White(2) and 4 Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 32 tomatoes.
Today's harvest: 15 SunGold, 3 SunGold and 2 Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total 20 tomatoes.

We didn't harvest from Tuesday - Friday as we were out of town. We flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Some people on the plane saw Air Force One over to the right (Obama was traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco for fundraising). Our landing was delayed because of it.

We took BART to our hotel. I bought three tickets but the machine spit out only one and then failed. I had to go find help with the receipt to get credit for the other two tickets. We got to the hotel (it's really a residence/club but we'll call it a hotel) and our keys wouldn't work in the door. So we got replacements. They didn't work, either. The master key worked, but nothing else. It took a bit over a day to actually get our own keys.

But don't let that get you down. It was a great room, we were happy and had quite a good time.

Apparently it rained while we were away. We got some minor rain in San Francisco but it was quite minor.

Thursday the Giants clinched their playoff series with the Cincinnati Reds. I got to see office workers across the street watch the game from their offices (we were on the fifth floor overlooking Market Street). That was fun to watch.

I picked off a hornworm on Snow White(2) today.

Anyway, we've now harvested over 11,000 tomatoes for the year (11,013)! I believe our one year record is 11,155 in 2009 but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. Also, we've harvested over 2750 SunGold tomatoes for the year(2790). 

Harvested Over 2700 SunGold Tomatoes!

Sunday's harvest: 4 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 Husky Cherry Red(2) and SunGold for a total of 7 tomatoes.
Monday's harvest: 4 Husky Cherry Red(1) and 2 SunGold for a total of 6 tomatoes.
Tuesday's harvest: 4 Husky Cherry Red(1) and 2 SunGold for a total of 6 tomatoes.
Wednesday's harvest: 4 SunGold and 2 Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 6 tomatoes.
Thursday's harvest: 4 SunGold and 2 Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 6 tomatoes.
Friday's harvest: 3 SunGold and 3 Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 6 tomatoes.
Saturday's harvest: 12 SunGold, 5 Snow White(2) and 3 Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 20 tomatoes.
Today's harvest: 12 SunGold and 2 Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 14 tomatoes.

The hornworm "harvest" for the week was as follows:
Monday: SunGold
Tuesday: 2 SunGold
Wednesday: SunGold
Thursday: 2 SunGold
Friday: Snow White(2)
Sunday: Snow White(2)

So I think the totals are now 14 hornworms found on SunGold and 5 on Snow White(2).

Sunday's high: 103.9
Monday's high: 107.1
Tuesday's high: 104.3
...then the temperature finally, finally broke.

We've now harvested over 2700 SunGold tomatoes (2732) and over 350 Snow White(2) tomatoes (351)! In fact, SunGold just passed our all time harvest for one year, surpassing last year's total of 2727 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes. And the plant is getting a second wind. 

"Harvested" 11 Hornworms!

Monday's harvest: SunGold.
Tuesday's harvest: SunGold and Snow White(2) for a total of 2 tomatoes.
Wednesday's harvest: 3 SunGold, Husky Cherry Red(1) and Husky Cherry Red(2) for a total of 5 tomatoes.
Thursday's harvest: SunGold.
Friday's harvest: 2 SunGold, Husky Cherry Red(1) and Husky Cherry Red(2) for a total of 4 tomatoes.
Today's harvest: 3 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), SunGold and Snow White(2) for a total of 7 tomatoes.

Last week I noticed signs of hornworms -- I noticed the excrement on the brick path underneath SunGold. But quick glances discovered no hornworms and no damage. But on Monday I noticed a hornworm on Snow White(2). That trained my eye for discovering hornworms and I found them throughout the week. Here's the breakdown:

Monday: Snow White(2).
Tuesday: 3 SunGold
Wednesday: 4 SunGold, Snow White(2).
Friday: Snow White(2)

I found 8 hornworms on SunGold and 3 hornworms on Snow White(2). And now I see the damage, mild damage on both plants.

The cooler night time temperatures has allowed fruit to set on all the tomato plants. However, we should have record breaking high temperatures this Monday. It's already been up to 96.0 today.

No milestones, but there's enough growing tomatoes to reach a few milestones over the next several weeks.