July 2014 Tomato Analysis

First, let's compare our July tomato totals against other years...

2014 -- 3884 tomatoes
2013 -- 1970 tomatoes
2012 -- 6068 tomatoes
2011 -- 3876 tomatoes
2010 -- 4108 tomatoes
2009 -- 4576 tomatoes
2008 -- 1629 tomatoes
2007 -- 6154 tomatoes

Four years were higher, three were lower. However, 2011 was only lower by 8 tomatoes.

My estimate of harvesting 5250 tomatoes in July was sufficiently off the mark to consider it a bad guess.

The standouts were obvious -- Sunchocola and Orange Paruche were nothing short of spectacular. And not just production, but taste as well. We are extremely pleased with these two varieties. We will grow them again and again. Other standouts include Adriana's Grande and the old standby German Orange Strawberry. Blue Beauty was a pleasant surprise that matured later in the month.

Several people have told us that this year's tomatoes have tasted better than in prior years. I believe that is directly tied to the compost added in November of last year as well as clearing out our passive compost bin in the back yard.

The downsides include the "corner office" and a majority of the back yard growing area. I added a good amount of purchased compost and a liberal amount of our "compost paella" to the "corner office". All the tomatoes from this growing area are on the small side. Some of this is related to the hedge on the south side, blocking a fair amount of the sun. But it appears that the soil is still exhausted from years of planting.

That's the similar story for the back yard tomatoes. We added lots of compost but most of the tomatoes are on the small side. The exceptions are the four plants closest to our back door. This is a new tomato growing area, but also the sprinklers were still hitting this area. It is possible that we're not watering the back yard tomatoes enough. We've floated the idea of a drip system before but never followed through...

It's been reported that 2014 has been the hottest first six months of the year in recorded history. Some of our tomato plants are already burned out. For me, it's not the highs that are so bad, it's the fact that the atmosphere isn't cooling off sufficiently at night. Our tomato plants have no time to rest.

My estimate for the August harvest is 1650 tomatoes. My adjusted estimate for the year is around 7500 tomatoes. 

July 2013 Tomato Analysis

In July 2013 we harvested 1970 tomatoes, of which 770 were in the front yard and 1200 in the back yard.

Let's compare this year with prior harvests...

2013 -- 1970 -- Sixth
2012 -- 6068 -- Second
2011 -- 3863 -- Fifth
2010 -- 4108 -- Fourth
2009 -- 4576 -- Third
2008 -- 1629 -- Seventh
2007 -- 6154 -- First

This year barely beats out the worst harvest month, 2008. Bleah.

As you can see it's not a good year. Why?

I don't think the seedlings were as solid as other years. I simply think the plants were weaker and that's the main issue. What I've been keeping an eye on is beware of windstorms within a week or two of when you purchase your seedlings. I believe that occurred this year. The plants start strong and get to a reasonable height. Up to this point there appears to be nothing wrong with the seedlings. The plant starts to produce fruit and then "hits the wall". The plant starts to turn a grayish color and the fruit stays seriously underdeveloped.

There's so many tomato seedlings like this I can't list them all. Pierce's Pride, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(1), Green Zebra, Blue Beauty, Berkeley Tie Dye, Pineapple, Stupice, Nyagous, Jersey Giant...all produced severely undersized tomatoes. Or in the case of Green Zebra, no edible ripe fruit at all.

The second thing that possibly affected the seedlings are that we took to long to actually put them in the ground. In some cases I think it took us over two weeks before we acquired the seedling and actually put it in the ground. That's too long. I'll think about digging some holes before we acquire seedlings next year.

I believe we fertilized pretty well in preparation for this year. One can always do more but I thought we were well prepared. Speaking of which, we still have some hay bales acquired about a month ago that we still need to spread on the ground.

The third thing was that we got hot early. No, we didn't hit 110 like we did in June of 2008 but there were several early heat waves.

So two out of three items we really didn't have control but we'll work on the third for next year.

August may not turn out so bad. We've had some relatively mild weather for the past week or so. I expect some of the remaining plants to recover somewhat and have a second wind. Let's see what happens. 

July 2012 Tomato Analysis

We harvested 6088 tomatoes for July. By all measures it was a very successful month -- an overabundance of large, tasty tomatoes. How does this compare to other years?

2007 -- 6154
2008 -- 1629
2009 -- 4576
2010 -- 4108
2011 -- 3876
2012 -- 6088

So we nearly matched 2007 but with nearly three times the amount of plants. While I romanticize the 2007 year -- and it was an absolutely incredible year -- we did have a higher percentage of cherry tomatoes that year. In 2012 we didn't grow many cherry tomatoes in the ground. In pots, yes, but not in the ground. SunGold, 2 Snow White plants, 2 Black Cherry plants and 2 Husky Cherry Red plants. About 10 percent. Yes, the ones in pots are almost all cherries, but they're also constricted by the very same pots. We grew 2727 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes last year in the ground, this year we've grown 100 so far in a container.

Speaking of which, there's a better than 50 percent chance that SunGold beats our high harvest number of 2727. There's a chance that SunGold could reach 3000. The harvest will slow down to a trickle for a couple of weeks. The plant will recover a bit during those two weeks and get a second wind. If the plant is still strong enough for a good second wind, that should be good enough to pass 2727 and beyond.

That back yard harvest has been rock solid. All that digging in April has paid off.

The tomato plants in the raised bed have been a mild disappointment, except Indigo Rose. Could there be more bricks underneath the raised bed?

The south half of the "koi pond" has been disappointing. We've already pulled Paul Robeson. Black Krim(1), Vorlon and White Zebra have been sleepy. If I can I need to work the "koi pond" next year.

Still it's been a great month. The tomatoes have been tasty and plentiful -- what more can you ask?

I never got around to posting a June recap but in my mind I was predicting 5000 tomatoes for the month.

I predict a harvest of around 2400 tomatoes for the month of August. 

July 2011 Tomato Analysis

Here are our July harvest numbers, by year:

2007 -- 6154
2008 -- 1629
2009 -- 4576
2010 -- 4108
2011 -- 3876

Our numbers for July are solid. If it weren't for the lack of a harvest today, we would have easily had over 4000 tomatoes harvested for the month.

What's notable in these numbers is that the months for July 2007 and July 2009 were greater than all of my harvest for 2008, just over 4500 tomatoes.

To repeat, we planted later this year than we have in other years. This is the first year we took a "mulligan" -- Nyagous only produced one bad tomato. We pulled it early and planted SunGold(2). If that plant takes off we'll have a strong August and September.

The tomatoes have been notably tasty this year. The only "miss" I can think of is Black And Brown Boar. Everything else has been good to outright amazing.

Solid numbers this year, with the potential for stronger numbers (as compared to prior years) in the upcoming years.

July 2009 Tomato Analysis

My estimate for July 2009 was 4000 tomatoes, then later dropped to over 3000 tomatoes. Due to a late flurry we ended up with 4576 tomatoes for the month. Not a bad harvest!

While the original estimate turned out to be too low, it turned out to be a pretty good guess.

Still, in 2007 we harvested 6154 tomatoes with less plants. How come? From memory, the weather was better. Also, I had completely dug out the dirt in the “koi pond” and used a wheelbarrow to take it in to the back yard for a raised bed. We shipped in some compost and put it in the “koi pond”, then mixed some of the dirt back in (using a wheelbarrow to bring it back). This year we didn't get around to shipping in compost.

Also in 2007 we brought brought in some mulch from the city, which helped. We believe that program has stopped.

We've gone past the crest of the tomato wave, but not by much. The high harvest total day was July 24. My memory of the heaviest harvest was the day one of the days in the three day stretch with July 24 in the middle of it.

Most of the plants are weather beaten and doubled over, but that's natural. A couple plants haven't borne any fruit yet, which will hit in August.

In August 2007 we harvested 2806 tomatoes. In August 2008 we harvested 1004 tomatoes.

In 2007 the high point of the harvest was about July 8 or so. In 2008, the high point, if you could call it that, was around July 23, like this year.

Based on the relation of August to July tomatoes over the past two years and the late high harvest point, my tomato harvest estimate for August 2009 is 2700 tomatoes.

Tomato Analysis For July

July analysis: In short, we were expecting more. Our total of 1629 tomatoes is 74% less than last year's numbers for this period.

In May and June we were looking to buy a freezer to store all the tomato sauce. That urge faded away as the numbers just haven't supported such a purchase.

Why?

First, the harvest is simply later this year than last year. All the tomato growers I know are reporting that their harvests are coming in later this year compared to last year.

But that implies we'd get similar harvest numbers later in the year. That just isn't going to happen with our harvest totals this year.

Now mind you, we're still enjoying great tomatoes and have more than we can handle. We're very happy with our harvested tomatoes but the numbers pale in comparison to last year's numbers.

In August 2007 we harvested 2806 tomatoes. I'll estimate we'll do around 900 tomatoes for August 2008.

Last year we harvested 11,000 tomatoes among 34 plants. This year I'll estimate we'll harvest about 4600 tomatoes among the 52 plants (3 pulled).

To repeat, why?

I believe it's simply a confluence of events that won't happen again. We just got a bit unlucky this year.

First, I believe the weather in the winter and spring has been more variable this year compared to last year. On the high side, I seem to remember hitting 90 degree temperatures in April, 100 degree temperatures in May and I know we hit 110 in June. July 2008, though, seems more mild than July 2007. That could bode well for some of our August and September tomatoes.

Second, our seed lady moved last year. She was kind enough to start seeds for us this year and she started the seeds at the same time she did before. Turns out that the new place is foggier, more damp and a bit colder than the prior house. In short, the first batch was started too soon.

The plants acquired from Green Thumb/Green Arrow didn't seem to do very well this year.

The Tomatomania event started a couple of weeks later than usual. That alone would shift the harvest to couple of weeks later.

I've been told after the fact that early season windstorms wiped out a lot (more than half!) of the tomato seedlings. I wished I had known that before picking them. Usually, the seedlings I select look healthy but are a little on the smallish side. But this year's smaller seedlings may have been small from damage created by the wind and cold. Note to self: Ask the grower about how they were raised.

If our generous seed lady grows for us again next year and doesn't move, she'll start between the two start dates for this year.

Third, our seed lady completely surprised us with a second batch of seedlings. We gladly took them but they were planted late in the season.

In short – Bouncing temperatures (not good for the plants), seedlings planted too early, late Tomatomania, seedlings planted too late, late season, and the 110 degree temperatures around the summer solstice burned out a lot of blooms.

In no particular order, here's discussion about some of the tomato plants:

Red Currant – Stunning production, great taste. An absolute winner in 2008.

Blue Fruit, Chocolate Stripes – Grown from first batch of seed. First ripe tomatoes showed up about 115 days after planting. We'll get only a dozen or so tomatoes from Chocolate Stripes, more from Blue Fruit.

Polish Pastel, Painted Ukrainian, Evan's Italian Plum, Kellogg's Breakfast, Olga's Round Yellow Chicken – No harvested tomatoes (except Polish Pastel, which started recently), but there are some on the vines. Evan's Italian Plum may have 50 tomatoes on it. The best is yet to come for these tomatoes

Jeff Davis, Yellow Brandywine – Platfoot Strain – No tomatoes, period. Plants are six feet tall, but no tomatoes.

Garden Peach, Snow White – The absolute busts of 2008. Last year: Garden Peach (which was really two plants): 1197, Snow White: 1771. This year: Garden Peach: 13, Snow White: 4. Everything off of these plants tastes bad and doesn't look like what the tag says they are. Probably ruined by severe wind damage.

Cherokee Chocolate, Stupice – Labels are wrong and we don't know what we have.

Black Krim, Pierce's Pride, Black From Tula, Paul Robeson, Carbon, Blue Fruit – We love dark tomatoes! We have yet to hit a bad dark tomato, and this year is no exception.

Red Yellow Cap – Impressive beefsteak. I'd grow it again. The yellow-red beefsteak tomatoes tend to get bruised and sun scalded, but not this one so far.

Piccolo, Black Cherry, Husky Cherry Red, Black Plum Paste, Salisaw Cafe, Green Grape, Jaune Flamme, Red Currant – Cherry sized tomatoes whose best days are in the past (exception: Piccolo, which is cresting right now).

Zhezha (front yard), Micro Tom, Red Robin, Prairie Fire, Taxi, Patio – This year's container plants. I've come full circle on this. I moved all the container plants from the back yard to the front yard so our Manchester Terrier couldn't get them. The problem, though, is that the front yard driveway is simply too hot for container plants and the Manchester Terrier simply eats other tomatoes planted in the ground. We'll move them to the back yard next year and give these plants some respite from the intense heat.