Five Years Ago...

Five years ago today I was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times in an article about growing tomatoes. That link to the article, titled "You say tomato; so does he" is here.

Enjoy!. 

We're Not THAT Bad. Really.

I remember reading the following article in the Los Angeles Times. Here is the link.

After reading it, I thought "People think we're bad, but that's ridiculous." Planting 70 different varieties of tomatoes? Growing hundreds of tomatoes?

Last year we planted nearly 80 tomatoes.

And last month Kevin, mentioned in the article, put in attic insulation for us.

But we're not that bad. Really. Don't even think of it. Honest.

Mentioned On The Los Angeles Times Home blog

I didn't realize until now that I received another plug on the LA Times Home blog. Check it out here.

Told Ya...

In my post on September 2^nd of this year I warned about rockslides and mudslides in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Times – Grim Forecast Warns of Mudslides In Burn Areas

Tomatoes In The News

And here's more tomato stories in the news...

The Baltimore Sun -- Tomato Blight. Next Year?

The Journal Times (Racine, WI) -- Tasty Tomato Recipes

Popular Science -- Better Tomatoes Via A Fertilizer of...Human Urine?

Reading Eagle (PA) -- Blights afflict Berks homegrown

Madison County Courier (WI) – Going Green: That Nasty Tomato Blight

AgWeek – This Summer’s Heroic Tomatoes Deserve Gallant Culinary Efforts

Mail Tribune (Southern Oregon) – Don't Let Oregon Summers, Tomatoes Go To Waste

The News-Herald (Southeastern Michigan) – Southgate: Tomato Tasting Will Be Part of Saturday's Plant Exchange

The State Journal Register (Springfield, IL) – Tomato Time – How To Avoid The Overload

and one year ago today:

The Los Angeles Times – Winnetka Man Loves His Tomatoes

L. A. Times -- 30 Days of Ripe Tomatoes

Here's a tomato article in today's Los Angeles Times with 30 days of recipes.

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-calcook9-2009sep09,0,7475928,full.story

LA Times Daily Dish Blog Post

My wife and I just got mentioned on the Los Angeles Times Daily Dish blog.

Thanks for the mention!

Harvested Red Currant Today!

Let's start with the numbers: On Saturday I harvested 2 SunSugar, Sweet 100, Yellow Perfection and a Red Grape tomato. On Sunday I harvested 3 Sweet 100, 2 Sweet Olive, 2 Red Grape and a SunSugar tomato. Today I harvested 7 Sweet Olive, 5 SunSugar, 3 Red Currant (new!) and a Red Grape tomato.

On Friday I noticed at least two tomatoes on the front yard Green Grape. This means that only the two plants planted in June are missing tomatoes. 58 plants have growing tomatoes on them!

Saturday we harvested early and were out the door by 10:15 AM. First we went to my mechanic to change a tail light on my wife's car. On the way it began to rain! Lots of strange weather this year. This year, cloudy and actually some rain on June 20. Last year it was 110 degrees in the west San Fernando Valley.

So we get to the repair shop, swap out the bulb, exchange pleasantries and we're on our way to the 70^th birthday celebration for my mother. Her 70^th was actually on Friday but my brother Jim and his wife, my mother and her best friend Walter, and my wife's mother and father all made the visit to Macaroni Grill in Huntington Beach. The elephant in the room, my abusive brother, wasn't invited.

It seemed like most everyone enjoyed themselves. We brought down our uneaten tomatoes over the past couple of days and they were enjoyed and/or taken home. I even received a complement or two for making it happen.

Then, onto a cousin's graduation celebration. More food! More fun! I was being chased by girls all around the back yard, everyone having a blast.

After a few hours we started to drive to my mother-in-law's house. But we stopped and crashed another high school graduation celebration, former neighbors of my wife. They had all heard and/or read of my tomato article in the Los Angeles Times and were growing tomatoes, corn, potatoes, peanuts, you name it, they were growing it. This celebration was more subdued but again pleasant.

So off to the parent's house. We check out their tomato plants – for the most part they're doing well – hang around for a while, pick up their two dogs and head back for the long drive home. We get home around 10:15 PM, feed our hungry dogs and go to bed. Long day.

In the morning I start to harvest tomatoes and I notice right away that the Patio plant is torn apart. The Manchester Terrier got to it! Not only was there a ripening tomato that I left on the vine Saturday for one more day, it appears he also picked off five or six others, tearing out the north side of the plant in the process.

Beaverlodge Plum had a tomato that I left on the vine to be picked on Sunday. It was gone. Damn! The Manchester Terrier got hungry and went on a binge!!

It took about a half day to get over that one.

My wife was out most of the day helping our “seed lady” pack boxes for her move. I did some paid work and a lot of little things I needed to get to. I tomato taped some plants in the back and front yards and staked a couple as well. In poking around I noticed that some Red Currants were ripening.

In the evening my wife put some tomato twine around some of the container plants, trying to protect them from the ravages of our Manchester Terrier. Side note: It appears that Husky Gold has been hit in the past as well.

I harvested again this morning. The back yard sprinklers went off as expected. I checked and Jeff Davis wasn't being touched by the water. We'll make sure this plant gets the normal watering next time.

Busy Weekend

Ever have one of those too busy weekends?

On Friday my wife watered the front and back yards which include the tomato plants. But unfortunately, we also discovered that the front yard Japanese Black Trifele was starting to wilt. The front yard Jaune Flamme was showing damage as well, but no wilt. Darn, we need to replace another one...

That makes it five more plants damaged by vandalism. Several spots have been hit twice. The only tomato to survive unscathed so far in the front yard is Mexico.

Japenese Black Trifele, Green Zebra and Black Zebra were the three plants in the “corner office” that were closest to the sidewalk. Husky Cherry Red and Eva Purple Ball were nearest to the driveway. I'm sure that's not a coincidence.

My wife hit upon the idea of moving some rose bushes to the area in the “corner office” next to the sidewalk. But first, our shovels are worn out, we'll need new shovels to move the rose bushes.

Also, the stray cat outside needed treatment. He had a lopsided face during the week, but that went away on Friday. Still, something was wrong. Apparently this cat has had this before – an abscess inside his mouth that apparently burst open – but we weren't sure. So my wife trapped the cat and brought it in. No time for shovels.

We had planned on putting together the wheelbarrow back together with a new inner tube for the tire on Saturday morning, but I didn't sleep a wink on Friday night. I had gone to Denny's to get something to eat and checked out a property at 3:30 AM.

My wife went to the veterinarian to pick up the cat, while I handled the gardener. The gardener thinned out the lemon tree in the back, giving us more room to plant. The wife came back with the cat around 12:45 PM. We hurriedly dealt with the cat, did a little yard work and drove off to the LA Garden show, but detouring to pick up the mail and to check out the property I had seen earlier in the morning. An agent was showing the house so we politely invited ourselves in, checked it out and decided it was a no-go.

At the Garden Show we met our friends, Liz and Ricardo and picked up three more tomato plants. Afterwards, we spent about two hours at a nearby Home Depot, picking up a new shovel or two among a lot of other things. Then we stuffed ourselves at a local BBQ restaurant.

We both came home exhausted. I fell asleep but was awakened by the Cinco de Mayo celebrations and again couldn't fall back asleep.

Sunday morning it was apparent that the Japanese Black Trifele wasn't going to make it. But there was no time to deal with that. We got up, loaded up the wheelbarrow pieces and some tools and went to the new house owned by our “seed lady”. There we assembled the wheelbarrow (which was hers to begin with), got the inner tube in, pumped it up and reattached the wheel axle to the body of the wheelbarrow.

We got back home and I planted Big Yellow Zebra near the north wall of the back yard, in an area that now gets sun due to the thinned lemon tree. I used the new shovel and it's a good one. There's still a pile of lemon branches that need to be discarded but we're waiting for the trash pickup on Tuesday morning to empty the green recyclable trash can.

I adjusted the back yard tomato document and the on line spreadsheet to reflect this additional tomato.

Around this time our Saturday friends came by to visit to help us put up a new patio cover.

We have these metal braces in the cement, four in the back yard and one in the front yard, that can hold a 4x4 piece of wood. The idea was to take advantage of three of these braces in the back yard to put up a framework of a patio cover to help protect the house in the scorching summers. We went to the local Lowe's and spent another couple of hours, picking up lumber and bolts and washers and sandpaper...you get the idea.

The rest of the afternoon was spent assembling the pieces, drilling holes and whatnot. It took a while but it all came together and looks quite impressive.

Then we went to Brent's Deli for dinner.

We came home, said our goodbyes, fed the dogs and dealt with the cat. Again, off to bed exhausted and again I couldn't fall asleep. I got up, read part of the Sunday Los Angeles Times and fell asleep on the couch.

So the rose bushes didn't get moved because of our jam packed weekend.

We know we're planting very late now, but we're not going to give in to any vandalism.

Los Angeles Times Tour; Four More Tomatoes Planted

Yesterday my wife, myself and my wife's cousin's daughter (? I'm bad at determining relationship chains) went on a tour of the Los Angeles Times.

The tour was donated as a silent auction item to the Larchmont Charter School last summer. My wife made the winning bid. We finally got around to making the visit.

On the way to the LA Times building we believe we saw Sandra Oh in a slightly dirty silver Prius on the 101 near Barham, heading south.

Our tour guide was a 14 year employee named Lisa Boone. She showed us around, but because of my near obsessive interest in newspapers what perhaps may have been a 20 minute tour extended to around the 90 minute range.

At one point in the tour there was the LA Times headline dealing with the Chatsworth Metrolink train accident last September. I had mentioned earlier that I was on the front page (“A1” in newspaperspeak) and that event had pushed the article back a couple of days.

Lisa: “What was it again?”

Me: “It was a tomato article.”

Lisa: (Light bulb goes on) “Oh, you're that crazy tomato guy!”

I'll never live it down.

Actually I had no problem at all with what she said, but it did give me something to needle her. Poor Lisa kept trying to climb out of her perceived faux-pas and I kept knocking her back. To my wife: “What was that first adjective she used when she realized it was me? Loopy?” Another time: “What adjective was it again? Goofy?” and so on. You get the algorithm. “... Googly-eyed?” “... Unstable?”

Actually what had happened is that Lisa had three ideas hit at once – first, that I was the guy in that article. The second needs further explanation. There was a story in the LA Times last year about making your own mulch (using hay, I believe). I kept the article for my wife and stated that we should try this during the winter. Winter came and went and we didn't try it, but we kept the article around somewhere. Apparently, the person who came up with the “make mulch on your driveway” wanted to get in touch with me and asking some people within the LA Times how to go about it (Clearly he doesn't know about this blog!). We said of course, no problem!

The third connection was that she had just tried the cracked-egg trick in a container. I interrupted her to say it's a whole egg, not cracked, and I don't do the egg trick in container plants (I'll repost this separately).

So all three ideas hit at once and to get to the other two I believed she simply said “crazy” as shorthand to get to the other two, more important ideas.

We were surprised by the test kitchen – a large kitchen area just like you would have at home, only larger – to test the recipes that go into the Food section of the paper. Also we were surprised by the executive floor – lights on, air conditioned...but no one there, no sign of life. Slightly spooky.

We met with Chris Erskine, a columnist (My wife really likes his columns) and a very sociable guy. On our way to lunch, hey, there's Mary MacVean, the columnist for the tomato article! My wife and I said hello to Mary, who was quite surprised. As I went over to give her a hug, Chris was asking us to hop on to the elevator. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to Mary or to explain why we were there. A literal “hug and run”.

So after we got home we planted four tomato seedlings, two in the front and two in the back. Black Krim and Babywine in the front yard, Black Krim in the “corner office” and Babywine in the “koi pond”. In the back yard we planted Turkish Striped Monastery, took out Marz Round Green and put it in a pot (Marz Round Green doesn't look good but not bad enough to toss yet) and replaced it with Plum Tigris.

I updated my on line tomato documents with these new tomatoes.

Later on we dropped the daughter off at Downtown Disney to meet with her parents and drove back, getting home around midnight. A long day.

So we had a net gain of three tomatoes in the ground, bringing us up to a total of 51 tomatoes, I believe.

The San Francisco Chronicle Picks Up LA Times Tomato Story!

The San Francisco Chronicle picked up the Los Angeles Times tomato story. The story printed in the Chronicle on September 25, page B-8. The on line link can be found here.

The Ashland Daily Tidings Picks Up LA Times Tomato Story!

The Ashland Daily Tidings in Oregon picked up the Los Angeles Times tomato story. It appears that the article was printed in this newspaper on September 19. The link to the story can be found here.

The title of the article is “Man grows almost 11,000 tomatoes in backyard”. Uh, no, that's not true. Most of the ripe tomatoes are picked from the front yard.

TomatoCasual.Com Picks Up The Story!

TomatoCasual.com has picked up on the Los Angeles Times and UPI articles. Their on line article can be found here.

As the article correctly claims, I was hoping to get to the 15000 tomato mark this year. Unfortunately due to a number of factors, it looks like we'll struggle to make the 4500 mark.

Thanks for the article, TomatoCasual!

The LA Times Story Reaches Italy!

The tomato story has reached the Italian newspaper La Stampa. The on line article can be found here.

Can anyone translate?

Seattle Times Picks Up Tomato Story

The Seattle Times picked up on the Los Angeles Times tomato article. The Seattle Times on line article can be found here.

Can anyone verify if it made the newspaper? If so, can I get a copy?

UPI Makes A Gaffe...

The United Press International picked up on the Los Angeles Times tomato article. Trouble is, they changed one fact, giving the whole story a different meaning.

Instead of stating I had grown 11,000 tomatoes in 2007, UPI changed it so that I had grown 11,000 pounds of tomatoes in 2007, filing it in the category of “Odd News”

<http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2008/09/16/Tomato_mania_takes_over_yard/UPI-45631221621610/>

Then the Times of The Internet copied the story. <http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/4119.html>

Nope, not 11,000 pounds of tomatoes.

Front Page Story!

The Los Angeles Times published a front page article on our tomato growing. The article can be found here:

<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tomato16-2008sep16,0,3274445.story>

Pictures can be found here:

<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tomato16-pg,0,1648752.photogallery?1>

Hope you readers enjoy the article!!