Pulled Four More Back Yard Tomato Plants

And today's harvest includes 18 Snow White(2), Snow White(1), Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Black Krim, White Currant, a back yard Husky Cherry Red and Patio Princess for a total of 25 tomatoes.

My wife watered the front yard tomato plants yesterday.

Yesterday I turned the dirt in the “corner office”, preparing for a winter garden.

Today I took out four tomato plants in the back yard – Red Grape, Italian Ice, Turkish Striped Monastery and, sorry to say, Yellow Perfection was pulled as well.

I count 18 tomato plants still in the ground.

More Snow White(2) Tomatoes Are On The Vines

And today's harvest includes 15 Snow White(2), 2 Snow White(1), 2 back yard Husky Cherry Red, Black Krim and Old Ivory Egg for a total of 21 tomatoes.

I'm noticing some new tomatoes coming from the blooms of Snow White(2).

I watered a portion of the front yard yesterday but none of the the front yard tomato plants were watered.

Also, I've now verified that Turkish Striped Monastery can be pulled.

Harvested Old Ivory Egg On Saturday!

Saturday's harvest includes 13 Snow White(2), 7 Snow White(1), 2 Babywine, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, Sweet 100, Green Zebra(1) and Old Ivory Egg for a total of 28 tomatoes.

The Old Ivory Egg looks really nice! It has some green shoulders, which will need to be cut away before we eat it. It's strange to have the first summer harvest for a tomato plant be October 10!

I found a good sized caterpillar on Husky Cherry Red.

The gardener pulled out the back yard Mexico and Big Yellow Zebra tomato plants.

All but the Old Ivory Egg were given away at a post wedding reception we went to in the afternoon.

Today's harvest includes 8 Snow White(1), 6 Snow White(2), 3 White Currant, 2 Babywine, 2 Husky Cherry Red, Husky Gold, Green Zebra(1), White Zebra and Garden Peach for a total of 25 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 500 front yard tomatoes for the month of October! That's a remarkable amount – usually the plants are much too burned out by this point in the year.

Today's tomatoes were given away to my mother, whom we met in the afternoon for lunch, along with my wife and her parents.

Harvested 100 Turkish Striped Monastery Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes 10 Snow White(2), 9 Snow White(1), Black Krim, Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, Italian Ice, Garden Peach and Turkish Striped Monastery for a total of 24 tomatoes.

Our harvest total has fallen for the seventh day in a row – but this drop is simply a heat wave causing a harvest bump followed by a cold spell causing a harvest drop. When the weather warms and the Snow White harvest settles down, our harvest should become steady again.

Turkish Striped Monastery has now reached 100 harvested tomatoes! I'm happy about that – I like this tomato.

Today's low was 43.5 degrees, still cold. But the cold snap should be over!

We have a maturing tomato on our Volunteer/Old Ivory Egg! The tomato should be ready tomorrow or Saturday. I'll keep an eye on it.

Harvested Over 800 Snow White(2) Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes 15 Snow White(2), 13 Snow White(1), Babywine, Turkish Striped Monastery, White Currant, Patio Princess and Sweet 100 for a total of 33 tomatoes.

The low today was 43.7, still cold. The cold nights are affecting the harvest, especially the back yard harvest. Only four tomatoes harvested today from the back yard.

Snow White(2) has now reached over 800 harvested tomatoes (813)!

I found a tiny caterpillar on Snow White(2) this morning.

Harvested 1200 Snow White(1) Tomatoes!

And today's harvest includes 32 Snow White(2), 4 Black Cherry, 3 White Currant, 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 Sweet 100, 2 Snow White(1), Black Krim, Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, Oaxacan Jewel, Babywine, a back yard Husky Cherry Red, Italian Ice, Red Grape, Green Zebra(1), Paul Robeson and Turkish Striped Monastery for a total of 55 tomatoes.

We've now harvested 1200 Snow White(1) tomatoes! Also, we've now harvested over 400 Snow White(2) tomatoes (417).

A while back (September 14 blog post, to be specific) I indicated it wouldn't surprise me to end up with over 400 tomatoes for Snow White (2). Now I'll say it wouldn't surprise me to end up with over 600 tomatoes from this plant before it's all over.

...which also means we would reach 10,000 harvested tomatoes just based on the Snow White(2) plant. And we still have 35 plants or so.

I found another caterpillar on Babywine this morning. My wife indicated that she found a caterpillar on White Currant last Saturday.

Tomato Plant Pulling Delayed

Today's harvest includes 24 Snow White(2), 4 White Currant, 4 Paul Robeson, 3 Snow White(1), 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 Babywine, 2 Red Grape, 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, Green Zebra(1), Green Zebra(2), Black Cherry, Tiger Paw and Cuor de Bue for a total of 50 tomatoes.

Yesterday our total harvest was 21 tomatoes. The Snow White(2) harvest for today beat that total by itself.

We're in a heat wave harvest bump again, it's just that Snow White(2) is the only plant with a significant amount of tomatoes!

I was going to pull out more plants but I found that our green trash can was filled with yard waste by our gardener yesterday. So several plants will live another day. Marz Round Green and Japanese Black Trifele can go. Vintage Wine can go even though there's tomatoes still on the vines. I've been unimpressed with the “second wind” tomatoes from this plant – they look funny and they're constantly cracked. Tiger Paw is on the bubble – it may go or it may stay for a while longer.

Still Hot In SoCal

Today's harvest includes 6 Snow White(2), 5 White Currant, 5 Black Cherry, 3 Snow White(1), 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, Silvery Fir Tree, a front yard Green Grape, a front yard Husky Cherry Red, Black Krim, Vintage Wine, Yellow Perfection, Paul Robeson, White Zebra, Red Grape, Sweet 100 and Dr. Wyche's Yellow (6 ounces) for a total of 32 tomatoes.

Yesterday was hot again, getting up to over 101 degrees.

There isn't a lot to say at the moment. We're in another heat wave harvest bump, but there hasn't been enough time between heat waves and therefore there aren't that many tomatoes to ripen. I expect that when this heat wave passes the harvest numbers will fall pretty far.

We did get up to over 9700 tomatoes harvested for the year.

I almost didn't find any Black Cherry or Yellow Perfection tomatoes. I had given up finding either one today but a backward glance found some of each.

Harvest Totals Fall Again...

Today's harvest includes 7 Snow White(1), 6 Snow White(2), 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Babywine, Vintage Wine, Garden Peach, White Currant, Italian Ice, Sweet 100, Black From Tula, Black Cherry, Yellow Perfection, Turkish Striped Monastery and Cuor de Bue for a total of 27 tomatoes.

The harvest totals have dropped for a sixth day in a row, dropping to less than half of the harvest total six days ago.

The front yard harvest has been greater than the back yard harvest twice over the last three days. This is due to the strength of the two Snow White tomato plants.

A month or so ago, the front yard harvest totals passed the back yard harvest totals. After that, the back yard totals went up due to the strength of Black Cherry, Yellow Perfection and the back yard Husky Cherry Red. The back yard totals got ahead by over 300 tomatoes compared to the front yard tomatoes.

If we reach 10,000 tomatoes (and we're 401 tomatoes away) it will be due to the strength of the two Snow White plants. The 300+ harvest gap will start to narrow, but by how much? The more it narrows, the bigger our harvest.

Sweet 100 is getting a second wind and is looking quite healthy.

My wife watered the back yard tomato plants on Saturday.

Most of our day was spent with our friends Liz and Ricardo at the Los Angeles County Fair. Not only did we have a lot of fun, but my wife ran into some old neighbors that she hasn't seen in decades.

Harvest Totals Fall For Fifth Day In A Row

Today's harvest includes 7 Snow White(1), 4 Babywine, 4 White Currant, 3 Yellow Perfection, 3 Oaxacan Jewel(1), 2 Silvery Fir Tree, 2 Black Cherry, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, Black Krim, Snow White(2), Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Garden Peach, Cuor de Bue, Plum Tigris, Sweet 100, Italian Ice and White Zebra for a total of 38 tomatoes.

The harvest totals have fallen for the fifth day in a row and it wouldn't surprise me to continue falling. There just isn't that many tomatoes to harvest!

After the harvest I pulled out Speckled Roman, German Orange Strawberry and Oaxacan Jewel(2).

We've now doubled the original harvest estimate of 700 tomatoes (1436). I'll readjust the estimate now to 1625 tomatoes for the month.

I watered a portion of the front yard today, but not the tomato plants.

Reached 9500 Harvested Tomatoes For The Year!

Today's harvest includes 11 Babywine, 6 Snow White(1), 4 Snow White(2), 3 Yellow Perfection, 3 Garden Peach, 2 White Currant, 2 Japanese Black Trifele, 2 Black Cherry, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Tiger Paw, Plum Tigris, Sweet 100, Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, a back yard Husky Cherry Red and Black From Tula (6.5 ounces) for a total of 42 tomatoes.

We've reached 9500 harvested tomatoes for the year (9534)! And it looks like we now have a fair shot at reaching 10,000 tomatoes for the year.

Yesterday it got up to 101 at Pierce College. Today it got up to 95 degrees. The temperature is still hot enough to burn out blooms.

This blog post is late because my wife and I went to the Los Angeles Dodgers game this afternoon. We had to arrange to get tickets from Chris's brother, then pick up a friend of Chris in Pasadena and head to the game. I met with Chris's parents and sat in field level seats well off of the right field line not too far away from the foul pole. My wife and her friend were right in line with home plate on the second deck.

This game was a rout, with the Dodgers winning 12-1. It was notable for a couple of reasons. First, there was a grand slam in the first inning. My wife and I have been at two Los Angeles Dodger games this year and in both games there has been a Dodger grand slam.

Second, my wife and her friend appeared on the main scoreboard between the seventh and eighth innings! The camera person did a pan of the restaurant in right field and my wife and her friend were dining at that moment, near the window.

Attached below is an image of a caterpillar eating a tomato, noted after today's early morning harvest.

It's Our Second Anniversary!

And today's harvest includes 15 Black Cherry, 11 Babywine, 6 Yellow Perfection, 5 Plum Tigris, 4 Paul Robeson, 3 Oaxacan Jewel(1), 2 Snow White(1), 2 Snow White(2), 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow, 2 Silvery Fir Tree, 2 Japanese Black Trifele, Turkish Striped Monastery, White Currant, Vintage Wine, Oaxacan Jewel(2) and a nice looking Black Krim (7 ounces) for a total of 59 tomatoes.

I know for a fact I picked a Sweet 100 and put it in the harvest basket, but when I pulled out the tomatoes for counting it had disappeared. Oh well.

We've now harvested over 4500 tomatoes from the front yard (4515)! I've noted that some of the front yard tomato plants (especially the two Snow White plants and Dr. Wyche's Yellow) are more green due to the cooler weather. I don't know if that will mean another run of tomatoes out of these plants but it does mean they are still quite healthy.

Last night my wife and I had an early celebration of our second anniversary at a nearby Argentinian restaurant. The food was delicious. We spent most of our time wondering how two years went by so fast.

Our actual second anniversary is today, September 15.

If you were at our wedding two years ago, you know how much fun it was for everyone involved. Please add your memories to the comments section of this thread/post. Thank you!

Reached 9000 Harvested Tomatoes For The Year!

Today's harvest includes 13 Black Cherry, 12 Babywine, 8 Yellow Perfection, 6 Snow White(1), 6 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 5 Garden Peach(2), 5 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 4 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Japanese Black Trifele, 3 Snow White(2), 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 White Currant, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Black From Tula (6 ounces, 9.5 ounces), 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Orange Blossom, Turkish Striped Monastery, Sweet 100, Tiger Paw, German Orange Strawberry, Amazon Chocolate, White Zebra, Vintage Wine, Black Krim, Oaxacan Jewel(1) and Dr. Wyche's Yellow for a total of 87 tomatoes.

Today's harvest is a significant drop off compared to yesterday's harvest. We're on the far side of the heat wave harvest bump.

Having said that, it did get up to 101 yesterday.

Thanks to this recent harvest bump, we've reached over 9000 harvested tomatoes for the year (9040)! It's been a very good year with a very good month so far.

Harvested Over 8500 Tomatoes For The Year!

Today's harvest includes 18 Black Cherry, 11 Garden Peach(2), 11 Snow White(2), 6 Babywine, 6 Yellow Perfection, 6 Snow White(1), 4 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 4 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 Black Krim (one 6 ounces), Oaxacan Jewel(1), Silvery Fir Tree, Vintage Wine, Japanese Black Trifele, Amazon Chocolate and Orange Blossom for a total of 84 tomatoes.

We've now reached over 8500 harvested tomatoes for the year (8512)!

Also, we've already reached more than half the estimated harvest total of 700 tomatoes for September (376) on the 6^th of the month.

The tomato “bump” is both a happy and bewildering event – the tomatoes look pretty good (in some cases quite good) but there was no way to predict this rise in the harvest totals! Exactly one week ago we picked 30 tomatoes for the day. Today, we're nearly triple that amount.

Today we didn't harvest from our container plants! The last day we did not harvest from a container plant was June 13.

We've now harvested over 1100 Snow White(1) tomatoes (1103)! Also, we've now harvested over 700 Black Cherry tomatoes (706) and over 400 Yellow Perfection tomatoes (405).

Now we have a good idea why we're having trouble finding caterpillars! Last night my wife and I were sitting near the back yard Husky Cherry Red plant. I hadn't mentioned yet that this plant has suffered some minor damage due to caterpillars simply because I can't find them! Nevertheless, my wife found one near the top of a damaged stem.

I looked it over (the caterpillar was at an odd angle) and yep, that's our second caterpillar! So I grabbed it, tossed it to the ground...and there was a praying mantis attached to the other end, eating it! That explains everything! The praying mantis bugs are taking care of the caterpillars for us!

We haven't harvested Black Krim or the Oaxacan Jewel(1) tomatoes in nearly a month.

Ranting About The Fire...

Today's harvest includes 6 Yellow Perfection, 4 Snow White(1), 3 Snow White(2), 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Black Cherry, 2 White Currant, 2 Babywine, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Red Grape, Silvery Fir Tree, Plum Tigris and Garden Peach(1) for a total of 31 tomatoes.

We haven't harvested from the Garden Peach(1) plant in nearly a month.

I've decided that Berkeley Tie Dye and the front yard Speckled Roman are ready to be pulled out of the ground. When I get around to it remains to be seen.

My wife watered more of the front yard yesterday.

Last night both my wife and I slept deeply, something we hadn't done in about a week. As mentioned in yesterday's update, there was some moisture in the air in the morning. Later in the day I heard there was a lot of ash falling for people living near the fire, and I think the two are related.

By the way, there has been some concern about the fire from people living outside Los Angeles. Thanks for your concern! But we're 20 miles away from the fire lines, no threat there.

After the fires are out in a few weeks, however, the problems aren't over. Even most people living in Los Angeles do not realize that there is a place in the city limits that's over 5000 feet in elevation (Mt. Lukens) and places in the county of Los Angeles that are nearly 10,000 feet high. Highway 2, the Angeles Crest Highway, gets to an elevation of over 7900 feet high.

The hills and mountains of the Angeles National Forest will be bare. A cool and cloudy day in December for the city of Los Angeles will at the same time have serious snowstorms in the mountains north of us.

Think about the next big rainstorm to hit Los Angeles. Think about in, oh say, March and April, 2010, when the snow melts in the Angeles National Forest. This may be a dramatic thing to write, but it's probable that Los Angeles will lose more houses to spring mudslides than to this fire.

There needs to be some serious planning and preparedness for those northern Los Angeles communities next to the Angeles National Forest. There will be tremendous debris (think mudslides and rockslides) coming down from the rivers and streams fed by this runoff. We have huge debris basins but I think there's no debris basin big enough to handle what will be coming down these mountains. Roads and trails will be washed out. The roads will get swept but who will fix the trails?

We'll be hearing about the effects of this fire for months and years to come.

Harvested Patio Princess Today!

And today's harvest includes 6 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 5 Snow White(1), 5 Snow White(2), 5 Paul Robeson, 4 Garden Peach(2), 3 Yellow Perfection, 3 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 2 Black Cherry, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Red Currant, 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 Babywine, Vintage Wine, Mong, Patio Princess, Red Grape, Mexico (10.5 ounces), White Zebra (6.5 ounces), Tiger Paw, Sweet 100 and a back yard Green Grape for a total of 50 tomatoes.

We finally got a reasonable Patio Princess tomato! We received this plant from Liz and Ricardo a few months back. It got planted in a small green plastic container and took off. However, the confines of this container came back to bite us. The growth was constricted. More importantly, the container would get too hot.

We've actually “harvested” about 20 tomatoes off of this plant but they've had terrible end rot. Unlike Speckled Roman, if a Patio Princess tomato has about 25 percent end rot, it's no good. You can salvage part of a Speckled Roman tomato, but not Patio Princess. And most of the tomatoes had around 50 percent end rot due to the container getting too warm.

This harvested tomato has end rot as well but it isn't bad, maybe 10 percent of the tomato.

The harvested Mexico tomato was a little odd. These oddities occur frequently at the end of the season. One side of the tomato, perhaps 65 percent of the tomato overall, was ripe and if anything, a little too ripe. The rest of the tomato was green. But not just green, a not ripe any time soon green, a “it's still three weeks away, if not more” green. That part will have to be cut away.

My wife watered all of the back yard and parts of the front yard. That's saying something because it got up to 103 degrees yesterday with our bad air from the fires.

There was some humidity and clouds in the air this morning. There's a tropical storm coming up from Baja and I believe we're seeing some moisture from it.

The tomato growing from the volunteer tomato plant also looks like Old Ivory Egg.

It's Still Hot, Dry and Smoky

Today's modest harvest includes 5 Snow White(2), 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Yellow Perfection, 3 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 Red Grape, 2 Paul Robeson, Snow White(1), Garden Peach(2), Orange Blossom, Black Cherry, Plum Tigris, Sweet 100, Jaune Flamme, Red Currant, a front yard Husky Cherry Red and Babywine for a total of 30 tomatoes.

We ended the month harvesting 3250 tomatoes, 1672 from the front yard and 1578 in the back yard.

The second Snow White plant has reached over 200 harvested tomatoes (203).

Saturday the temperature got up to 104 at Pierce College. Yesterday it reached 105 degrees.

We spent most of the afternoon and evening in Monrovia with our friends, Liz and Ricardo. We brought our rototiller (but couldn't get it started), got out of the bad air and heat of the San Fernando Valley and had an enjoyable time.

Harvested Over 4000 Front Yard Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes 5 Snow White(1), 4 Red Grape, 3 Yellow Perfection, 3 Snow White(2), 3 Black Cherry, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 White Zebra, 2 Sweet 100, 2 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 2 Italian Ice, 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 Red Currant, Orange Blossom, Mexico (18 ounces), Babywine, a front yard Husky Cherry Red and Oaxacan Jewel(2) for a total of 37 tomatoes.

My wife and I spent most of our afternoon in Thousand Oaks. That got us away from the bad air in the west San Fernando Valley (due to the fires), off to an early dinner in Newbury Park and then to a soccer game in Thousand Oaks where a cousin's daughter was playing soccer. They lost 2-1 and she got red carded. Oh well.

We've now harvested over 4000 tomatoes in the front yard this year! Earlier this month, we had harvested more front yard tomatoes than back yard tomatoes. But the harvest on the two Snow White plants dropped significantly and the back yard harvest total took over once again (4013 – 4093).

This is the first time the air was bad in the morning. The fires must be spreading.

Harvested Over 300 Back Yard Husky Cherry Red Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes 7 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 5 Snow White(1), 3 Red Grape, 3 German Orange Strawberry, 3 Black Cherry, 3 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Garden Peach(2), 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Sweet 100, 2 Snow White(2), Mong, Vintage Wine, Babywine, a front yard Husky Cherry Red, Oaxacan Jewel(2), Red Currant, Italian Ice, Yellow Perfection and White Currant for a total of 41 total tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 300 back yard Husky Cherry Red tomatoes (304).

After the harvest, I pulled out the front yard Mexico and the Aunt Ruby's German Green plants.

No Saturday “bump” today.

Yesterday reached 104 degrees.

My wife watered the front yard yesterday.

Reached 8000 Harvested Tomatoes For The Year!

And today's harvest includes 7 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 7 Red Grape, 6 Snow White(2), 4 Sweet 100, 3 Black Cherry, 3 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (12 ounces, 7 ounces), 2 Snow White(1), 2 Babywine, 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, a back yard Green Grape, a front yard Green Grape, Mong, Oaxacan Jewel(2), Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, Italian Ice and Yellow Perfection for a total of 48 tomatoes.

We've now reached over 8000 harvested tomatoes for the year! It's been a good year, lots of very good tomatoes.

However, the high yesterday at Pierce College was at 3:00 PM – 107.5 degrees. Today may be hotter. What that means is that any new blooms will definitely be sterile. That also means I doubt very seriously we'll make it to 10,000 tomatoes this year. Even 9000 harvested tomatoes could be an issue.

Am I disappointed? Hardly! It's been a real fun year with some great tasting tomatoes. I wished I had added more compost to the soil, but at the time we were in a cash crunch and my rototiller was being held hostage – so it just faded away. Last year I probably prepared the soil better than this year, but a similar heat wave hit in June and we had a small crop and only so-so quality.

I see a lot of plants are starting to look pale. Aunt Ruby's German Green has several tomatoes on it but they weren't growing. I took a closer look this morning and these tomatoes are shriveling. The plant may be dead. Plum Tigris is all of a sudden turning pale. Jaune Flamme looks very bad all of as sudden. It's the cycle of life for a tomato plant.

This heat will kill a lot of the plants in a couple weeks.

Sweet 100 has reached over 200 harvested tomatoes for the year (202).