Harvested Over 800 Front Yard Snow White Tomatoes!

October 8 harvest: 2 Snow White (front yard), Brown Berry and Snow White (back yard) for a total of 4 tomatoes.

October 9 harvest: 7 Snow White (front yard), Red Currant(2) and White Currant for a total of 9 tomatoes.

October 11 harvest: 4 Red Grape, 3 Snow White (front yard), Husky Cherry Red, SunSugar, Yellow Pear and White Currant for a total of 11 tomatoes.

October 21 harvest: 38 Snow White (front yard), 2 SunSugar, 2 White Currant, 2 Red Grape and Red Currant(1) for a total of 45 tomatoes.

October 23 harvest: 26 Snow White (front yard), 3 White Currant, 2 SunSugar, Husky Cherry Red, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Big Pink, Yellow Pear and Red Grape for a total of 36 tomatoes.

October 26 harvest: 16 Snow White (front yard), 4 SunSugar, Red Currant(2) and White Currant for a total of 22 tomatoes.

October 27 harvest: 9 Snow White (front yard), 3 SunSugar and Red Currant(2) for a total of 13 tomatoes.

And today's harvest consisted of 19 Snow White (front yard), 3 SunSugar, 2 Red Currant(2), 2 Snow White (back yard), Sweet 100 and White Currant for a total of 28 tomatoes.

In the last 3 ½ weeks the front yard Snow White plant has gotten a second wind. It got so tall that it's crushed all the supports and has basically fallen to the south. The recently harvested SunSugar tomatoes are the largest on the plant this year, larger than the first initial flush of tomatoes on this plant.

Many plants have been pulled and more could be pulled if I could find the time.

We've now harvested over 800 front yard Snow White tomatoes (824)!

We ended up harvesting 261 tomatoes for the month of October and have harvested 7788 tomatoes this year so far. There's an outside chance that the strength of the front yard Snow White could get us to the 8000 harvest plateau.

My wife and I were away for a week between the 11^th and the 21^st. Her relatives stayed at our house to take care of our dogs.

I've started a new job on October 26. I'm doing full time consulting work for a large bank. I was unexpectedly laid off from my full time job on August 26.

You'd be surprised what a battle it is to keep all the paperwork in order after one gets laid off. COBRA coverage has been an exhausting battle. It's probably taken around 60 – 70 phone calls to various entities to get the coverage reflected by my health insurance carrier. Just yesterday I got a letter in the mail and I'm now technically not enrolled with my primary physician anymore. I hope to straighten that out with one phone call, but that remains to be seen.

I got my 401K moved to a rollover IRA. That took several phone calls, forms, a notarization, more signatures and whatnot but it seemed to go relatively smoothly.

I needed to start up my company again (it was shuttered earlier this year) and get liability insurance in preparation for this new consulting opportunity. I just filed another IRS form yesterday in relation to starting up my company again. There's two more to be filed within 60 days (along with some more money).

I've been getting quotes from health insurance companies to prepare from switching over from COBRA to a company paid health insurance. I didn't get too far with this, but there's more to come.

I filed for unemployment and I'm still trying to get my claims processed for the time I spent unemployed. I've sent out at least 5 certified letters to various agencies, including one yesterday. We'll see how it goes.

I met with my accountant to go over all of this and he helped point me in the right direction with these and plenty of other matters. It was taking me 4 – 5 hours a day just handling phone calls, faxing, copying, sending out snail mail and emails, just trying to push these processes along. It was (is) easily a part time job in and of itself.

This new job will probably not allow the flexibility needed to update this blog as consistently as I have in the past. The issue isn't now (the season is long over except for the few plants that have lasted) but during the spring and summer of next year. Let's hope I can continue to find the time and commitment to continue to post!

Harvested Over 400 Violet Jasper Tomatoes!

And today's harvest includes 8 Violet Jasper, 5 SunGold, 4 Lyn's Mahogany Garnet, 3 Stupice, 2 Sweet Tangerine, 2 Dr. Wyches's Yellow(2), 2 Marianna's Peace, 2 Enchantment, 2 Gajo de Melon, 2 Red Grape, Babywine, Persimmon, Brown Berry, Yellow Pear, Weeping Charlie, Pineapple, Black From Tula, Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart and Sara Black (7 ounces) for a total of 41 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 400 Violet Jasper tomatoes (403)! Today's Violet Jasper tomatoes are about half the size (or smaller) compared to the ones harvested two months ago but the plant still has a fair amount of growing tomatoes.

My wife watered the back yard tomato plants yesterday and the front yard tomato plants the day before.

I pulled out three more tomato plants, all in the front yard: Michael Pollan, Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge and Black Krim.

The new volunteer tomato plant died in last week's heat wave. And the caterpillar has disappeared as well.

Harvested Over 1500 Tomatoes For August!

Today's harvest includes 22 Snow White (front yard), 5 Yellow Perfection, 3 Violet Jasper, 3 Principe Borghese, 3 Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart, 3 SunGold, 3 Snow White (back yard), 2 Enchantment, 2 Azoychka/not Azoychka, 2 Jaune Flamme(2), 2 Poma Amoris Minora Lutea, 2 Husky Cherry Red, Patio, Stupice, Aunt Ruby's German Green(1), Babywine, SunSugar, Topaz, Carmello, Red Currant(1), Red Currant(2), Jaune Flamme(1), Plum Tigris, Red Boar, Yellow Pear, Gajo de Melon, Black, Gypsy, Red Grape and Pineapple (8 ounces) for a total of 70 tomatoes.

My wife watered the back yard tomato plants last night.

Big Pink has a maturing tomato on it.

We've now harvested over 1500 tomatoes for August (1538)! It looks like we'll end up around 2000 harvested tomatoes for the month.

My Orthodontist Gets Today's Harvest

Today's harvest includes 20 Snow White (front yard), 10 SunGold, 7 Yellow Perfection, 4 Snow White (back yard), 3 Husky Cherry Red, 2 Japanese Black Trifele, 2 Poma Amoris Minora Lutea, 2 Weeping Charlie, 2 Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart, 2 Red Grape, Stupice, Aunt Ruby's German Green(1), Taxi, Red Currant(1), Brown Berry, Green Grape, Yellow Pear, Red Boar, Sweet Tangerine, Marianna's Peace, Jaune Flamme(2) and Gajo de Melon for a total of 66 tomatoes.

It's hot again – yesterday got up to 102.6 at Pierce College.

I'll be giving today's harvest and part of yesterday's harvest to my orthodontist. I have an appointment later in the morning and they requested some of our tomatoes.

Tonight I'll be speaking at the Los Angeles Visual FoxPro Users Group in Westchester, California. I hope to see you there tonight at 7:30!

Harvested 100 Japanese Black Trifele/Babywine Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 21 SunGold, 7 Husky Cherry Red, 6 Snow White (front yard), 6 White Currant, 5 Garden Peach, 4 Red Currant(1), 3 Brown Berry, 3 Nyagous, 3 Azoychka/not Azoychka, 3 Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge, 2 Red Grape, 2 Jaune Flamme(2), 2 Sara Black (6.5 ounces), 2 Poma Amoris Minora Lutea, 2 Babywine, Japanese Black Trifele, Violet Jasper, Stupice, Patio, Large Pink Anna (6 ounces), Black Krim (8.5 ounces), Persimmon (7 ounces), Green Grape, Yellow Pear, Principe Borghese, Speckled Roman, Gajo de Melon and Yellow Perfection for a total of 84 tomatoes.

We've now harvested exactly 100 Japanese Black Trifele and Babywine tomatoes. The strange thing about Japanese Black Trifele is it originates from Russia. How it got this name isn't clear.

Harvested Aunt Ruby's German Green and Persimmon!

Today's harvest includes 15 White Currant, 14 Violet Jasper, 13 SunGold, 7 Red Currant(2), 7 Red Grape, 6 Dr. Wyche's Yellow(2) (one 6 ounces), 5 Marianna's Peace, 4 Japanese Black Trifele, 4 Husky Cherry Red, 3 Snow White (back yard), 3 Black Krim (9 ounces, 13.5 ounces, 11 ounces), 3 Green Grape, 2 Jaune Flamme(2), 2 Zapotec Pleated, 2 Ananas Noire, 2 Red Boar, 2 Brown Berry, 2 Babywine, Patio, Stupice, Miss Elliotte Black, Topaz, Taxi, Lyn's Mahogany Garnet, Principe Borghese, Yellow Pear, Speckled Roman, Black From Tula, Yellow Perfection, Gajo de Melon, Plum Tigris, Depp's Pink Firefly, Red Currant(1), Gypsy, Aunt Ruby's German Green(1) (new, 11 ounces) and Persimmon (new, 9 ounces) for a total of 114 tomatoes.

It was quite hot yesterday. The temperature got up to 106.8 degrees at Pierce College, about a mile away. Some of today's harvested tomatoes have different shades of color due to differing maturation on the fruit. For instance, some of the White Currant had deep yellowish white shoulders (indicating it was quite ready) but the rest of the tomato had a faint greenish hue (indicating it wasn't quite there). In other words, it was so hot that it was causing maturation differences within the same tomato.

My wife watered some of the back yard tomatoes two days ago and finished the job yesterday.

We haven't done too much with the tomatoes this week, short of collect them. We've been in the middle of tiling the kitchen floor, having to move all of the appliances out of the kitchen, getting the floor put in, getting the back splash put in, getting it all grouted and such. The original plumber, who said he'd help move the appliances, went on a two week vacation without notice. With the help of a good friend of ours we got the appliances moved out but had a heck of a time getting them back in to place. The refrigerator was easy. The stove was relatively easy. The dishwasher was put in place but due to the less leg room, the hot water line couldn't quite be hooked up correctly. So no hot water for the kitchen sink. The washer/dryer was put into place only to realize the water wasn't turned on. So we pulled it out and turned it on. Since we pulled out the washer/dryer the legs were adjusted so that the pair didn't lean to the left. It was put back in place, all was well except for the dishwasher/hot water line and our friend left about 2:00 AM Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

So my wife ran the washing machine and soon there was water on the floor. So we called our friend back (he had just drove away), pulled the stacked washer/dryer out again and ran an empty load. I found a leak underneath the washing machine and my friend found the source. Okay, that explains why the subflooring had decayed underneath the washing machine when we originally pulled it out, the leak was always there and only now was it discovered.

My friend came by last night to finish off the dishwasher so now we have hot water in the kitchen sink. We have repairmen coming to fix the washing machine today and another problem my wife found last night – the dishwasher door has issues.

But the tile floor/back splash/riser look great while the tomatoes collect.

The harvested Aunt Ruby's German Green was a surprise. I did not look ready to the eye but it felt ready. I went by feel.

There is a tomato called Persimmon. This isn't that tomato. This is a plant supplied by the Tomato Lady of Beverly Hills. It looks a lot like Weeping Charlie, only orange in color. My wife saw it and she said it looked like a persimmon.

Harvested Pineapple and Depp's Pink Firefly!

Today's harvest includes 16 White Currant, 10 SunGold, 10 Violet Jasper, 9 Husky Cherry Red, 6 Snow White (back yard), 5 Gypsy, 5 Red Grape, 4 Red Currant(2), 4 Principe Borghese, 3 Marianna's Peace, 3 Zapotec Pleated, 3 Green Grape, 2 Stupice, 2 Topaz, 2 Red Currant(1), 2 Brown Berry, 2 Yellow Pear, 2 Speckled Roman, 2 Pineapple (new, 14.5 ounces, 14 ounces), Snow White (front yard), Babywine, SunSugar, Weeping Charlie, Red Boar, Sweet Tangerine (6 ounces), Ananas Noire, Jaune Flamme(2) and Depp's Pink Firefly (new) for a total of 101 tomatoes.

Almost all of our tomatoes were given away by the morning, including today's harvest. We are having a tile floor put in the kitchen and that meant clearing everything out of the kitchen. No room for tomatoes!

One of the places where we dropped off tomatoes was at our “seed lady”. We then visited in the afternoon and tried one of the Pineapple tomatoes. Very interesting tomato. My wife and I liked this tomato but neither of us fell in love with it, yet we can understand why this can be a favorite for others. It's a very mellow taste that doesn't remind you of a tomato at all. This won't sound appealing at all but seems somewhat tasteless. What's really going on when you taste this tomato is you get the gentle sweetness up front without the acid taste at the end. Thus the “tastelessness” is really the lack of an acid kick at the end. Recommended.

Harvested Green Zebra!

Today's harvest includes 14 Violet Jasper, 8 SunGold, 8 White Currant, 6 Stupice, 5 Yellow Perfection, 5 Red Currant(1), 4 Garden Peach, 4 Red Grape, 3 Zapotec Pleated, 3 Marianna's Peace, 3 Speckled Roman, 3 Brown Berry, 3 Black Cherry, 3 Snow White (front yard), 2 Black Krim (one 8.5 ounces), 2 Principe Borghese, 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Sweet Tangerine, 2 Nyagous, 2 Ananas Noire (one 8 ounces), Gajo de Melon, Black From Tula (6 ounces), Dr. Wyche's Yellow(2), Red Boar, Yellow Pear, Topaz, Japanese Black Trifele, Husky Cherry Red and Green Zebra (new) for a total of 93 tomatoes.

I added fertilizer to the container plants but the fertilizer hasn't been watered in yet. I should also add that my wife continues to add bird netting around the tomato plants whose tomatoes show bird damage (Ananas Noire comes to mind).

So many tomatoes are maturing that I can't keep track of them all. There were at least three more I saw today. Obviously, we harvested one of the newly maturing tomatoes, Green Zebra.

There was actually a slight mist in the air and the exposed section of the newspaper was wet, though it thoroughly dried inside our house.

There is supposed to be a heat wave later this week. Let's wait and see.

Harvested Yellow Pear!

Today's harvest includes 7 White Currant, 4 Husky Cherry Red, 4 Principe Borghese, 3 Black Cherry, 3 SunGold, 3 Red Grape, 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 Speckled Roman, 2 Stupice, 2 Violet Jasper, 2 Patio, Babywine, Black Krim (8 ounces), SunSugar, Garden Peach, Taxi, Brown Berry, Red Currant(1), Red Currant(2), Jaune Flamme(1), Topaz, Sweet Tangerine, Black From Tula, Nyagous, Gypsy, Thessaloniki, Ananas Noire and Yellow Pear (new) for a total of 51 tomatoes weighing in at 3 pounds, 12 ounces.

My wife spent 3 hours yesterday canning tomatoes into 4 mason jars.

The Yellow Pear wasn't a surprise – it had been ripening for a couple of days. The maturing Plum Tigris is still maturing, but still isn't ready. A Jaune Flamme(2) (the one in the raised bed) is maturing.

The weather has been a little on the cool side for most of June – low to mid 80's for the most part. No days in the 100's that I can remember. So the fruit has been setting, the plants are growing. Everything is set up for a good July month.

Two More Plants With New Tomatoes

Two more tomato plants have new tomatoes on them: German Orange Strawberry and Yellow Pear.

I did some more “training” as you would expect at this time of the season.

This morning we harvested some potatoes growing in a pot. After the harvest my wife indicated she'd plant Big Pink in this container. I suggested that we move the newly planted Ildi to this pot and plant Big Pink where Ildi is. She liked that suggestion. However, we need to purchase some more soil before we can do this.

Later on, my wife watered the back yard tomato plants in the ground.

By the way, I did send out electronic notices for my 2010 documents last Saturday. If you're interested in viewing these, send me a note and I'll get you access.

Planted And Replanted Some More...

In the evening I planted SunGold in the space occupied by White Giant. I caged four of the tomato plants in the “koi pond”. Then I went in the back yard, took some needle-nosed pliers and fixed the cages the best I could.

I mixed potting soil and planting compost for a couple of back yard pots. In the first one my wife planted two Red Currant tomato plants. The second, larger pot contained Green Grape, Yellow Pear and Red Cherry. We also planted Green Zebra next to Sara Black.

We have one seedling left that my wife grew from seed in the ground (in a pot, actually, with Taxi), Sweetie. A couple of days ago I noticed the color was getting better. Yesterday my wife and I both noticed it had grown slightly.