Reached 4400 Harvested Tomatoes!

And today's haul includes 2 Piccolos, Green Grape, Black Plum Paste and Black Krim (back yard).

I found a full sized caterpillar on Pierce's Pride. It had done some pretty good damage, leaving bare stems behind it.

My wife made a sauce with the tomatoes last night. I took a couple of pictures of the blanched tomatoes. I'll get an image on this blog some time next week.

I waterd the back yard and taped up Kellogg's Breakfast, which has a bad lean.

We reached over 4400 harvested tomatoes for this year!

Fading Away...

Today's harvest: Piccolo, Evan's Italian Plum and Olga's Round Yellow Chicken.

Not much to report, as you can see. But this is typical for this time of year, given that the valley is so hot.

It looks like I'll have Black From Tula pulled this weekend.

A Dwindling Harvest...

And today's haul includes 3 Piccolos, Salisaw Cafe, Sioux, Black Krim (back yard) and Black Cherry.

I forgot to mention that my mother in law took the skin off and blanched all the harvested tomatoes over the weekend. My wife was thrilled when she found out.

My mother in law took the Pacific Surfliner (Amtrak) up from San Juan Capistrano to Chatsworth on Friday. It was the first time she tried this train and she absolutely loved it. However, about a half hour later the devastating train crash occurred just north of the Chatsworth station.

The Chatsworth station was to reopen on Monday afternoon, but was later delayed. So on Monday afternoon I took her to Union Station to catch the train back to San Juan Capistrano.

I think I may have Jaune Flamme pulled this weekend. It was getting new growth and a couple blooms but I think the recent heat wave burned out the blooms.

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!!

Dinner At Castaways...

Today's weak harvest included 3 Piccolos, an Evan's Italian Plum and Stupice.

I found two caterpillars this morning, one on Aker's Plum and another on Thessaloniki.

Yesterday my wife and I had an anniversary dinner at Castaways Restaurant in Burbank (our wedding venue), getting home late. This morning I was expecting to harvest a Carbon tomato...but it wasn't around. I'm sure the Manchester Terrier got to it as we weren't able to feed them dinner until around 11PM. I can't blame the dog, he was hungry...

My mother in law indicated that she found some caterpillars over the weekend.

By the way, now is a good time to check for caterpillars. It's hot outside (it got up to 101 in the valley) and caterpillars will hide. Wait for a few hours after sunset and go out with a flashlight. The critters will be hungry and will be eating voraciously.

Back From A Busy Weekend...

Today's harvest includes 3 Old Ivory Eggs, 3 Cherokee Chocolates, 3 Piccolos, Italian Market Wonder, Lime Green Salad (back yard), Evan's Italian Plum (6 ounces), Aker's Plum and Stupice.

My mother in law watered the front and back yards over the weekend.

I found some indication of a caterpillar on Aker's Plum, and found a full sized one almost immediately.

I'll write more when I can find the time, but I'm still catching up from the weekend...

Twelve Tomatoes, Ten Caterpillars

Today's haul includes 3 Salisaw Cafes, 2 Evan's Italian Plums, Stupice, Old Ivory Egg, Italian Market Wonder, Black Plum Paste, a tiny Polish Pastel, Carbon and Piccolo.

Forgot to mention in the last post: Micro Tom was pulled on Wednesday.

Last evening I taped up several plants, including Thessaloniki, which needed lots of tape. The taping exposed the caterpillars that I suspected were on the plant. From that evening, night and this morning I believe I found three adult caterpillars and a couple small caterpillars on Thessaloniki alone, a couple on Evan's Italian Plum and several others for a total of around 10 caterpillars.

I need to get some more of the thin tomato tape.

We've had mild weather this past week. I'm seeing blooms on tomato plants that I haven't seen in about a month.

Salisaw Cafe is ahead of Piccolo again for second place (313 – 312).

I've had requests to post more pictures on this blog. Unfortunately at this time of the year, the tomato plants aren't very picturesque at all.

There won't be any weekend updates to this blog. My wife and I will be leaving tonight to go to the Carmel TomatoFest. The next update will be Monday (our first wedding anniversary!).

Seven Tomatoes, Eight Caterpillars

Today's harvest includes 2 Cherokee Chocolates, Salisaw Cafe, Piccolo, Stupice, Evan's Italian Plum (10 ounces) and Italian Market Wonder.

Last night while throwing out the trash I took another look at Kimberly, looking for caterpillars. There's been damage, but I couldn't find anything. But, on the way back to the house, I spotted a large caterpillar. So I went to the south end of the backyard and quickly spotted a caterpillar on Evan's Italian Plum.

So I changed shoes and checked the front and back yards for caterpillars, finding one on Red Yellow Cap.

While harvesting this morning, I found two more large caterpillars on Red Yellow Cap and another one on Evan's Italian Plum.

I noticed clear remains of caterpillars on Thessaloniki last night and today but couldn't find anything. But when I left for work, I spotted a small caterpillar on Thessaloniki. I tossed it, looked again and found an even smaller one. I showed it to my wife who couldn't believe how tiny it was. However, these two caterpillars can't account for all the droppings I see below the plant. Something bigger is munching on the plant.

So I picked seven tomatoes and eight caterpillars.

Reached 3000 Harvested Front Yard Tomatoes!

And the haul for today includes 4 Aker's Plums (6 ounces, 6 ounces), 2 Cherokee Chocolates, 2 Piccolos, Stupice, Black Krim, Italian Market Wonder and Black Cherry.

I was surprised to see the ripe Aker's Plum tomatoes. There was a very bushy area I was afraid to touch. Carefully I moved a few branches in the air and hey, look what I found!

I watered the back yard last night.

Last night, my wife made sauce out of the purchased Garden Peach tomatoes.

With the 2 Piccolo tomatoes, Piccolo has overtaken Salisaw Cafe for the second spot on the harvest total (310 – 309). More importantly, we reached exactly 3000 harvested tomatoes in the front yard!