Ildi Died -- Cutworms or Windstorm?

In the late morning my wife called and told me that Ildi was dead. She noted it had the same damage that Saint Pierre had – weakness at the stem – and also in the same pot.

It's interesting to note that we had a bit of a windstorm two days before Saint Pierre died. Coincidence? We don't know. A likely scenario is that there's a cutworm in the soil that took out these two plants. To prevent further damage, I brought home a bunch of toothpicks during lunch hour. Later in the afternoon my wife strategically placed them into the soil around the remaining seedlings.

In the evening we ate the Stupice tomato. It was good, though perhaps a tad watery from being slightly overripe. My wife thought the skin was a little thick. The taste reminds us of Husky Cherry Red – simple tomato taste.

This morning I did a lot of “training”, a little over a half hour's worth of maneuvering branches. I could have done even more.

I noticed that Sweetie and Emerald Evergreen have tomatoes on them.

Harvested Stupice

Today's harvest: Stupice.

I posted last night so there wasn't much change since then. A little bit of training and I harvested the one tomato.

But I did notice a tomato on Depp's Pink Firefly this morning.

Harvested Our First Tomato!

Saturday night we finally planted Big Pink. We're now managing 77 plants and three seedlings.

Later in the night I adjusted the on line 2010 Back Yard Tomatoes document and the 2010 Tomatoes spreadsheet to reflect the new tomato.

We harvested our first tomato Sunday morning! As you see above, well, it wasn't much of a tomato. It's a Red Currant, even smaller than the average Red Currant, which is tiny enough. I ate it. It didn't have much flavor but then again, there wasn't much tomato to taste.

My wife informed me that a Stupice was turning. By the time I looked at it the tomato was turning red. It appears to be about four ounces in weight.

We spent most of Sunday at a party at Liz and Ricardos. We had a great time!

Today I did a little bit of training and noticed that Pink Berkeley Tie Dye has a tomato on it. I can't find the growing tomato on Depp's Pink Firefly so I might have a false alarm there. I'll continue to try to locate the tomato on that plant.

I didn't harvest the Stupice and will probably harvest it tomorrow

We spent the afternoon at my wife's parent's house.

First Ripening Tomato Spotted!

Last night I watered some roses and most of the vegetable garden in the back yard. This morning I completed the back yard watering for all of our plants and vegetables.

In the afternoon I went looking at the plants in the front yard. I discovered that Miss Elliotte Black has two very tiny tomatoes growing on it. This is the first plant from the Tomato Lady of Beverly Hills to sprout a tomato.

Then I poked around the back yard. I was pleasantly surprised to see Red Currant(2) with a ripening tomato! Red Currant(2) isn't very big at all and I haven't been paying too much attention to it.

We'll definitely harvest that tiny tomato before the month is over.

Watered/Fertilized Containers; Two More Plants With Tomatoes

No work done last night – both my wife and I were exhausted from our day's activities. Both of us went to bed early and fell asleep quickly.

This morning I fertilized all of our tomato container plants and watered them. Then I went around and did some minor training. While doing this on a misty morning, I noted that Sara Black and Depp's Pink Firefly had tomatoes on them.

I believe that leaves 15 plants without tomatoes.

Four More Plants With New Tomatoes

There isn't much to say until we start harvesting. The chores are done.

The three seedlings with Ildi continue to grow slowly. Ildi is looking okay as well. If those three seedlings bear fruit and we plant Big Pink, we'd be managing 80 tomato plants.

I did more training this morning and noticed new tomatoes on four plants: Carmello (coincidentally – see last post), Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart, Black Zebra and Azoychka.

Last year our first harvested tomato occurred on May 23. I don't see any tomatoes in the process of ripening (though some Taxi tomatoes may be a few days away from that). Will we harvest in May?

Joe Cocker Grows Tomatoes

My baby grew me a Carmello...

http://www.gjsentinel.com/lifestyle/articles/joe_cocker_tends_tomatoes_to_u/

Garden Images

Here's some iPhone images from our back yard. You can see our raised bed and our Manchester Terrier in two of the images.

Caught Up!

Last night I did some more “training” and taped up all the tomatoes. I'm caught up on all the chores!

This morning I added a “moat” to the front yard volunteer.

My wife indicated that some of the moats in the back yard could be bigger. I'm not sure which ones, though.

I didn't see any new tomatoes this morning or last night.

We have three Aunt Ruby's German Green tomato plants, but none with tomatoes. All three are very healthy and I expect tomatoes on all of them. None of the four tomato plants from the Tomato Lady of Beverly Hills has a tomato. The three in the “koi pond” are a little slow but are a lush green and will produce. The one in the container in the back yard doesn't seem to be growing all that much. Neither of the two Berkeley Tie Dye variants (Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart and Pink Berkeley Tie Dye) have tomatoes but they're healthy – it's just a matter of time.

Now it's maintenance!

A Weekend of Chores; 5 More Plants With New Tomatoes

Another busy weekend – with chores.

First, I visited Fry's Electronics to get some 12 gallon plastic bins and a part for our fax machine. These bins were to be used to hold original TV scripts and copies of these same scripts. Sounds simple, right?

We have 12 gallon bins stacked from floor to ceiling at our residence, with the script bins somewhere near the bottom. So I had to unstack everything and take it all outside. Then I had to file the script copies and originals in order, then balance the load among the script bins. Then I had to redistribute and stack the bins back in their prior location. Overall it took about four hours. The tough part is lugging around the heavy bins.

While this was being worked on, I noticed that Ildi was wilting. I gave it some more water.

After the bin work I took a shower and then stepped out for a while to finish up some work for a client and prepared some emails. I came home and sent out the emails.

I changed back into gardening clothes and brought some soil bags from the front yard into the back yard. I got some clippers and a hand tool and began working on the backyard moats for the tomato plants and trimmed some more of the undergrowth. But I couldn't complete the task – I was just too exhausted from the script filing work.

I did notice that Pineapple and Black Oxheart had tomatoes on it.

On Sunday I watered the front yard tomatoes and turned a bunch of dirt on the south side of the back yard. Then I finished up the moat and trimming work in the back yard. Now all that's left is taping up some of the branches but this will take some time. For now I plan to start tomato taping tonight.

Ildi wasn't looking that much better so my wife dug it up to take a closer look at it. She also noticed that two more seedlings had sprouted in the pot so she transplanted Ildi in a new area within the same pot. She trimmed the leaves as well. So we could have up to four tomato plants competing in this one large pot.

This morning I “trained” all the plants. I noticed that Dr. Wyche's Yellow(1), Black and Gajo de Melon have tomatoes on them.

I'm counting 21 tomato plants without tomatoes, so 55 tomato plants have tomatoes on them. The three new seedlings aren't factored in at this point.