2012 Tomato Analysis

We ended up with 12,199 harvested tomatoes for the year, our highest ever. To be fair, we had our highest number of tomato plants at 93. However, we tilted the extra tomatoes toward larger ones. Our ratio of small/medium/large was skewed away from the smaller tomatoes.

Here's the totals for prior years.

2007 -- 10,990
2008 -- 4,503
2009 -- 11,155
2010 -- 8,092
2011 -- 9,178

So all in all a very good year. The only disappointments were our Pineapple Pig tomatoes were just okay (they absolutely knocked our socks off in 2011) and we only got one Italian Tree tomato.

Our top ten tomato harvests for 2012 were:

SunGold -- 3911
Husky Cherry Red(1) -- 1006
Husky Cherry Red(2) -- 789
Black Cherry(1) -- 786
Snow White(1) -- 416
Snow White(2) -- 407
Yellow Perfection -- 246
SunSugar -- 244
Red Currant -- 219
Black Cherry(2) -- 183

Note: In all of 2008 we harvested 4500 tomatoes. We harvested 3900 tomatoes off of one plant this year. This year's SunGold was simply amazing.

Highlights: Indigo Rose was both unique in color (think blueberry) and the taste reminded me of a plum. We will grow this again. Indigo Apple was similar. Persimmon was beautiful. I don't think there were tomatoes that absolutely knocked our socks off but we had plenty of really really good ones. It's hard to think of a tomato that we didn't like this year. Looking it over...the 3 Green Zebras weren't good because the plant was diseased. But I can list at least 60 that I'd grow again (for instance, Brad's Black Heart).

I believe what's happening is we're slowly improving the garden year by year, especially the back yard. We pull out rocks and fill every year (and this year, even bricks!). In February we brought in a lot of compost, which helped. We may do it again this year.

All in all a very good year with an incredible SunGold plant.