The Volunteer Has A Tomato On It!

Today's harvest: 4 Snow White, Cherokee Purple.

The harvest didn't really happen this morning. By the time I was ready to harvest it was 10:30 in the morning. The sun was too high and I risked sunburn so I passed on a full harvest.

Yesterday I took out Beaverlodge Plum, the front yard Garden Peach, the front yard Paul Robeson and Cherokee Purple.

Cherokee Purple had a small mature tomato on it so I kept it. I took the cage for Cherokee Purple, flattened it and slipped it underneath some of the Snow White branches. This will help a tiny bit in keeping some of the branches off the ground. When I picked up the branches I found four mature tomatoes.

I completed watering the front yard tomato plants.

The big news is that the volunteer has a tomato on it! The plant has recently had a growth spurt and is now showing a tiny tomato! I'll have to adjust the spreadsheet to reflect this new tomato. I believe it to be Old Ivory Egg but I'll just add it as “Volunteer” for now.

Since I need to adjust the on line spreadsheet, I'll change Super Snow White to Snow White(2).

Harvested 3000 Front Yard Tomatoes in 2009!

Today's harvest includes 20 Red Currant, 19 Snow White, 18 Black Cherry, 12 Babywine, 8 Super Snow White, 7 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 5 White Currant, 5 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 4 back yard Garden Peach(2), 4 front yard Green Grape, 2 White Zebra, 2 Red Grape, 2 Berkeley Tie Dye (one 7.5 ounces), 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Sweet 100, a tiny Beaverlodge Plum, Yellow Perfection, a back yard Speckled Roman (thin, but zero end rot!), Aunt Ruby's German Green, a back yard Paul Robeson, Japanese Black Trifele, Tiger Paw, a back yard Green Grape, a back yard Mexico (20 ounces) Husky Gold, Italian Ice, SunSugar, Jaune Flamme, Oaxacan Jewel(1) (6 ounces), Oaxacan Jewel(2) and a front yard Husky Cherry Red for a total of 128 tomatoes.

As of today we've now harvested exactly 3000 tomatoes from the front yard!

That also means that I missed the fact that we reached over 6000 harvested tomatoes yesterday.

Another missed item: My wife and I watered most of, if not all of, the back yard on Friday.

One of the things Scott Daigre mentioned at the Loteria Grill tomato tasting was this: How do you tell a green tomato is ripe? It turns yellow at the bottom. It's excellent advice, but White Zebra is an exception. It doesn't get yellow at the bottom. This tomato at maturity is slightly ruddier than the unripe White Zebra. But color is the second test of maturity for this tomato. The first test is touch. If the skin is softer, then check the color for ruddiness. I've never harvested a tomato before in which the first maturity test is feel.

The Oaxacan Jewel from the first plant was a little lucky. The first plant is completely doubled over. I picked it up to look inside. I noticed a couple of unripe tomatoes so there was no need to pull it out. But right in the crease of the fold was a ripe six ounce tomato ready to be harvested.

Harvested A 30 Ounce Mexico Tomato Today!

And today's harvest includes 33 Snow White, 29 Red Currant, 25 Black Cherry, 14 Babywine, 13 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 11 Yellow Perfection, 8 back yard Garden Peach(2), 7 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 7 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 6 Tiger Paw, 5 White Currant, 5 back yard Green Grape, 5 Amazon Chocolate, 5 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 4 back yard Garden Peach(1), 3 Black From Tula (one 9 ounces), 3 Japanese Black Trifele (one 9 ounces), 3 front yard Speckled Roman, 3 Berkeley Tie Dye (11 ounces, 9.5 ounces, 17 ounces), 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (8 ounces, 18 ounces), 2 Black Krim (one 6 ounces), 2 Super Snow White, 2 Mong, 2 Silvery Fir Tree, 2 Patio, 2 SunSugar, 2 back yard Mexico (20.5 ounces, 30 ounces [not a misprint]), 2 Cuor de Bue, 2 Pierce's Pride (one 8.5 ounces), 2 Plum Tigris, German Orange Strawberry, Sweet 100, Oaxacan Jewel(1) (9.5 ounces), a front yard Garden Peach, Vintage Wine, Red Grape, Jaune Flamme and Beaverlodge Plum for a total of 219 tomatoes.

Wow! The garden, especially the back yard, must have heard me when I said they were looking tired and somewhat exhausted. Look at the sizes of some of today's harvest: Back yard Mexico (30 ounces), back yard Mexico (20.5 ounces), Dr. Wyche's Yellow (18 ounces), Berkeley Tie Dye (17 ounces), Berkeley Tie Dye (11 ounces)...that's 6 pounds of tomatoes right there.

Speaking of which, my wife was able to sell and give away 8 pounds of tomatoes yesterday and will be giving away some more to friends today. We're not drowning any more (though we're still swimming in tomatoes!) but our offer of two days ago still stands – if you're in our neighborhood and would like some, let us know.

Above is an iPhone image of today's harvest. The two Mexico tomatoes are to the right, the Berkeley Tie Dye tomatoes are in front and the Dr. Wyche's Yellow tomatoes are buried below others.

Needless to say, the 30 ounce Mexico is the largest tomato I've harvested. It actually weighs a tad over 30 ounces. It could stand a day or two of ripening. When I harvested it I could only see and feel the bottom of the tomato and based on that it was ready. It's a little green at the top but in a couple of days that will be gone. I'm sure we'll take more pictures of that tomato later.

And the plumber came out and fixed the plumbing. The tomato skins backed up in the kitchen cleanout so the water had nowhere to go, and out in the bathtub it came. All is well now.

We're now over 4000 tomatoes for the month (beating the original estimate) and both back and front yard totals for the month are over the 2000 mark. It looks like the front yard totals will overtake the back yard totals for the month before the month is over. Overall, the front yard totals are still 260 behind the back yard totals for the year but just 10 behind for the month.

It's good to see Patio getting a second wind. Last harvested Patio tomato was 20 days ago. Jaune Flamme is getting a second wind and in this unusual case, the second wind may be better than the first wind.

And in another unusual note, it's overcast early this morning.

Best Harvest of 2009 So Far!

Today's bountiful harvest includes 43 Snow White, 34 Red Currant, 26 Black Cherry, 12 Yellow Perfection, 10 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 9 White Currant, 7 Tiger Paw, 7 front yard Garden Peach, 6 Babywine, 6 Red Grape, 4 Vintage Wine (7.5 ounces, 6 ounces, 7.5 ounces), 4 Oaxacan Jewel(1) (12 ounces, 14 ounces, 10.5 ounces, 15 ounces), 4 Berkeley Tie Dye (15 ounces, 18.5 ounces, 13 ounces, 14 ounces), 3 Paul Robeson (one 6 ounces), 3 Japanese Black Trifele (8.5 ounces, 6 ounces), 3 Husky Gold, 3 Italian Ice, 3 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 2 Silvery Fir Tree, 2 Black Krim, 2 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Sweet 100, 2 back yard Garden Peach(1), 2 back yard Green Grape, 2 Orange Blossom (one 6.5 ounces), 2 back yard Garden Peach(2), Plum Tigris, Turkish Striped Monastery, Cuor de Bue (8 ounces), Amazon Chocolate (7 ounces), Sweet Olive, Beaverlodge Plum, a front yard Speckled Roman, Mong (6 ounces), Jaune Flamme and Big Yellow Zebra (new!) for a total of 215 tomatoes from 37 tomato plants!

We have a large back yard Mexico tomato that's maturing and doesn't appear to have any rot. While looking at that I glanced over at Big Yellow Zebra and hey, it has a ripe tomato on it! That was unexpected.

I “harvested” Patio Princess as well but it had terrible end rot. I got rid of two others on the plant with bad end rot.

I'll harvest a Dr. Wyche's Yellow tomorrow.

My wife completed the front yard watering on Tuesday and watered the back yard tomatoes yesterday.

Today is our largest harvest day of the year so far (215 tomatoes) with the largest front yard harvest of the year (118 tomatoes) and from the most plants (37). We're two tomatoes short of harvesting 1500 tomatoes in the back yard for this month.

What a harvest. It would have been Vintage Wine's day, 4 nice tomatoes except the first Oaxacan Jewel plant had 4 beautiful, large tomatoes. It would have been Oaxacan Jewel's day if it weren't for Berkeley Tie Dye and it's 4 huge tomatoes. The 18.5 ounce Berkeley Tie Dye harvested today is the largest of the year.

About three weeks ago I was wondering when Black Cherry and Snow White would come in. Now you know why I was wondering! On a frustrating note, there are mature Snow White tomatoes that I simply cannot reach from any angle.

Today I tried a new technique for harvesting Snow Whites, reaching over the fence and looking down. I found about a dozen that I couldn't find the other way, crawling underneath and looking up.

The steady numbers for both Red Currant and Yellow Perfection are remarkable. Usually a harvest will have a bell curve to it. These two plants have been “steady Eddies”.

At lunch my wife and I tried three tomatoes we hadn't tried this year: Black Krim, Babywine and Berkeley Tie Dye. Black Krim was good, smoother than we remember from previous years. Babywine was quite good and tasty. I think it's good for salads and my wife thinks it's good for sauce. Either way it's good.

Then came Berkeley Tie Dye. Wow, what a complex tomato. It starts off a bit acidic, then mellows out, then gets acidic at the end, more than in the beginning. I like it and so did my wife but I can tell this one is an acquired taste. I would imagine this tomato would be wonderful on a hamburger. The taste of this tomato is as complex as the skin color.

Today was the best harvest of the year so far.

Harvested Silvery Fir Tree

Today's harvest includes 37 Red Currant, 16 Red Grape, 15 White Currant, 9 Yellow Perfection, 9 Sweet Olive, 5 Black Cherry, 5 Snow White, 4 Aunt Ruby's German Green (7 ounces, 9.5 ounces), 3 Green Grape, 3 Sweet 100, 3 Italian Ice, 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 2 Babywine, 2 Orange Blossom (7 ounces), 2 Tiger Paw, 2 Japanese Black Trifele, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 back yard Garden Peach(1), 2 SunSugar, 2 back yard Husky Cherry Red, Oaxacan Jewel(1) (8 ounces), Oaxacan Jewel(2) (7 ounces), Black Krim (7 ounces), a front yard Garden Peach, Turkish Striped Monastery, Cuor de Bue (8 ounces), a back yard Speckled Roman (with end rot), Amazon Chocolate, Beaverlodge Plum and Silvery Fir Tree (new!) for a total of 139 tomatoes.

The summer heat is starting to beat down the container plants. The Patio plant is burning out and SunSugar is ragged.

Some of the recently harvested tomatoes are showing some sunscalding.

Harvested 4 New Tomatoes!

Saturdays' harvest consisted of 5 White Currant (new!), 4 Sweet Olive, 3 Red Grape, 3 Beaverlodge Plum, 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 Red Currant, Jaune Flamme, Italian Ice, Sweet 100, Patio as well as a back yard Garden Peach (new!) and a back yard Speckled Roman (new!).

My wife watered the front yard tomatoes on Friday.

Early in the day my wife's parents came over to pick up their dogs. We had been watching them for a week in anticipation of them visiting relatives in New Mexico. But one of them was sick and the trip was canceled. They asked us to come down with the dogs but I insisted they come up in order to see the tomato plants. They were very impressed with both the height and the number of tomatoes in the vines.

In the afternoon they left with their dogs and I did more tomato taping. After that my wife asked me to water the back yard tomatoes. Although it was hot (It got up to 97.8 at Pierce College, about a mile away) I did water them as well as the back yard flower pots.

Earlier in the week my wife mentioned to me that she now sees why taping is so important where we are– it keeps the plants under some control. And now I see why it was important for my wife to dig deeper trenches in the “moats” around the tomato plants in the back yard – it enabled me to water at a faster rate than before. I saved at least a half hour in the watering.

We met a friend at a restaurant and brought tomatoes. We tried Cherokee Purple and liked it. We tried Jaune Coeur de Pigeon and I thought it was okay but the other two (my wife and our friend) didn't like it at all. Basically we waited too long to try it and it got too ripe.

If I told you we stayed at the restaurant for five and a half hours would you believe me? We did, getting home early in the morning.

First thing I did when I woke up was to harvest more tomatoes. This included 9 White Currant, 3 Sweet Olive, 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 Red Currant, 2 Patio, Red Grape, Sweet 100, a 13 ounce front yard Paul Robeson and Plum Tigris (new!).

I left out Turkish Striped Monastery in the list of maturing tomatoes. I can't find a picture of this tomato so we'll be surprised with what we get.

It was too hot for tomato work. I got up to 104 at Pierce College.

This hot weather will burn out a fair amount of tomato blooms. The pollen in the tomato buds becomes sterile at around 93 or 95 degrees so a fair amount won't make it. But some blooms in the interior of the plant won't burn out, as they're shaded by the leaves. Another effect of this heat will take the tomatoes on the vines and mature them quicker.

My wife and I tried Paul Robeson at dinner and we both agree it was delicious.

Harvested Two New Tomatoes Again!

Today's harvest includes 6 Sweet Olive, 4 Red Currant, 4 SunSugar, 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 Patio, 2 Beaverlodge Plum, Red Grape, Italian Ice, Sweet 100 and two new tomatoes – a front yard Paul Robeson and Jaune Coeur de Pigeon.

Again, I did some minor taping and staking last night. Berkeley Tie Dye was leaning in a westward direction so I staked it.

There are other plants with maturing tomatoes. These include White Currant, Plum Tigris, the back yard Garden Peach and the back yard Speckled Roman. The Plum Tigris was actually picked but it still needs a day or two to fully ripen and it will be added to the weekend total.

The weather is heating up. The highs will be in the mid 90's all week. This will speed up the tomato maturation.

Back Yard Plants Looks Fabulous!

Today's harvest includes 11 Sweet Olive, 4 Red Grape, 3 Sweet 100, 3 Yellow Perfection (one picked by my wife yesterday but added to today's total), Red Currant, Patio and Beaverlodge Plum tomatoes.

Today was our highest harvest number so far, 24. That will be surpassed, trust me.

The front yard Paul Robeson plant has two tomatoes ripening. Cherokee Purple has another tomato ripening which when ripe, will force me to bring down our scale. This tomato looks to be in the 6 – 8 ounce range.

Last night I staked Black Cherry. This is another plant that has gone bananas. I also taped up a few more falling branches in the back yard.

But it was my wife doing most of the work yesterday. She watered the back yard tomato plants. Also, she redid a lot of the moats in the back yard, so much so that her elbows hurt last night and this morning. Also, she aerated the soil in most of the containers by turning the compacted dirt.

I know this will sound like a broken record...but the plants, especially the back yard plants look fabulous. Granted, size and thickness of the tomato plant isn't the payoff window. But a strong, thick tomato plant (if not fertilized with the wrong fertilizer) in SoCal can support lots and lots of growing tomatoes. That's what's occurring.

In checking the back yard tomato plants over the last couple years, the highest harvest number came last year with Salisaw Cafe at 315 tomatoes. I believe one of these back yard plants will obliterate that number.

My wife and I tried Italian Ice at dinner. Again, she liked it more than I did but I did like it.

As mentioned previously, I watered three plants in the back yard Monday night, one of them Jeff Davis. I noticed the water coming out of the moat. That was the inspiration for my wife to adjust most of the moats in the back yard. Both my wife and I agreed that Jeff Davis looked a bit better last night.

First we thought this plant was graying because it was getting too much water. So we cut back. Now we think that it perhaps wasn't getting enough water and we exacerbated the very problem we were trying to fix. With the “moat” fixed on this and other plants we hope this plant recovers and starts to grow again.

Harvested Red Currant Today!

Let's start with the numbers: On Saturday I harvested 2 SunSugar, Sweet 100, Yellow Perfection and a Red Grape tomato. On Sunday I harvested 3 Sweet 100, 2 Sweet Olive, 2 Red Grape and a SunSugar tomato. Today I harvested 7 Sweet Olive, 5 SunSugar, 3 Red Currant (new!) and a Red Grape tomato.

On Friday I noticed at least two tomatoes on the front yard Green Grape. This means that only the two plants planted in June are missing tomatoes. 58 plants have growing tomatoes on them!

Saturday we harvested early and were out the door by 10:15 AM. First we went to my mechanic to change a tail light on my wife's car. On the way it began to rain! Lots of strange weather this year. This year, cloudy and actually some rain on June 20. Last year it was 110 degrees in the west San Fernando Valley.

So we get to the repair shop, swap out the bulb, exchange pleasantries and we're on our way to the 70^th birthday celebration for my mother. Her 70^th was actually on Friday but my brother Jim and his wife, my mother and her best friend Walter, and my wife's mother and father all made the visit to Macaroni Grill in Huntington Beach. The elephant in the room, my abusive brother, wasn't invited.

It seemed like most everyone enjoyed themselves. We brought down our uneaten tomatoes over the past couple of days and they were enjoyed and/or taken home. I even received a complement or two for making it happen.

Then, onto a cousin's graduation celebration. More food! More fun! I was being chased by girls all around the back yard, everyone having a blast.

After a few hours we started to drive to my mother-in-law's house. But we stopped and crashed another high school graduation celebration, former neighbors of my wife. They had all heard and/or read of my tomato article in the Los Angeles Times and were growing tomatoes, corn, potatoes, peanuts, you name it, they were growing it. This celebration was more subdued but again pleasant.

So off to the parent's house. We check out their tomato plants – for the most part they're doing well – hang around for a while, pick up their two dogs and head back for the long drive home. We get home around 10:15 PM, feed our hungry dogs and go to bed. Long day.

In the morning I start to harvest tomatoes and I notice right away that the Patio plant is torn apart. The Manchester Terrier got to it! Not only was there a ripening tomato that I left on the vine Saturday for one more day, it appears he also picked off five or six others, tearing out the north side of the plant in the process.

Beaverlodge Plum had a tomato that I left on the vine to be picked on Sunday. It was gone. Damn! The Manchester Terrier got hungry and went on a binge!!

It took about a half day to get over that one.

My wife was out most of the day helping our “seed lady” pack boxes for her move. I did some paid work and a lot of little things I needed to get to. I tomato taped some plants in the back and front yards and staked a couple as well. In poking around I noticed that some Red Currants were ripening.

In the evening my wife put some tomato twine around some of the container plants, trying to protect them from the ravages of our Manchester Terrier. Side note: It appears that Husky Gold has been hit in the past as well.

I harvested again this morning. The back yard sprinklers went off as expected. I checked and Jeff Davis wasn't being touched by the water. We'll make sure this plant gets the normal watering next time.

Harvested Two New Tomatoes Today!

My wife watered the back yard earlier today. That's quite a chore – it took her around two hours for all the plants, vegetables and flowers.

Today we harvested 5 Yellow Perfection, 2 SunSugar, 2 Sweet Olive, Red Grape and two new tomatoes: Beaverlodge Plum and (yesterday's) Cherokee Purple!

We tried the Beaverlodge Plum and we both thought was okay. I called it a “support” tomato (one that belongs in a sandwich or a salad). My wife called it a sauce tomato because there appeared to be very few seeds. But this is a determinate container plant so I just don't think there will be enough of these tomatoes for a sauce. Nevertheless I see her point.

I didn't get a chance to mention that we tried Yellow Perfection yesterday and while we both liked it, my wife loved it. It's a typical yellow tomato, somewhat smooth with little or no acid taste. As mentioned in the last paragraph I think of this as a “support” tomato. I had it in my sandwich and it worked great. If we find it I'm sure we'll continue to grow this one year after year.

In looking over the 2007 spreadsheet I'd say we're comparably behind by 2 – 3 weeks. Projecting based on the 2007 numbers means we'll be harvesting 100 tomatoes in about three weeks, around July 10.

A dozen tomatoes isn't worth getting excited, but harvesting from six different tomato plants is a good early sign.

Harvested 2 Tomatoes; 4 More Plants With Tomatoes

I came home for lunch and after lunch, I checked out the tomato plants.

Jeff Davis isn't looking as it did last week. It's starting to turn grayish and some of the leaves are actually turning brown. We think that this plant is more sensitive to a lack of sun and also may be watered too much.

My wife picked 2 Sweet Olives. We also noted that some Patio and Beaverlodge Plum tomatoes are beginning to ripen.

Four plants have new tomatoes: White Zebra, the second Green Zebra, Big Yellow Zebra and Super Snow White all have tomatoes.

More Watering; Switched Cages

My wife watered the back yard tomato plants in the ground last night.

Now that I mention it, I should correct a couple things: On Wednesday my wife watered the back yard container plants while yesterday she watered the tomato plants in the ground. Also, when I wrote that we had 57 “in the ground”, that phrase was an adjective for “planted”. As my wife correctly pointed out, 9 of those 57 are in containers.

The newly planted White Zebra was wilted in the early evening but by nightfall was just fine.

I switched the Green Zebra and Silvery Fir Tree cages.

Jaune Couer de Pigeon is the first of my wife's seedlings to show buds.

Yellow Perfection and Beaverlodge Plum have multiple tomatoes on their branches. Yellow Perfection is doing particularly well. It may be 2 ½ feet tall already.

I did more “training” of the front yard tomato branches before leaving for work in the morning.

Two More Tomatoes Planted

Okay, yesterday I planted the last two tomatoes, Silvery Fir Tree and Vintage Wine in the “corner office”. As for now, there are no more tomatoes to plant.

My wife watered both the front and the back yard tomatoes on Tuesday. She watered the back yard tomato plants again yesterday. They had dried out in the heat and the dry winds.

Sweet Olive and Sweet 100 were doubled over due to the winds. My wife and I strung them up against the bamboo poles planted in the container.

The plants with new tomatoes are Patio, Beaverlodge Plum and Yellow Perfection. There was also a growing tomato on Silvery Fir Tree, but it was removed. To repeat, in the beginning, I worry more about the roots going down than I am the plant growing up. Having a tomato growing when planting distracts the tomato plant from making solid roots and stems.

As I was updating the on line tomato documents (and I believe they're fully up to date again) I realized that Silvery Fir Tree is a small sized, determinate plant good for containers. Having that foreknowledge, I may have left the tomato on the plant (it had the same serious root bound problems that Red Currant had). At the very least, I need to exchange the cage for the temporary one put on one of the Green Zebra tomatoes.

If my count is correct...we have 57 tomatoes in the ground. Tom – you win!

One More Planted...

Yesterday my wife was only able to get one plant in a container, Red Grape.

It turns out that actually five plants were planted on Wednesday. I missed Beaverlodge Plum, planted in a container.

Yesterday's “missing” tomato was Orange Blossom.

My wife added fish emulsion to all the new seedlings in the front and to the containers in the back. She didn't add it to the backyard plants in the ground, as the dogs showed too much interest in the fish emulsion bottle.