Planted 5 Tomato Seedlings; Catching Up (somewhat)...

Yesterday we planted Hungarian Heart, Black Krim, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Dr. Wyche's Yellow and Blue Beauty in the back yard.

So where have we been for the last few months? Well, we've been around. Silent, but we've been around.

Here's a partial explanation...on October 17, 2014 my wife and I formally adopted our son, Tony. He was two weeks shy of two years old at the time of adoption and as two year old boys are wont to do, he is increasingly active. We've had less time for soil preparation this year (As in, none.). Tony takes first priority.

During the last six or seven weeks we've all been under the weather in one form or another. In fact, Tony has had two febrile seizures during this period. Tony will be fine and will outgrow his febrile seizures, but it has been a somewhat scary time while these occur.

The first occurred in late February on a Thursday while at a restaurant. We called 911 immediately and got him to a hospital. That was quite scary and concerning for us. However, he was released several hours later with no ill effects.

The second febrile seizure during this period was again on a Thursday night in March. In this instance we drove him to the hospital, anticipating the upcoming seizure. He was seizing while he was brought into the hospital. This time, however, he was kept in the hospital for three days. Again, he will be fine but through it all we've learned to be acutely aware of any potential fevers he may have and "get out in front of it" if necessary.

The second seizure was the night before the main TomatoMania Encino event. Because Tony was in the hospital for three days, my wife and I missed the event.

We get a lot of tomato plants from the TomatoMania Encino event, and volunteer to help during the three day extravaganza. But not this year.

I did work the TomatoMania event the next weekend at Descanso Gardens and got a selection at that time, 5 of which were planted as noted above. I had worked Roger's Gardens about a month ago but passed on tomato seedlings because of the upcoming TomatoMania Encino event...but you know the rest of the story.

As a matter of fact we going to visit relatives yesterday but apparently Tony got a touch of food poisoning Saturday night and that scotched our Sunday plans. So we planted some tomatoes.

I did a couple of speaking events, speaking about tomatoes at the San Fernando Iris Society in early February and Sunday afternoon at the Descanso Gardens TomatoMania event. Both went well but I have to watch how I meander from topic to topic...

Speaking of meandering, I lost the "corner office" to my wife's roses and irises. We're not going to grow as many tomatoes as previously because of that and the fact we're starting later than ever. 

Pulled Out 8 More Tomato Plants

Sooooo let's catch up on things...

Friday's harvest includes 3 Sugar Snack, 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Michael Pollan and Dr. Wyche's Yellow for a total of 8 tomatoes.

Saturday's harvest includes 2 Sunchocola, 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), 2 Michael Pollan, SunGold, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Black Cherry, Husky Cherry Red(1) for a total of 10 tomatoes.

I took the cages off of the tomato plants I wanted to be removed. As I was completing this chore the gardeners arrived. They threw away German Orange Strawberry, Bread and Salt, Speckled Roman(1), Blue Beauty, Black Icicle, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon) and Black Cherry.

I gave away a lot of our harvested tomatoes to the hard working gardeners.

Sunday's harvest includes SunGold, Sugar Snack and Michael Pollan for a total of 3 tomatoes.

I pulled out Evan's Purple Pear, missed by the gardeners.

Today's harvest includes Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Pineapple and Michael Pollan for a total of 3 tomatoes.

We've now harvested exactly 75 Pineapple tomatoes and exactly 75 Michael Pollan tomatoes!

The real story is how the tomato harvest has essentially died. There's not much left to harvest, though the Sunchocola plant is making a comeback. Whether there will be fruit from this comeback remains to be seen.

The other story is the heat. Wednesday's high (mentioned in a prior post), 99.9. Thursday's high, 100.4. Friday's high, 103.1. Saturday's high, 106.4. Sunday's high, 107.3. Blistering heat.

If Sunchocola had blooms, they would all be sterilized by now. But Sunchocola doesn't have a lot of blooms at this point and may still produce a second wind. 

Harvested 325 Sugar Snack Tomatoes This Year

Today's harvest includes 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 Sugar Snack, Pineapple, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Porkchop(1), Bread and Salt (6 ounces), Speckled Roman(2) and SunGold for a total of 15 tomatoes.

Bread and Salt and the German Orange Strawberry were good tomatoes, the rest was ordinary.

It got up to 99.9 degrees yesterday. A heat wave has arrived and records may be broken this weekend. On another note, the .08 inches of rain on September 8 broke the previous record of .07 inches of rain on September 8, 1982. Tell your friends!

We've now harvested exactly 325 Sugar Snack tomatoes this year! Not too bad for a container plant.

It looks like I won't be hitting any imminent milestones so I'll start to combine multiple harvest days in a single post. 

Harvested Over 300 Husky Cherry Red(2) Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 6 German Orange Strawberry, 3 Blue Beauty, 3 Husky Cherry Red(2), 2 SunGold, Sunchocola, Bread and Salt, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Matt's Wild Cherry, Evan's Purple Pear, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Husky Cherry Red(1) and Sugar Snack for a total of 22 tomatoes.

The Bread and Salt tomato and the Sunchocola tomato were pretty good while the rest was unremarkable.

It looks like my inital estimate for this month's tomato harvest of 550 will be too high. A better guess now that we're 10 days into the month is a harvest of 400 tomatoes.

It looks like we'll have a heat wave kicking in this weekend.

We've now harvested over 300 Husky Cherry Red(2) tomatoes this year (302)! Both Husky Cherry Red plants keep chugging along. 

Harvested Over 625 SunGold Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 8 SunGold, 6 German Orange Strawberry, 4 Sugar Snack, 2 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), Bread and Salt (8 ounces), Blue Beauty, Speckled Roman(2), Black Icicle, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon) and Dr. Wyche's Yellow for a total of 30 tomatoes.

Today's Bread and Salt was the star of the show while the rest was rather ordinary.

I got started a little early today and may have missed some Sunchocola tomatoes to harvest. I was going to pull out Speckled Roman(1) but the trash pickup came too soon. So I left it in the ground.

This morning's air had a crisp fall feel to it. It was refreshing!

We've now harvested over 625 SunGold tomatoes this year (631)! SunGold is about to pass Matt's Wild Cherry in total harvest for the year. This should happen later this week. 

Harvested Over 225 Husky Cherry Red(1) Tomatoes This Year

No harvest Thursday.

Today's harvest includes 9 German Orange Strawberry, 5 SunGold, 4 Pineapple, 4 Black Cherry, 4 Husky Cherry Red(1), 3 Blue Beauty, 3 Solar Flare, 2 Bread and Salt (8.5 ounces, 6 ounces), 2 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), 2 Beauty King, 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), Indian Stripe, Sunchocola, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Icicle, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Sugar Snack and Michael Pollan for a total of 50 tomatoes.

I don't know if I've ever harvested as many as 9 German Orange Strawberry tomatoes before. That's quite a haul for an oxheart tomato. However, all of them were somewhat undersized. The Indian Stripe tomato was quite nice as well as both Bread and Salt tomatoes.

We hit several milestones today. We've now harvested over 225 Husky Cherry Red(1) tomatoes this year (228)! Also, we've harvested over 150 Black Cherry tomatoes this year (151), over 50 German Orange Strawberry tomatoes this year (55) and over 50 Blue Beauty tomatoes this year (52). 

August 2014 Tomato Analysis

Let's compare the August numbers...

2014 -- 1942 tomatoes
2013 -- 1320 tomatoes
2012 -- 3240 tomatoes
2011 -- 3863 tomatoes
2010 -- 2165 tomatoes
2009 -- 3250 tomatoes
2008 -- 1004 tomatoes
2007 -- 2806 tomatoes

Five years were higher, two were lower. What's notable is that for the July analysis, the 2010 total was slightly higher than 2014. The same is true for August. We may have a precedent...

My original estimate of 1650 tomatoes was a little low but it wasn't too far off.

The tomatoes weren't bad but they weren't great either. They were more like September tomatoes -- a little thicker skin, inconsistent maturing on the skin, not bad but not great taste. Standouts were Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Blue Beauty and Husky Cherry Red.

So why is this happening? Well, we still believe it was quite a good year. The compost really helped and the kelp meal added to the seedlings didn't hurt, either. But Southern California is under drought conditions. We had a second consecutive low rain year and therefore the worms didn't have the environment to do what they do during the winter. Also we had the hottest first six months of the year in recorded history.

To recap, we prepared very well for this year but nature didn't cooperate. This left us with great tasting tomatoes starting out but we had no "staying power" for lack of a better term. The hot conditions burned out the plants and the season sooner than usual.

For the upcoming months Sunchocola will be the wild card. Although doubling over in places, our Sunchocola plant is getting strong new growth. But will this new growth translate into new blooms and new tomatoes? Time will tell. The rest of the plants are burning out, though either of the Husky Cherry Red plants could make a bit of a comeback.

Since we may have established a pattern, let's look at the upcoming 2010 numbers.

September 2010 -- 717 tomatoes
October 2010 -- 261 tomatoes
November 2010 -- 214 tomatoes
December 2010 -- 90 tomatoes
Total 2010 harvest -- 8092 tomatoes

It looks like 2010 had the "staying power" that I believe this year will lack.

Last month's estimate of 7500 total harvested tomatoes looks consistent with the 2010 numbers. But I'll revise that estimate down to 7300 harvested tomatoes for the year. For September 2014 I'll estimate a harvest of 550 tomatoes. 

Harvested Over 6500 Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 3 Sunchocola, 3 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Porkchop(1), 2 Blue Beauty, 2 SunGold, 2 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Beauty King, Indian Stripe, Earl of Edgecombe, Bread and Salt, Pineapple, Speckled Roman(2), Black Icicle, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Solar Flare, Husky Cherry Red(1), Sugar Snack and Michael Pollan for a total of 27 tomatoes.

After this morning's harvest I pulled out Earl of Edgecombe. My wife wanted it out so she could plant sweet peas. I was waiting for one more tomato. The tomato was maturing but I picked it a day or two early -- today was trash pickup day (delayed a day due to Labor Day). So I harvested and pulled out the plant.

We haven't had a double figure harvest in the front yard in several weeks. Today we harvested 11 in the front yard. I didn't harvest on August 25 so I'm not counting the August 26 front yard total of 13...we have to go back to August 20 to find the last double figure front yard harvest of 11.

The Indian Stripe tomato was nice and the Bread and Salt tomato was all right. The rest was unremarkable.

It looks like I missed a milestone that occurred a few days ago. We've now harvested over 6500 tomatoes this year (6566)! It looks like we crossed the 6500 threshold on Monday and I missed it. If Sunchocola gets a second wind we should get past 7000 harvested tomatoes. Then again I may just get tired of it and pull 'em out before the 7000 mark. But for the forseeable future, we continue on... 

Harvested 175 Evan's Purple Pear Tomatoes This Year

Monday's harvest includes 9 SunGold, 5 Evan's Purple Pear, 3 Black Cherry, 3 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Sunchocola, 2 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), 2 Pineapple, 2 Black Icicle, 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), Porkchop(1), Blue Beauty, Neves Azorean Red, Solar Flare and Sugar Snack for a total of 37 tomatoes.

I pulled out five tomato plants. These were Momotaro, Blue Gold, Volunteer(4), Porkchop(2) and "Green Zebra" (not Green Zebra). All were back yard tomato plants. I was tempted to pull out more but decided at the last minute not to do so. Black Cherry, you're on borrowed time...

I did water the remaining back yard tomatoes in the ground one more time.

We did hit one milestone. We've now harvested exactly 175 Evan's Purple Pear tomatoes.

Today's harvest includes 4 SunGold, 2 Speckled Roman(1), 2 Porkchop(1), 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Matt's Wild Cherry, 2 Black Cherry, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Pineapple, Black Icicle, Evan's Purple Pear, Beauty King, Husky Cherry Red(2) and Sugar Snack for a total of 21 tomatoes.

Again, the Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) tomato was nice while the rest was unremarkable.

The only thing notable for today was that I've been miscounting Beauty King as Solar Flare. Oh well. I won't go back and fix it. 

Harvested Over 100 Husky Cherry Red(1) Tomatoes in August

Today's harvest includes 6 Husky Cherry Red(1), 5 Evan's Purple Pear, 5 Black Cherry, 5 Husky Cherry Red(2), 4 Pineapple, 4 SunGold, 4 Sugar Snack, 2 Sunchocola, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Aunt Ruby's German Green, Speckled Roman(1), Porkchop(1), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Blue Beauty, Black Icicle, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Solar Flare and Michael Pollan for a total of 47 tomatoes.

The Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) tomato was nice and the Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes were nice to see. The rest was unremarkable.

We'll stretch with the milestones...here goes: We've now harvested over 100 Husky Cherry Red(1) tomatoes in August (104). We're approaching 6500 harvested tomatoes this year and 1500 harvested tomatoes in the back yard in August. SunGold approaches 600 harvested tomatoes...but we're not there yet. 

Harvested 1000 Sunchocola Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 11 Black Cherry, 7 Husky Cherry Red(1), 6 SunGold, 5 Pineapple, 5 Husky Cherry Red(2), 4 Sugar Snack, 3 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Sunchocola, 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Matt's Wild Cherry, Porkchop(1) (6.5 ounces) and Bread and Salt for a total of 49 tomatoes.

Today's Porkchop was a nice tomato, though the maturing was uneven. The "sun" (west) side of the tomato was more mature than the "shade" (east) side. That will even out over the next day or so. The Bread and Salt tomato was okay while the rest of the harvest was unremarkable.

I did find a small hornworm on Captain Lucky today. This is the first one I've officially found this year. I noticed damage on the Captain Lucky plant and noticed the maybe one inch hornworm on the underside of a leaf. I tossed it away.

Earlier this year I noted what looked like a full sized hornworm underneath our lemon tree. It appeared that the dogs had played with it and/or birds picked it off of a plant -- it wasn't clear. The next day it was gone. Then on the day of our tomato party I saw hornworm poop underneath Ananas Noire but never found the hornworm. So I assume the hornworm laying in the dirt underneath the lemon tree was the culprit.

We did hit a bunch of milestones today. We've now harvested exactly 1000 Sunchocola tomatoes this year! Sunchocola is our strongest remaining plant and could get a second wind. Also, we've now harvested over 200 Husky Cherry Red(1) tomatoes this year (203), harvested exactly 150 Evan's Purple Pear tomatoes this year and harvested exactly 75 Bread and Salt tomatoes this year. 

Happy Birthday!

No harvest Monday.

Today's harvest includes 19 Husky Cherry Red(2), 12 SunGold, 10 Black Cherry, 8 Sunchocola, 8 Sugar Snack, 7 Husky Cherry Red(1), 3 Blue Beauty, 3 Pineapple, 3 Evan's Purple Pear, 2 Porkchop(1), Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, German Orange Strawberry, Bread and Salt (6 ounces), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Icicle and Porkchop(2) for a total of 82 tomatoes.

The Bread and Salt was nice and felt heavier than the reported six ounces. The Porkchop tomatoes were small but nice to see. And the mass of Husky Cherry Red tomatoes are always welcome.

No tomato milestones today though we should hit one or two tomorrow.

But I do want to wish a Happy Birthday to my wonderful wife! It was her birthday yesterday. And I'm very lucky to have married her. I love you! 

Harvested Over 550 SunGold Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 10 SunGold, 6 Sunchocola, 6 Husky Cherry Red(1), 6 Husky Cherry Red(2), 5 Sugar Snack, 3 Porkchop(2), 2 Pineapple, 2 Speckled Roman(2), Speckled Roman(1), Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Blue Gold, Blue Beauty, Volunteer(4), Black Icicle, Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Solar Flare, Black Cherry, Green Grape and Michael Pollan for a total of 51 tomatoes.

Last night I had a turkey sandwich with sliced Blue Gold tomato. From what I could tell, Blue Gold is a good tomato.

Today's Blue Beauty was a fairly nice tomato, so was Blue Gold. The rest was fairly routine. Notable was the lack of any harvested Matt's Wild Cherry.

We've now harvested over 550 SunGold tomatoes this year (554)! 

Harvested 1250 Orange Paruche Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 6 SunGold, 4 Sunchcola, 4 Matt's Wild Cherry, 4 Husky Cherry Red(1), 4 Michael Pollan, 3 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 3 Sugar Snack, 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Garden Peach(1), 2 Husky Cherry Red(2), Orange Paruche, Speckled Roman(2), Volunteer(4), Indigo Rose, Beauty King and Green Grape for a total of 40 tomatoes.

There really wasn't much of anything to today's harvest.

It looks like there may be a lot of tomato plants pulled tomorrow. I think I'll not only be pulling out the ones with no more tomatoes left, I'll also pull out the ones that have just a few left. Also on the target list are ones like Ananas Noire, Snow White, Jaune Flamme, Indigo Rose and Garden Peach(1) in the back yard. The plants for Hungarian Heart and Earl of Edgecombe are okay but I don't remember any fruit on them. If there are none I may pull them.

We've now harvested exactly 1250 Orange Paruche tomatoes this year! And that may be it for Orange Paruche... 

Harvested Over 5000 Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 27 Matt's Wild Cherry, 21 Sunchocola, 19 Husky Cherry Red(2), 10 Orange Paruche, 10 Husky Cherry Red(1), 7 Evan's Purple Pear, 6 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 6 Indigo Rose, 6 SunGold, 5 Bloody Butcher, 5 Black Cherry, 5 Garden Peach(2), 5 Green Grape, 4 Bread and Salt (6 ounces, 9 ounces, 8.5 ounces, 10 ounces), 4 Volunteer(4), 4 Snow White, 4 Sugar Snack, 4 Michael Pollan, 3 German Orange Strawberry (7 ounces), 3 Black Krim, 3 Nyagous, 3 Garden Peach(1), 2 Earl of Edgecombe, 2 Great White (7.5 ounces), 2 Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), 2 Jaune Flamme, Porkchop(1), Yellow Perfection, Hungarian Heart (14 ounces), Blue Gold, Blue Beauty (8 ounces), Pineapple, Ananas Noire (6 ounces), Speckled Roman(2), Neves Azorean Red (12 ounces), Persimmon(1) (not Persimmon), Solar Flare, Stupice, Porkchop(2), Cherokee Purple and "Green Zebra" (not Green Zebra) for a total of 187 tomatoes.

Today's harvest numbers were goosed by the fact that there was no harvest yesterday.

The harvested Neves Azorean Red and Hungarian Heart tomatoes were beauties. And I continue to be impressed with the size and production of Bread and Salt.

After the harvest I pulled out Garden Peach(2). There were no more tomatoes to be harvested and the plant could have doubled for tumbleweed. There are a couple more to be pulled but we'll see if I find the time to pull them...

We've now harvested over 5000 tomatoes this year (5108)! Also, we've harvested over 2500 back yard tomatoes this year (2528), over 1200 Orange Paruche tomatoes this year (1207), over 500 tomatoes in August (569) and over 500 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes this year (512)! 

Harvested 100 Evan's Purple Pear Tomatoes

Saturday's harvest includes 21 Matt's Wild Cherry, 14 SunGold, 11 Orange Paruche, 10 Sunchocola, 10 Evan's Purple Pear, 8 Indigo Rose, 7 Husky Cherry Red(2), 3 Speckled Roman(2), 3 Black Cherry, 3 Garden Peach(1), 3 Garden Peach(2), 3 Husky Cherry Red(1), 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Bread and Salt (6 ounces), 2 Blue Beauty (8 ounces, 8 ounces), 2 Pineapple (7 ounces), German Orange Strawberry, Volunteer(4), Black Krim, Paul Robeson, Purple Bumble Bee, Beauty King, Cherokee Purple, Green Grape, Sugar Snack and Michael Pollan for a total of 114 tomatoes.

The Blue Beauty tomatoes are half nice. Half of the tomato is a beautiful red and the other half is behind, even green in spots. The Sunchocola tomatoes are getting "wobbly" as well, with inconsistent coloring (maturing) on the tomato.

My wife told me that the gardener made a special trip on Thursday to help with the garden and he got bags of tomatoes as well.

We're having some strange muggy and cloudy weather. We've even had a few sprinkles. At least we didn't reach the 102/101/99 of a few days ago.

Only one milestone today, we've now harvested exactly 100 Evan's Purple Pear tomatoes this year. 

A Much Better Harvest

Today's harvest includes 19 Matt's Wild Cherry, 13 Sunchocola, 11 Indigo Rose, 11 SunGold, 10 Evan's Purple Pear, 9 Black Cherry, 9 Husky Cherry Red(2), 8 Orange Paruche, 5 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 5 Bread and Salt (7.5 ounces, 7.5 ounces, 7 ounces), 5 Husky Cherry Red(1), 4 Speckled Roman(2), 3 Pineapple (8.5 ounces), 2 Porkchop(1) (8 ounces, 7 ounces), 2 Blue Beauty, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), 2 Garden Peach(1), 2 Garden Peach(2), 2 Green Grape, 2 Sugar Snack, Bloody Butcher, Great White (9 ounces), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Volunteer(4), Garden Peach(3) and Michael Pollan for a total of 134 tomatoes.

Today's harvest was *much* better than yesterday's harvest. Not only did we have 7 tomatoes that were 6 ounces or more, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1) was larger than anything harvested yesterday.

A lot of the smaller tomatoes over the past few days were given to our cleaning people.

After the morning's harvest I pulled out Garden Peach(3). My wife will be happy -- this plant was affecting her view of the back yard garden.

No tomato milestones today. 

July 2014 Tomato Analysis

First, let's compare our July tomato totals against other years...

2014 -- 3884 tomatoes
2013 -- 1970 tomatoes
2012 -- 6068 tomatoes
2011 -- 3876 tomatoes
2010 -- 4108 tomatoes
2009 -- 4576 tomatoes
2008 -- 1629 tomatoes
2007 -- 6154 tomatoes

Four years were higher, three were lower. However, 2011 was only lower by 8 tomatoes.

My estimate of harvesting 5250 tomatoes in July was sufficiently off the mark to consider it a bad guess.

The standouts were obvious -- Sunchocola and Orange Paruche were nothing short of spectacular. And not just production, but taste as well. We are extremely pleased with these two varieties. We will grow them again and again. Other standouts include Adriana's Grande and the old standby German Orange Strawberry. Blue Beauty was a pleasant surprise that matured later in the month.

Several people have told us that this year's tomatoes have tasted better than in prior years. I believe that is directly tied to the compost added in November of last year as well as clearing out our passive compost bin in the back yard.

The downsides include the "corner office" and a majority of the back yard growing area. I added a good amount of purchased compost and a liberal amount of our "compost paella" to the "corner office". All the tomatoes from this growing area are on the small side. Some of this is related to the hedge on the south side, blocking a fair amount of the sun. But it appears that the soil is still exhausted from years of planting.

That's the similar story for the back yard tomatoes. We added lots of compost but most of the tomatoes are on the small side. The exceptions are the four plants closest to our back door. This is a new tomato growing area, but also the sprinklers were still hitting this area. It is possible that we're not watering the back yard tomatoes enough. We've floated the idea of a drip system before but never followed through...

It's been reported that 2014 has been the hottest first six months of the year in recorded history. Some of our tomato plants are already burned out. For me, it's not the highs that are so bad, it's the fact that the atmosphere isn't cooling off sufficiently at night. Our tomato plants have no time to rest.

My estimate for the August harvest is 1650 tomatoes. My adjusted estimate for the year is around 7500 tomatoes. 

Harvested Over 2000 Back Yard Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 20 Matt's Wild Cherry, 14 Sunchocola, 14 SunGold, 9 Orange Paruche, 9 Indigo Rose, 9 Evan's Purple Pear, 5 Garden Peach(2), 5 Sugar Snack, 4 Speckled Roman(2), 4 Black Cherry, 4 Husky Cherry Red(1), 3 Pineapple (7 ounces, 7.5 ounces), 3 Garden Peach(1), 3 Husky Cherry Red(2), 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, 2 Blue Beauty (6.5 ounces), 2 Nyagous, 2 Cherokee Purple, 2 Green Grape, 2 Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), 2 Michael Pollan, Speckled Roman(1), Indigo Apple, German Orange Strawberry (9 ounces), Bread and Salt, Blue Gold, Volunteer(4), Jaune Flamme, Black Krim, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(2), Purple Bumble Bee and Odoriko for a total of 132 tomatoes.

My wife made stuffed tomatoes yesterday -- took her all afternoon -- and they were worth it. She found them a bit bland but I didn't. They were stuffed with meat, cheese and other items.

Wow, Evan's Purple Pear must be in "high season". I harvested 12 yesterday. The Pineapple tomatoes aren't as large as prior years but we're consistently getting a lot of 5-7 ounce tomatoes from this plant.

A Neves Azorean Red tomato is maturing.

We've now harvested over 2000 tomatoes in the back yard this year (2023)! And the back yard total is rapidly catching up with the front yard total -- they only differ by about 400 tomatoes. Also, we've harvested over 400 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes (407) and exactly 100 Husky Cherry Red(2) tomatoes. 

Harvested Purple Bumble Bee!

Today's harvest includes 18 Matt's Wild Cherry, 13 Orange Paruche, 12 Sunchocola, 12 Evan's Purple Pear, 11 SunGold, 8 Husky Cherry Red(1), 7 Indigo Rose, 7 Husky Cherry Red(2), 6 Sugar Snack, 4 Garden Peach(2), 4 Japanese Black Trifele, 3 Speckled Roman(2), 3 Volunteer(4), 2 Purple Bumble Bee (new), 2 Earl of Edgecombe, 2 Bread and Salt (7.5 ounces), 2 Pineapple, 2 Garden Peach(1), Bloody Butcher, Indigo Apple, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Porkchop(1), Adriana's Grande, German Orange Strawberry, Hungarian Heart, Blue Gold, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye(1), Blue Beauty, Paul Robeson, Persimmon(2) (not Persimmon), Black Cherry, Stupice, Odoriko and Michael Pollan for a total of 134 tomatoes.

The Purple Bumble Bee tomatoes are pretty cute. They look just like the image in this link, though the red isn't quite as pronounced. It's possible I picked a day early. We'll see...

I spent more time with the back yard harvest today. I didn't get chased out by the sprinklers. I harvested 12 Evan's Purple Pear today, none yesterday. It's a safe bet that some of today's harvest should have been picked yesterday.

We've now harvested over 100 Husky Cherry Red(1) tomatoes (103)!