Harvested Aunt Ruby's German Green and Persimmon!

Today's harvest includes 15 White Currant, 14 Violet Jasper, 13 SunGold, 7 Red Currant(2), 7 Red Grape, 6 Dr. Wyche's Yellow(2) (one 6 ounces), 5 Marianna's Peace, 4 Japanese Black Trifele, 4 Husky Cherry Red, 3 Snow White (back yard), 3 Black Krim (9 ounces, 13.5 ounces, 11 ounces), 3 Green Grape, 2 Jaune Flamme(2), 2 Zapotec Pleated, 2 Ananas Noire, 2 Red Boar, 2 Brown Berry, 2 Babywine, Patio, Stupice, Miss Elliotte Black, Topaz, Taxi, Lyn's Mahogany Garnet, Principe Borghese, Yellow Pear, Speckled Roman, Black From Tula, Yellow Perfection, Gajo de Melon, Plum Tigris, Depp's Pink Firefly, Red Currant(1), Gypsy, Aunt Ruby's German Green(1) (new, 11 ounces) and Persimmon (new, 9 ounces) for a total of 114 tomatoes.

It was quite hot yesterday. The temperature got up to 106.8 degrees at Pierce College, about a mile away. Some of today's harvested tomatoes have different shades of color due to differing maturation on the fruit. For instance, some of the White Currant had deep yellowish white shoulders (indicating it was quite ready) but the rest of the tomato had a faint greenish hue (indicating it wasn't quite there). In other words, it was so hot that it was causing maturation differences within the same tomato.

My wife watered some of the back yard tomatoes two days ago and finished the job yesterday.

We haven't done too much with the tomatoes this week, short of collect them. We've been in the middle of tiling the kitchen floor, having to move all of the appliances out of the kitchen, getting the floor put in, getting the back splash put in, getting it all grouted and such. The original plumber, who said he'd help move the appliances, went on a two week vacation without notice. With the help of a good friend of ours we got the appliances moved out but had a heck of a time getting them back in to place. The refrigerator was easy. The stove was relatively easy. The dishwasher was put in place but due to the less leg room, the hot water line couldn't quite be hooked up correctly. So no hot water for the kitchen sink. The washer/dryer was put into place only to realize the water wasn't turned on. So we pulled it out and turned it on. Since we pulled out the washer/dryer the legs were adjusted so that the pair didn't lean to the left. It was put back in place, all was well except for the dishwasher/hot water line and our friend left about 2:00 AM Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

So my wife ran the washing machine and soon there was water on the floor. So we called our friend back (he had just drove away), pulled the stacked washer/dryer out again and ran an empty load. I found a leak underneath the washing machine and my friend found the source. Okay, that explains why the subflooring had decayed underneath the washing machine when we originally pulled it out, the leak was always there and only now was it discovered.

My friend came by last night to finish off the dishwasher so now we have hot water in the kitchen sink. We have repairmen coming to fix the washing machine today and another problem my wife found last night – the dishwasher door has issues.

But the tile floor/back splash/riser look great while the tomatoes collect.

The harvested Aunt Ruby's German Green was a surprise. I did not look ready to the eye but it felt ready. I went by feel.

There is a tomato called Persimmon. This isn't that tomato. This is a plant supplied by the Tomato Lady of Beverly Hills. It looks a lot like Weeping Charlie, only orange in color. My wife saw it and she said it looked like a persimmon.

Harvested Pineapple and Depp's Pink Firefly!

Today's harvest includes 16 White Currant, 10 SunGold, 10 Violet Jasper, 9 Husky Cherry Red, 6 Snow White (back yard), 5 Gypsy, 5 Red Grape, 4 Red Currant(2), 4 Principe Borghese, 3 Marianna's Peace, 3 Zapotec Pleated, 3 Green Grape, 2 Stupice, 2 Topaz, 2 Red Currant(1), 2 Brown Berry, 2 Yellow Pear, 2 Speckled Roman, 2 Pineapple (new, 14.5 ounces, 14 ounces), Snow White (front yard), Babywine, SunSugar, Weeping Charlie, Red Boar, Sweet Tangerine (6 ounces), Ananas Noire, Jaune Flamme(2) and Depp's Pink Firefly (new) for a total of 101 tomatoes.

Almost all of our tomatoes were given away by the morning, including today's harvest. We are having a tile floor put in the kitchen and that meant clearing everything out of the kitchen. No room for tomatoes!

One of the places where we dropped off tomatoes was at our “seed lady”. We then visited in the afternoon and tried one of the Pineapple tomatoes. Very interesting tomato. My wife and I liked this tomato but neither of us fell in love with it, yet we can understand why this can be a favorite for others. It's a very mellow taste that doesn't remind you of a tomato at all. This won't sound appealing at all but seems somewhat tasteless. What's really going on when you taste this tomato is you get the gentle sweetness up front without the acid taste at the end. Thus the “tastelessness” is really the lack of an acid kick at the end. Recommended.

Birds Peck At Today's Harvest

Today's harvest: 2 Stupice, Patio.

Unfortunately, the Stupice tomatoes were not edible – they were pecked open by birds. To counteract that, we moved our front yard birdbath to it's previous location near the “corner office”. (Side note: This type of damage to tomatoes is from the birds wanting the water within the tomato, not the tomato itself.)

My wife set up a fish emulsion drip system using our used half gallon plastic milk carton on Depp's Pink Firefly. All the previous plants looked great after this fish emulsion treatment.

I did some more “training” and some tomato taping. I know it's a broken record but on the whole the tomato plants look great.

Harvested Violet Jasper

Today's harvest: 2 Stupice, Violet Jasper.

As if on cue, I noticed tomatoes on Paul Robeson and Aunt Ruby's German Green(2). Now all the plants in the ground (as opposed to in containers) have tomatoes on them.

The Violet Jasper tomato plant looks great. It has at least 200 tomatoes on it already. It will clearly be a heavy tomato producer. I hope the tomatoes taste good!

I forgot to mention that over the weekend my wife was emptying out a pot. That's no big deal. But she found cutworms in the dirt. So she carefully sifted through the dirt and found more cutworms. And more cutworms. By the time she was through sorting through the dirt she threw away an astonishing 29 cutworms.

My wife will add fertilizer to Depp's Pink Firefly. Most of the buds are shriveling and the plant is not looking as good as it was a few weeks ago. We hope the fertilizer will help turn it back around.

We have more Violet Jaspers and Stupices ripening as well as Patio.

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.

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.

Got 10 More In The Ground

We got 10 tomato plants in the ground last night, my wife and I working as hard as we could after I got home from work and before the sun set.

We ate dinner. Then I went out to put up cages, place fertilizer around the tomato plants and water just enough to hold the fertilizer down. I'm expecting the rain due in a couple of days to finish the job for me.

Also I added a stake the the cage surrounding our volunteer tomato plant. If you base only on color, this volunteer looks like the healthiest plant we have!

I gave some tomato fertilizer to our Husky Cherry Red. It didn't get some fertilizer at planting time and it's starting to get a mild yellowish tinge. I thought it would help.

By the time I was done it was 10:15 PM.

This evening we have the same goal – get as many plants in the ground before the rain starts.

From memory, here's what we planted last night: In the front yard we planted Patio, Stupice and Violet Jasper. In the back yard we planted Red Boar, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Pierce's Pride, Depp's Pink Firefly, Emerald Evergreen and two others whose name escapes me.

Unbeknownst to us at the time of planting, we did make a slight mistake. We planted a Dr. Wyche's Yellow in the area where we took out the grass in the back yard. After dark I took an inventory of what we planted, only to realize we had previously planted a Dr. Wyche's Yellow three feet away from the new one!

Last year we grew two Mexico and two Speckled Roman plants. But we placed one in the back yard and one in the front yard.

We forgot that we had already planted Dr. Wyche's Yellow!

As mistakes go, we'll take this one in stride. My wife loved (and I just “really liked”) Dr. Wyche's Yellow last year. So if we have two, all the better, even if they're only three feet apart.