Five New Tomatoes Harvested!

And today we harvested 31 Red Currant, 10 White Currant, 7 front yard Paul Robeson, 7 Yellow Perfection, 7 Sweet Olive, 3 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 3 Snow White, 2 Red Grape, Turkish Striped Monastery, back yard Garden Peach, Husky Gold, SunSugar, Jeff Davis and five new tomatoes: Mong, front yard Garden Peach, Japanese Black Trifele, a beautiful 12 ounce Amazon Chocolate and Orange Blossom for a total of 80 tomatoes.

Today was the largest front yard haul to date (46 tomatoes).

This harvest was unusual in that no Sweet Olive tomatoes were harvested.

We have another plant with a maturing tomato. The back yard Paul Robeson has a tomato that has just started to mature.

Marz Round Green has at least one bloom on it.

I needed to reset the stake for Black Krim this morning. The plant was falling into Jaune Flamme.

Three More Plants With Maturing Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes 22 Red Currant, 15 Sweet Olive, 9 White Currant, 8 Yellow Perfection, 6 Red Grape, 4 SunSugar, 4 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 3 Italian Ice, 3 Paul Robeson, 2 Snow White, 2 Sweet 100, 2 Jeff Davis, Turkish Striped Monastery, a back yard Garden Peach, Jaune Flamme, Cherokee Purple and Patio for a total of 85 tomatoes.

And we have three more plants with maturing tomatoes: Tiger Paw, Amazon Chocolate and the front yard Garden Peach. Over the next four days we should have harvested tomatoes from ten new plants! That should be the start of the flood...

Black From Tula fell down yesterday. My wife watered the back yard plants. When Black From Tula was watered the stake came loose and the plant fell. Now falling down isn't a good thing at all but it happened because there are a lot of tomatoes on the vines. Fortunately no real damage was done – the main stem didn't break or snap – so we picked it back up, staked it again, taped it up, added another stake and tied the two stakes together. I checked it this morning and the plant seems none the worse for wear.

I took the stake out of the Jeff Davis cage to be used to support another plant.

We bought a tomato press on Saturday and it was put to full use by my wife yesterday. Images to come.

I watered the front yard yesterday.

The 15 Sweet 100 seems like an anomaly. But I was pretty careful today. Sweet Olive and Sweet 100 are in the same container and their branches comingle. Also, Red Grape can look like Sweet Olive. I think Sweet Olive's numbers may have a couple tomatoes that should be either Red Grape or Sweet 100.

We tried Husky Gold yesterday but we found it a bit blah. Adding salt helped it, though.

The front yard Paul Robeson plant looks exhausted.

Harvested Two New Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes 15 Red Currant, 12 front yard Paul Robeson, 7 Yellow Perfection, 6 Sweet Olive, 4 White Currant, 4 back yard Speckled Roman (all with blossom end rot), 3 Red Grape, 3 Patio, 3 Sweet 100, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, Italian Ice, SunSugar and two new tomatoes: Jeff Davis and Snow White!

We harvested a total of 63 tomatoes today.

The real surprising numbers have been harvesting 19 Paul Robesons over two days. None of them are 6 ounces or above, though.

Again there were about 20 unripe Red Currants on the ground. Now my thought is that the cat is coming by and knocking them down.

I washed the Snow White and gave it to my wife. She liked it a lot.

Harvest Numbers Are Heading Up

And today's harvest includes 15 Red Currants, 6 Sweet Olive, 5 Italian Ice, 4 back yard Garden Peach, 2 Patio, 2 Red Grape, 2 Black Cherry, a front yard Paul Robeson, White Currant, a back yard Speckled Roman (again with blossom end rot), Yellow Perfection, SunSugar and Sweet 100 for a total of 42 tomatoes. Today was the highest harvest total in 2009 for both the front (16) and back (26) yards.

I spent about a half hour staking and taping last night, mostly in the front yard. I noticed that several Jeff Davis tomatoes are maturing...but I don't think that's good news. These tomatoes aren't full size. I believe it's further validation of trouble with this plant.

15 Red Currants sounds like a lot, and for Red Currants these were full sized but you can hold all 15 of them in the palm of your hand.

A lot of immature tomatoes are getting dark and shiny -- as if they're going to mature soon.

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.

Two New Tomatoes Harvested!

Yesterday we harvested two new tomatoes, Patio and Red Grape! We also harvested 4 Sweet Olive and a Sweet 100 tomato.

We tried the Red Grape on the spot. My wife really liked it. I was okay with it. It tasted a little bit crunchy for lack of a better term. They'll be more of these to harvest so I'll get a better idea then.

We tried yesterday's Jaune Flamme. We both decided that we should have tried it the day before as it was a tad watery (overripe). However, we tried another slice with salt on it and that helped bring out the smooth flavor.

My wife remade the “moats” in the “koi pond"! She mentioned how difficult it is to maneuver inside the fence. That's where the rest of the tomato taping comes into play. She also did some trimming of the undergrowth.

As for me, I did only about five minutes of work on the tomatoes. A bit of taping and a bit of training but that's all.

A Cherokee Purple tomato is definitely maturing.

The gloom of the past three weeks or so may have finally gone away. We did experience more gloom from about noon Monday to the late afternoon Tuesday. Right now it's hazy sun outside.

The two plants most negatively affected by the June gloom are Jeff Davis and White Currant. However, many late plants have had time to catch up without the strain of a hot sun.

Back Yard Tomato Work Caught Up!

On Saturday my wife and I went to a graduation celebration out in Murrieta. That took all day, so no harvesting or tomato work of any kind.

On Sunday there was a lot done. First, we picked 7 Sweet Olive and a Sweet 100 tomato.

I began working on the three chores on the back yard tomatoes but I quickly ran out of tomato twine used to obstruct the Manchester Terrier from nosing in the plant. I continued on, getting through all of the back yard tomato plants in the ground.

I added paper mulch to White Currant and the new Patio Princess.

I began to do the same work in the front yard “corner office”, but began having a sneezing fit and soon had to stop. After my sinuses settled down about an hour later, I finished up the “corner office”. Also, I did a lot of tomato taping in that area in order to make paths just to reach the other plants.

While this was going on my wife watered the back yard (noting that Orange Blossom was looking particularly weak), including the tomato plants in the back. Jeff Davis was only watered lightly.

While working in the “corner office” I noticed that Jaune Flamme has a maturing tomato! On the one hand this is good news but on another front, bad news. I've noticed that damaged plants tend to mature faster than normal and I think that's what is going on here. This should be ready to pick in a day or so.

I fertilized the container plants as well as most (but not all) of the plants in the ground, both front and back yards, that didn't get their second round of fertilizer.

In the afternoon Liz and Ricardo came over to finish off the patio cover frame. Soon my wife and Liz went out for supplies and I helped with Ricardo when needed. In between those times I tomato taped many of the back yard tomato plants as needed, as well as adding stakes to several others. For instance, Black Cherry had grown so much that it was leaning in one direction and actually pulling the cage out of the ground. I ran out of tomato tape for a while but after a half hour or so found another roll.

By that time the women had come back and my wife had bought additional tomato twine. During the construction I used the twine on the rest of the cages in the ground in the back yard.

German Orange Strawberry is now the tallest tomato plant. Not only is the plant over six feet high, it has tomato blooms over six feet high. What will be funny is that in a month the plant will have grown even more, but not be as tall. Why? The branches at the top will get heavier and fall in one direction or another. I'll be able to tape them together for a period of time but soon they'll get too heavy and naturally droop, also due to growing fruit on the vines.

So the back yard is completely caught up with the tomato chores – moats remade, loose branches taped up, twine used to obstruct the Manchester Terrier from below, low branches growing into the dirt removed.

All that is left is to clean up the “koi pond” before the hot weather hits.

Speaking of which, we experienced something on Sunday that we hadn't experienced in quite a while. The sun! The sun came out for most of the day yesterday though it did cloud up a bit in the afternoon.

By evening, Jeff Davis looked a bit better. We're guessing that Jeff Davis is being watered too much (because the plant is also in the range of the sprinklers that go off twice a week, including today) and not enough sun. We'll monitor Jeff Davis to see if it improves.

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.

First Harvest!

We had our first harvest!

On Saturday we picked our first harvested tomato, Sweet 100. My wife and I each ate a half of the tomato and we both enjoyed it. On Sunday we picked a Sweet Olive, which was eaten my our father in law. He liked it. Today, we picked two more Sweet 100s and another Sweet Olive.

And I've noticed four new tomatoes. On Friday night, I noticed Black Krim had it's first tomato. Saturday afternoon, Tiger Paw displayed a tomato. On Sunday, the mighty Jeff Davis tomato plant had a tomato. And today, I noticed tomatoes on Snow White.

I fertilized most of the front yard tomato plants while my wife watered them.

I tried some new gloves for manipulating the tomato branches. They didn't work in that regard – I broke a branch on the fourth tomato plant I manipulated. I took them off, but then broke off two more before I was done.

I don't want to break branches, obviously, and every year I say I won't do such a thing, and every year it happens. It's sort of hard to describe why, but I'll try – as time goes on the branches can become ever so slightly less flexible and the room inside the cages becomes more crowded, as well as there's more and more branches to manipulate. Eventually...snap!

Sweet Olive Has It's First Tomato

And now Sweet Olive has the makings of it's first tomato! It's so tiny that the bud hasn't fallen off yet.

In the back yard, the Aunt Ruby's German Green has grown by leaps and bounds.

Because of the way we planted, Aunt Ruby's German Green could have had a problem. It's line up behind two plants, one of them being Jeff Davis, which will grow up to six feet in length. It was possible that Aunt Ruby's German Green wouldn't get enough sun. But because of the initial growth spurt, it's quite probable that the two plants will protect the base of this plant as they grow. Win win, potentially.

7 More Plants In The Back Yard

Saturday morning, my wife and I planted seven tomato seedlings in the back yard. They were: Mexico (from our back of seedlings), Japanese Black Trifele (from our “seed lady”), Marz Round Green (again, from the “seed lady”), Black From Tula, Paul Robeson, Gardener's Delight and Green Grape.

Jeff Davis looks particularly strong and happy in the back yard.

We're now up to 48 planted seedlings (we thought we had 40 planted before Saturday, but it was actually 41) and the scary part is there's room for a few more. But we need the lemon tree pruned before more can go in. But my wife will be working the TomatoMania event in Beverly Hills next week and it wouldn't be a surprise for her to come back with a few more seedlings...

On Friday, my wife met up with one of the readers of this blog. She read the Tomato Seedlings post and asked if she could have some. Sure thing! After some back and forth, I got an address. Turns out my wife was visiting the "seed lady" that afternoon, and will only be a few minutes away. So I turned over the emails to my wife and let her handle it.

When we met in the evening, my wife couldn't stop raving about how nice this person was, how nice her garden was, how she gave her all sorts of books to read, especially English murder mysteries and I love English murder mysteries, how did she know?

I think she (we) made a new friend!

Sunday was spent in Murrieta celebrating Easter with relatives, so no tomato news to report. I do look at the front yard tomatoes a couple times a day and they all look solid – Jaune Coeur de Pigeon looking the best among our seedlings – with the exception of Speckled Roman, whose color isn't right.

I still need to stake them, however.

Four More Seedlings Planted

Last evening my wife and I planted Jeff Davis and Yellow Perfection in the back yard, as well as planting SunSugar and Italian Ice in containers. We put cages around Jeff Davis and Yellow Perfection – hopefully the dogs will stay away.

Sweet Olive continues to impress with its growth, and Cherokee Purple is now “reaching for the sky”. All the seedlings in the front yard look good as well.

Earlier this week, ladybugs had been put on plants in the front yard that were been invaded by aphids. The ladybugs appear to be doing their job, but there's many more aphids than ladybugs.

The Harvest Disparity Widens...

Today's morning haul: 23 Red Currants, 5 Salisaw Cafes, 4 Husky Cherry Reds, 3 Cherokee Chocolates, 2 Black Plum Pastes, a Red Robin, Prairie Fire, Taxi and Green Grape tomatoes.

41 tomatoes overall. This date last year (no joke) 359 tomatoes. I believe the picture at the top of the KCRW posting of my interview with Evan Kleiman is an image from that day.

My wife started wondering last evening about this disparity. The only thing I can say is that we were at “high tide” this time last year while this year, the tide is still coming in. For instance, last year I started harvesting Jeff Davis on July 3. This year the plant looks great but there's not even a tomato on it yet due to the late planting.

Plants Without Tomatoes (2)

I believe there are only two tomato plants without tomatoes.

Yellow Brandywine, Platfoot Strain – This is a beefsteak with a long maturation period sitting under a tree.

Jeff Davis – Beefsteak planted late in the season.

Having both plants still with no tomatoes is still understandable. Now that I look at it, Yellow Brandywine was only planted a week before Jeff Davis. The leaves for Yellow Brandywine started to yellow in the intense heat (and relative lack of sun). Jeff Davis looks very healthy, though with a fair amount of burnt blooms.

Watered Heavily; Heat Wave Coming

I heavily watered the tomato plants this morning in preparation for the coming heat wave. It was time to water, since the last watering was Saturday. In fact, some of the container plants were beginning to wilt.

Other than that, there isn't a whole lot to say. In the backyard, Olga's Round Yellow Chicken, Black Krim and Carbon look good. Jeff Davis looks strong for only being in the ground for a few weeks. Kimberly seems a bit behind the others but still looks healthy. I planted Kimberly about three feet from the lemon tree trunk and I might have planted it near a major root or something.

In the front yard, all the new plantings look healthy and strong. I did a lot of tucking for Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter, so perhaps it's having a growth spurt. The most mature tomato on Red Currant is not reddish orange. Overall, I estimate about 250 – 300 tomatoes on Red Currant at the moment. Remember, these are smaller than cherry tomatoes and grow in clusters, so this amount isn't surprising at all. Aunt Ruby's German Green and Big Rainbow are getting tall but have no tomatoes. When they do, though, the plant will support them well.

This heat wave will be the first test of the paper mulch.

I expect growth spurts from all our tomatoes!

Gregori's Altai Has No Tomatoes

Gregori's Altai, located in the “corner office” has two tomatoes on it. two round buds that look like tomatoes.

Micro Tom has three tomatoes on it. Garden Peach has more than two and the bottom leaves are yellowing, indicating that it's concentrating on making tomatoes.

I put a cage on Old Ivory Egg and staked it. I made paper mulch and went through the back yard, looking for spots I missed. I used about half the pile and threw the rest away. For now, I'm completely caught up on mulching.

I was going to individually report on the back yard tomatoes since I was back there adding mulch...but, darn it, they all have good color. In terms of the way the plants look, the standouts are White Bush, Yellow Brandywine – Platfoot Strain, Arkansas Traveler and Jeff Davis. Even our problem child has new growth on it and good color again but it's still a very thin and wispy plant.

I gave Cherokee Chocolate some worm castings as it has a lot of blooms on it and the growth has slowed down. I gave some worm castings to Purple Russian yesterday.

The weather in the San Fernando Valley this week has been overcast and cooler than normal. I just want to make note of it for when I look back on this entry 60 days or 90 days from now.

Aker's Plum Planted, Missing Tomato Seedlings

Last night we planted Aker's Plum in the backyard between Jeff Davis and Evan's Italian Plum along the south fence. It looks just fine.

I watered the tomato plants in the morning. Several of them looked a bit dry so I gave them a bit more water. The "veterans" (ones that have been in the ground for a while, like Red Currant or Big Rainbow) I only watered lightly.

Last night I told my wife "Where's Old Ivory Egg?". I remembered a clay pot with a seedling that was labeled with black marker on the pot "OIE". My wife didn't remember, but I insisted we had such a pot. I looked everywhere, couldn't find it.

This morning, while watering these seedlings, I couldn't find our Speckled Roman seedling. I called my wife over, who definitely remembers that one. We had two Speckled Roman seedlings and gave the better one to her mother, leaving us with the other. It's missing as well.

As of right now, it's a mystery.

We may be planting the rest of our seedlings today, but time will tell. The gardeners are here at the moment, so I took a break and wrote this up.

Jeff Davis, July 2007 Harvest

In another blog post, I noted that I estimated that last year's Jeff Davis tomato plant had about 70 pounds of tomatoes on it. I'll do an analysis of the results and see if I can verify it.

I had purchased a postal scale to get the weight of the tomato. I round it to the nearest half ounce. If it's 6 ounces or above, I record the weight.

Here's the results for Jeff Davis in July 2007...

July 3 -- Picked 1 tomato, 21.0 ounces.
July 5 -- Picked 2 tomatoes, 10 ounces and 11 ounces.
July 6 -- Picked 7 tomatoes, 11 ounces, 14 ounces, 20.5 ounces, 17 ounces, 15.5 ounces, 15 ounces, 13 ounces
July 7 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 20.5 ounces, 11 ounces, 10 ounces.
July 8 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 10 ounces, 14 ounces, 12 ounces
July 9 -- Picked 4 tomatoes, 16 ounces, 12 ounces, 19.5 ounces, 23 ounces
July 10 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 11 ounces, 20.5 ounces, 13 ounces
July 11 -- Picked 4 tomatoes, 14 ounces, 8.5 ounces, 24 ounces, 16 ounces.
July 13 -- Picked 6 tomatoes, 11 ounces, 16.5 ounces, 15 ounces, 12.5 ounces, 22 ounces, 23.5 ounces
July 14 -- Picked 8 tomatoes, 24 ounces, 13 ounces, 7.5 ounces, 9 ounces, 25 ounces, 11.5 ounces, 13 ounces, 16.5 ounces
July 15 -- Picked 6 tomatoes, 12 ounces, 10.5 ounces, 15.5 ounces, 9 ounces, 12 ounces, 15.5 ounces
July 16 -- Picked 5 tomatoes, 8.5 ounces, 7 ounces, 8 ounces, 14.5 ounces, 11 ounces
July 17 -- Picked 1 tomato, 11 ounces.
July 18 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 13 ounces, 8 ounces, 7.5 ounces
July 19 -- Picked 3 tomatoes, 9 ounces, 10 ounces, 11 ounces
July 20 -- Picked 5 tomatoes, 20.5 ounces, 10 ounces, 10 ounces, 8 ounces, 7.5 ounces
July 21 -- Picked 2 tomatoes, one was 10.5 ounces.
July 22 -- Picked 1 tomato, 6 ounces.
July 23 -- Picked 1 tomato, 20.5 ounces.
July 25 -- Picked 1 tomato, 11 ounces.
July 27 -- Picked 1 tomato, 10 ounces.
July 30 -- Picked 1 tomato.

There were only two harvested Jeff Davis tomatoes that were less than six ounces in July.

I only did the math once, but tallying all this up comes to 58 pounds of tomatoes. Clearly some of the tomatoes grew as the month progressed, but it wouldn't be unreasonable at all to say that on July 1, Jeff Davis had 50 pounds of tomatoes growing on the vines.

2007 Tomato -- Jeff Davis

My favorite tomato plant of 2007. Not my favorite tomato, but it was up there. My favorite plant.

I picked this up at Tomatomania as an afterthought. Based on the name I assumed someone simply named a new strain after themselves (Wrong – it's named after our only confederate president). It has leaves that look like fronds.

The plant looked dramatic as it grew strong, tall and seemingly proud. You could see the tomatoes would be good sized (but not too big), firm and juicy.

The only downside was that all the tomatoes were growing and ripening at once. If I didn't secure it, the cage would definitely collapse! We used a metal stake and some twine to keep it from falling over.

At one point I estimated that there was 70 pounds of tomatoes on this plant. Now of course I could be wrong, but even if it was 50, that's a lot for one plant. The big leaves helped protect the growing tomatoes in the hot summer.

The plant was great, the tomatoes felt and looked great. I was slightly disappointed that the tomato was merely very good and not fantastic.

For the most part the harvest came in all at once, so we were inundated with one pound (sometimes a pound and a half) Jeff Davis tomatoes. Most were brought down to sauces and frozen.