Getting Cold!

November 15 harvest: 17 Snow White (front yard), Husky Cherry Red, SunSugar and Sweet 100 for a total of 20 tomatoes.

November 17 harvest: 15 Snow White (front yard), 2 Sweet 100, Husky Cherry Red and SunSugar for a total of 19 tomatoes.

November 25 harvest: 7 Snow White (front yard), 2 Husky Cherry Red, 2 Sweet 100, Plum Tigris, Brown Berry and Snow White (back yard) for a total of 14 tomatoes.

Today's harvest: 8 Snow White, Husky Cherry Red, 2 Topaz, Carmello and Snow White (back yard) for a total of 13 tomatoes.

There was an eight day harvest gap because it was simply too cold to harvest tomatoes in the morning. We've had near freezing weather at sunrise (and in one case, dipped below freezing, hitting 28.8 degrees) during that period.

We're so close to harvesting 8000 tomatoes for the year! We're four tomatoes away from that total. I hope to harvest on the last day of the month to get us over the top.

The freezing weather has harmed some of our crops. Husky Cherry Red needs to be pulled. One of our winter tomato plants needs to be pulled as well. Several of our other crops have sustained mild to severe damage from the cold weather.

The Tide Is Slowly Retreating...

No harvest done yesterday.

Today's harvest includes 11 Snow White (front yard) 8 Babywine, 5 SunGold, 2 Stupice, 2 Violet Jasper, 2 Large Pink Anna, 2 Topaz, 2 Green Grape, 2 Gajo de Melon, 2 Paul Robeson, Snow White (back yard), Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart, Black From Tula, Dr. Wyche's Yellow(2), Weeping Charlie, Green Zebra, Brown Berry, Red Currant(1), Plum Tigris, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye and SunSugar for a total of 49 tomatoes.

My wife watered the back yard tomatoes and I added fertilizer to the container plants. Other than that not much is happening.

First Tomato Plants Of The Year Pulled Yesterday

Today's harvest includes 7 Husky Cherry Red, 6 Principe Borghese, 6 Snow White (front yard), 5 Yellow Perfection, 4 Snow White (back yard), 4 Red Boar, 3 Poma Amoris Minora Lutea, 2 Red Grape, 2 Thessaloniki, 2 Black From Tula, 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow(1), 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Sweetie, 2 Black Krim, Violet Jasper, Aunt Ruby's German Green(1), Miss Elliotte Black, SunGold, Red Currant(2), Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Weeping Charlie, Pierce's Pride, Jaune Flamme(2), Gajo de Melon, Black and Gypsy for a total of 61 tomatoes.

Yesterday morning my wife and I had our cars serviced by our mechanic. When we came back in the afternoon there was time for me to pull out a few plants. Out went Garden Peach, Depp's Pink Firefly and Taxi.

Depp's Pink Firefly did nothing this year. Garden Peach was simply exhausted and got burned out by the heat. Taxi is a determinate tomato plant and so pulling it out at this time is perfectly normal.

Harvested Over 1500 Tomatoes For August!

Today's harvest includes 22 Snow White (front yard), 5 Yellow Perfection, 3 Violet Jasper, 3 Principe Borghese, 3 Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart, 3 SunGold, 3 Snow White (back yard), 2 Enchantment, 2 Azoychka/not Azoychka, 2 Jaune Flamme(2), 2 Poma Amoris Minora Lutea, 2 Husky Cherry Red, Patio, Stupice, Aunt Ruby's German Green(1), Babywine, SunSugar, Topaz, Carmello, Red Currant(1), Red Currant(2), Jaune Flamme(1), Plum Tigris, Red Boar, Yellow Pear, Gajo de Melon, Black, Gypsy, Red Grape and Pineapple (8 ounces) for a total of 70 tomatoes.

My wife watered the back yard tomato plants last night.

Big Pink has a maturing tomato on it.

We've now harvested over 1500 tomatoes for August (1538)! It looks like we'll end up around 2000 harvested tomatoes for the month.

Harvested Over 300 Front Yard Snow White Tomatoes!

And today's harvest includes 18 Snow White (front yard), 8 SunGold, 5 Yellow Perfection, 3 Brown Berry, 3 Husky Cherry Red, 3 Snow White (back yard), 3 Red Grape, 2 White Currant, 2 SunSugar, 2 Violet Jasper, Michael Pollan, Topaz, Jaune Flamme(1), Plum Tigris, Red Currant(2), Red Boar, Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart, Black From Tula, Azoychka/not Azoychka, Gypsy and Thessaloniki for a total of 60 tomatoes.

Yesterday we harvested over 300 front yard Snow White tomatoes! Currently this is our “hot” plant, producing large, tasty tomatoes. Now the total for this plant is up to 320 harvested tomatoes.

My wife watered part of the back yard yesterday and the front yard tomatoes the day before.

A couple of the tomato plants are burned out and waiting for me to pull them out.

Harvested Over 1000 Tomatoes For August!

Today's harvest includes 24 SunGold, 8 Snow White (front yard), 7 Gajo de Melon, 5 Snow White (back yard), 4 Yellow Perfection, 4 Violet Jasper, 2 Michael Pollan, 2 Brown Berry, 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Weeping Charlie, 2 Patio, 2 Jaune Flamme(2), 2 Black, 2 Azoychka/not Azoychka, Gypsy, Thessaloniki, Zapotec Pleated, Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart, Emerald Evergreen, Green Grape, Sweet 100, Principe Borghese, Taxi, Black Oxheart (6 ounces), Husky Cherry Red, Babywine, Miss Elliotte Black, Garden Peach, Black Krim, SunSugar and Large Pink Anna (11.5 ounces) for a total of 85 tomatoes.

My wife watered the front yard tomato plants yesterday evening and the back yard tomato plants the day before.

We've now harvested over 1000 tomatoes for the month of August (1070)! Our harvest numbers for August has been consistent – 83/84/72/80/69/74/83/91/93/86/87/83/85. I expect the total to drop as SunGold's harvest numbers begin to fall.

We've also harvested over 3000 tomatoes in the front yard this year (3043).

Harvested Plum Tigris and Jaune Flamme(2)!

Today's harvest includes 10 Violet Jasper, 7 SunGold, 6 White Currant, 5 Yellow Perfection, 5 Husky Cherry Red, 4 Speckled Roman, 4 Stupice, 3 Black Cherry, 3 Red Currant(2), 3 Principe Borghese, 3 Red Grape, 2 Snow White (front yard), 2 Sweet 100, 2 Brown Berry, 2 Ananas Noire (6.5 ounces, 7 ounces), 2 Sweet Tangerine (one 7 ounces), 2 Zapotec Pleated, 2 Red Currant(1), Michael Pollan, Babywine, Topaz, Jaune Flamme(1), German Orange Strawberry (7.5 ounces), Black From Tula (8 ounces), Enchantment, Jaune Flamme(2) (new) and Plum Tigris (new) for a total of 76 tomatoes weighing 5 pounds, 3 ounces.

For some reason there were a lot of tomatoes with blossom end rot today. I had actually picked two Berkeley Tie-Dye Heart tomatoes but both had too much blossom end rot to be considered. Six or seven tomatoes were put in the compost pile and not added to today's count.

One of the Ananas Noire tomatoes had been pecked by birds and will not be eaten. I brought it in to be counted and weighed.

A Japanese Black Trifele tomato is in the very early stages of maturation. It should be ready in a few days. A T. C. Jones tomato is maturing.

Five More Plants With New Tomatoes

I got back to “training” the tomatoes this morning, and I had a lot to do. Unfortunately, I broke my first branch – it came off Zapotec Pleated. Oh well, these things happen. The tomato plant is four feet tall already and will be just fine.

There were five plants with new tomatoes – Plum Tigris, Green Zebra, Jaune Flamme(2) (the one in the raised bed), Enchantment and Toni's Round.

I should mention here that last week my wife added liquid fish emulsion to a used half gallon milk carton (rinsed out). She put a pinhole on the bottom and placed it next to plants she thought could use an extra kick. First she put it by Jaune Flamme(2), then Sweet 100, then Toni's Round.

My wife met our “seed lady” last night while I spoke at the Los Angeles Visual FoxPro User Group. She came back with...did you guess it...two more seedlings. Apparently the “seed lady” did get a couple of seedlings from her batch. I believe one is called Ildi and the other had “Pink” in the name. Where in the heck are we going to plant them?

The real tomato season is starting – the one where I can't keep my second knuckles completely clean due to tomato schmutz from training and soil.

As a whole the plants are doing great. While looking great isn't the payout window, it looks like a very good foundation has been established.

Planted 7 More Tomatoes In Pots

My wife planted six new tomato plants in pots in the back yard – Plum Tigris, Jaune Flamme, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Carmello and Topaz. She also planted SunSugar in a pot in the front yard.

The six in the back yard were planted and will grow using the method learned from The Tomato Lady of Beverly Hills. We'll see how this experiment goes!

Above is an image of these back yard tomatoes.

After work I bought two bags of compost and some flashlights. After catching up on what went on during the day, I dug two holes in the back yard for more tomatoes to be planted. I have two more holes to dig and that may be it for our 2010 planting. We were/are seriously considering planting some seeds again but I don't know if we'll ever get around to it.

My wife believes we'll be managing 73 tomato plants this year but I need to verify after everything is planted.

While digging holes I noticed that Sweet Tangerine has a growing tomato on it. There's a second, unlabeled tomato near the raised bed with a tomato (perhaps Garden Peach?) as well but I'll verify later what was planted there.

This morning I noticed that Stupice has a second tomato growing on the vine.

The other image is a picture of my wife's beautiful garden!

Found Four More Caterpillars...

Today's harvest includes 8 Snow White(1), 6 Snow White(2), Babywine, Husky Cherry Red, Sweet 100, Green Zebra(1), White Zebra, Plum Tigris and Cuor de Bue for a total of 21 tomatoes.

And I found four full size caterpillars on Snow White(2). I don't see any more praying mantises – either the cold got 'em or it's part of their natural cycle – and the caterpillars are flourishing.

I may not be harvesting tomorrow if we have our first rainstorm of the season.

Harvested Over 5000 Front Yard Tomatoes This Year!

Today's harvest includes 66 Snow White(2), 24 Snow White(1), 6 Yellow Perfection, 5 Babywine, 3 Red Grape, 3 White Currant, 2 Italian Ice, a back yard Husky Cherry Red, Black Cherry, Plum Tigris, Paul Robeson, White Zebra and Cour de Bue for a total of 115 tomatoes.

Wow, harvesting over 100 tomatoes on an October day. Amazing!

We've now harvested over 5000 front yard tomatoes (5026)! The front yard totals are quickly catching up to the back yard totals. The gap grew to around 350 tomatoes in September, now it's down to 132.

We've now harvested over 600 Snow White(2) tomatoes (604).

Harvested Over 10,000 Tomatoes For The Year!

And today's harvest includes 54 Snow White(2), 6 Snow White(1), 4 Italian Ice, 3 Red Grape, 3 Sweet 100, 3 Paul Robeson, 2 Yellow Perfection, Mong, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Babywine, a back yard Husky Cherry Red, Green Zebra(1), Green Zebra(2), White Zebra, White Currant and Plum Tigris for a total of 84 tomatoes.

We've now harvested over 10,000 tomatoes for the year (10,069)! It's been a very good year. It's going strong again, especially considering how late in the year it is.

I pulled out five tomato plants last night. From the front yard, Marz Round Green, Vintage Wine and the last Oaxacan Jewel were thrown in the trash can. In the back yard, Tiger Paw and Japanese Black Trifele were placed in the compost pile.

We've now harvested over 500 Snow White(2) tomatoes. 538 have been harvested so far, of which 335 were harvested for the month of September.

Speaking of September, we ended up harvesting a total of 1933 tomatoes for the month. The original estimate was 700, then a second estimate placed at 1625 tomatoes. An incredible month. Putting it in perspective, two years ago we stopped counting at 10,990 tomatoes harvested. In September 2007 we harvested 647 tomatoes. In other words, there's no precedent for such a rich September harvest!

What are my predictions for October? Easy. I don't have a clue.

My wife did some watering in the back yard yesterday.

Reached 1500 Harvested Tomatoes For September!

Today's harvest includes 6 White Currant, 6 Babywine, 4 Snow White(1), 4 Snow White(2), 4 Yellow Perfection, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Black Cherry, Vintage Wine, Mong, Oaxacan Jewel, a front yard Husky Cherry Red, Tiger Paw, White Zebra, Sweet 100, Plum Tigris, a back yard Green Grape, Garden Peach and Cuor de Bue for a total of 39 tomatoes.

This ends the six day decline in the harvest totals.

We've now harvested over 1500 tomatoes for the month (1502)! This is more than twice the original estimate for September. In fact, just the back yard tomato harvest so far (866) has beaten the original estimate for September.

My wife completed the watering in the front yard, which included all of the front yard tomatoes (except the volunteer). This morning I lightly watered the back yard container plants.

Yesterday it reached 95 degrees. That is hot enough to sterilize some of the tomato blooms. Today is supposed to be much hotter, getting over 100 degrees. We'll see.

Reached 9500 Harvested Tomatoes For The Year!

Today's harvest includes 11 Babywine, 6 Snow White(1), 4 Snow White(2), 3 Yellow Perfection, 3 Garden Peach, 2 White Currant, 2 Japanese Black Trifele, 2 Black Cherry, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Tiger Paw, Plum Tigris, Sweet 100, Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, a back yard Husky Cherry Red and Black From Tula (6.5 ounces) for a total of 42 tomatoes.

We've reached 9500 harvested tomatoes for the year (9534)! And it looks like we now have a fair shot at reaching 10,000 tomatoes for the year.

Yesterday it got up to 101 at Pierce College. Today it got up to 95 degrees. The temperature is still hot enough to burn out blooms.

This blog post is late because my wife and I went to the Los Angeles Dodgers game this afternoon. We had to arrange to get tickets from Chris's brother, then pick up a friend of Chris in Pasadena and head to the game. I met with Chris's parents and sat in field level seats well off of the right field line not too far away from the foul pole. My wife and her friend were right in line with home plate on the second deck.

This game was a rout, with the Dodgers winning 12-1. It was notable for a couple of reasons. First, there was a grand slam in the first inning. My wife and I have been at two Los Angeles Dodger games this year and in both games there has been a Dodger grand slam.

Second, my wife and her friend appeared on the main scoreboard between the seventh and eighth innings! The camera person did a pan of the restaurant in right field and my wife and her friend were dining at that moment, near the window.

Attached below is an image of a caterpillar eating a tomato, noted after today's early morning harvest.

Getting Hot Again

Today's harvest includes 7 Snow White(2), 5 Garden Peach, 4 Babywine, 3 Japanese Black Trifele, 3 Black Cherry, 2 Sweet 100, 2 White Currant, 2 Plum Tigris, 2 Snow White(2), 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, a front yard Husky Cherry Red, a back yard Husky Cherry Red, Oaxacan Jewel(2), Vintage Wine, Silvery Fir Tree, White Zebra, Green Zebra(1), Cuor de Bue, Speckled Roman, Tiger Paw, German Orange Strawberry, Yellow Perfection and Paul Robeson for a total of 45 tomatoes.

My wife watered a portion of the back yard yesterday.

It got up to 98 degrees yesterday, which will burn out some of the new tomato blooms.

Reached 900 Harvested Black Cherry Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes 6 Snow White(2), 6 Babywine, 6 Black Cherry, 5 Yellow Perfection, 4 White Currant, 4 Plum Tigris, 4 Snow White(1), 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 White Zebra, 2 Vintage Wine, 2 Silvery Fir Tree, Mong, Black Krim, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Oaxacan Jewel(1), a back yard Husky Cherry Red, a back yard Green Grape, Tiger Paw, Garden Peach and Sweet 100 for a total of 54 tomatoes.

Black Cherry has reached over 900 harvested tomatoes (905)! Plum Tigris has reached over 100 harvested tomatoes (103).

Black Cherry and Yellow Perfection are near the end of their second wind. There's not a lot of fruit left on these two plants.

Even if the harvest totals “falls off a table” again, we'll easily double the original estimate of 700 tomatoes for the month.

I see some new blooms on Snow White(1) but I also understand we're supposed to get hit with another heat wave.

Hmmm....if we get 300 harvested tomatoes in both the front and back yards before the end of the year, we'll reach 10,000 tomatoes. That seems doable, so I have to say that it's now a possibility.

The front yard Husky Cherry Red is all brown now, having been suffocated by Babywine. This plant is draped completely over Husky Cherry Red.

My wife finished watering the front yard.

It's Our Second Anniversary!

And today's harvest includes 15 Black Cherry, 11 Babywine, 6 Yellow Perfection, 5 Plum Tigris, 4 Paul Robeson, 3 Oaxacan Jewel(1), 2 Snow White(1), 2 Snow White(2), 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow, 2 Silvery Fir Tree, 2 Japanese Black Trifele, Turkish Striped Monastery, White Currant, Vintage Wine, Oaxacan Jewel(2) and a nice looking Black Krim (7 ounces) for a total of 59 tomatoes.

I know for a fact I picked a Sweet 100 and put it in the harvest basket, but when I pulled out the tomatoes for counting it had disappeared. Oh well.

We've now harvested over 4500 tomatoes from the front yard (4515)! I've noted that some of the front yard tomato plants (especially the two Snow White plants and Dr. Wyche's Yellow) are more green due to the cooler weather. I don't know if that will mean another run of tomatoes out of these plants but it does mean they are still quite healthy.

Last night my wife and I had an early celebration of our second anniversary at a nearby Argentinian restaurant. The food was delicious. We spent most of our time wondering how two years went by so fast.

Our actual second anniversary is today, September 15.

If you were at our wedding two years ago, you know how much fun it was for everyone involved. Please add your memories to the comments section of this thread/post. Thank you!

Reached 1000 Harvested Tomatoes For September

And today's harvest includes 14 Black Cherry, 13 Snow White(2), 12 Yellow Perfection, 7 Babywine, 5 Snow White(1), 4 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 4 Japanese Black Trifele, 3 Orange Blossom, 3 Paul Robeson, 3 White Currant, 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 2 Silvery Fir Tree, 2 Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, 2 Garden Peach(2), Plum Tigris, Red Currant, Jaune Flamme, Garden Peach(1), Vintage Wine, a front yard Husky Cherry Red, Husky Gold, Sweet 100, German Orange Strawberry and Pierce's Pride for a total of 87 tomatoes.

Fulfilling a promise yesterday, I pulled out the front yard Speckled Roman, Jaune Flamme, Red Currant, Garden Peach(1) and Orange Blossom.

Yesterday my wife went to a worm composting class with our friend Liz. I was going to come but I had some new consulting work.

My wife came back with the worm compost materials and a bag of worms, plus a bale of hay. I'm not sure what the hay is for, but what the hey! We assembled it and we have our own worm composter as a complement to our regular compost bin made last week. The pulled tomato plants went in to the regular compost pile.

We've reached over 1000 harvested tomatoes for September (1082)! Again, I have no update to the original estimate of 700 tomatoes for the month. I know the harvest numbers will fall but I thought they would have fallen much quicker than they have. I'm happy for that!

If we continue harvesting around 80 tomatoes for a few more days, 10,000 tomatoes will be a possibility.

We hadn't harvested a Pierce's Pride in over a month.

The tomatoes from the volunteer look exactly like Old Ivory Egg.

Reached 4500 Harvested Back Yard Tomatoes!

Today's harvest includes 41 Black Cherry, 18 Babywine, 15 Yellow Perfection, 8 Snow White(2), 6 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 6 Snow White(1), 4 Garden Peach(2), 4 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (7 ounces, 13 ounces, 6 ounces, 9.5 ounces), 4 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Black From Tula, 3 Plum Tigris, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Paul Robeson, 2 Orange Blossom, Garden Peach(1), White Zebra, White Currant, Sweet 100, Husky Gold, Italian Ice, Japanese Black Trifele, Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, Vintage Wine and Red Currant for a total of 128 tomatoes!

Well, I don't know what to write that hasn't already been written about this heat wave harvest bump. But I'll try...

Now we have gone over 4 times the harvest amount than just seven days ago. On September 2 we harvested 31 tomatoes.

My original harvest estimate for September 2009 was 700 tomatoes. As of today, we've harvested 699 tomatoes for the month.

I had concerns when I made that estimate that we wouldn't reach 9000 tomatoes for the year. 10,000 harvested tomatoes was out of the question. Now 9000 harvested tomatoes for the year will happen (at this pace, it will happen in two days!) and the magic 10,000 mark is now an outside possibility.

We will have a drop off. I guarantee that. But every time I write it in this blog, I harvest more the next day.

The weather has settled down. Yesterday was quite pleasant and even had a touch of crispness in the air. Fall?

We've reached over 4500 harvested back yard tomatoes for the year (4527)!

Today's harvested Dr. Wyche's Yellow look great!

Nearly 4x The Harvest Than Eight Days Ago!

Today's harvest includes 32 Black Cherry, 16 Babywine, 14 Yellow Perfection, 11 Snow White(1), 10 Garden Peach(2), 5 Oaxacan Jewel(2), 5 Snow White(2), 3 front yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 3 Paul Robeson, 2 Orange Blossom, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Silvery Fir Tree, Jaune Coeur de Pigeon, Mong, Red Currant, Amazon Chocolate and Plum Tigris for a total of 113 tomatoes.

32 harvested tomatoes is the highest harvest total for Black Cherry in 2009. It makes little sense that the highest harvest day is September 8 when the first rush came in late July. Not that I'm objecting, mind you, I just can't fully explain it!

Well, I guess I can explain most of it if you add the heat wave harvest bump to a second wind for the Black Cherry tomato plant.

I see very few new blooms on the tomatoes. The heat wave has burned them out and sterilized them, as expected. When these numbers settle down, they will drop down hard and stay down.

Still, today's harvest total is 377% more than just eight days ago. Crazy!

Babywine has reached 300 harvested tomatoes for the year.

My wife made tomato sauce yesterday afternoon. I helped out this time but she's the one that made it. It took a couple of hours but it was fun!

Today (again) we didn't harvest from a single container plant.