July 2012 Tomato Analysis

We harvested 6088 tomatoes for July. By all measures it was a very successful month -- an overabundance of large, tasty tomatoes. How does this compare to other years?

2007 -- 6154
2008 -- 1629
2009 -- 4576
2010 -- 4108
2011 -- 3876
2012 -- 6088

So we nearly matched 2007 but with nearly three times the amount of plants. While I romanticize the 2007 year -- and it was an absolutely incredible year -- we did have a higher percentage of cherry tomatoes that year. In 2012 we didn't grow many cherry tomatoes in the ground. In pots, yes, but not in the ground. SunGold, 2 Snow White plants, 2 Black Cherry plants and 2 Husky Cherry Red plants. About 10 percent. Yes, the ones in pots are almost all cherries, but they're also constricted by the very same pots. We grew 2727 Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes last year in the ground, this year we've grown 100 so far in a container.

Speaking of which, there's a better than 50 percent chance that SunGold beats our high harvest number of 2727. There's a chance that SunGold could reach 3000. The harvest will slow down to a trickle for a couple of weeks. The plant will recover a bit during those two weeks and get a second wind. If the plant is still strong enough for a good second wind, that should be good enough to pass 2727 and beyond.

That back yard harvest has been rock solid. All that digging in April has paid off.

The tomato plants in the raised bed have been a mild disappointment, except Indigo Rose. Could there be more bricks underneath the raised bed?

The south half of the "koi pond" has been disappointing. We've already pulled Paul Robeson. Black Krim(1), Vorlon and White Zebra have been sleepy. If I can I need to work the "koi pond" next year.

Still it's been a great month. The tomatoes have been tasty and plentiful -- what more can you ask?

I never got around to posting a June recap but in my mind I was predicting 5000 tomatoes for the month.

I predict a harvest of around 2400 tomatoes for the month of August. 

May 2012 Tomato Analysis

For the month of May 2012, we harvested 22 tomatoes -- 12 Husky Cherry Red(2), 9 Husky Cherry Red(1) and a Red Currant.

How does this compare to other years? It's in the middle of the pack.

2012 -- 22
2011 -- 0
2010 -- 1
2009 -- 11
2008 -- 60
2007 -- 98

What does this tell us? Not much of anything. 2007 was our best year but 2008 was our worst year -- we had planted too early.

However, we can get some clues by the plants I was having concerns about.

I had issues with leaf curl with Big Zebra. Not now. It's sitting directly under the lemon tree so it gets the least amount of sun. The two heat waves helped to dry the underside of the leaves. The plant lost the slight gray look and appears quite healthy. Recently I discovered a growing tomato on it.

There were issues with Red Boar(2) planted in the redwood raised bed. The main stem seemingly split into two twin stems. These stems got long enough to start splitting open the stem at the fork but not long enough to get supported by the cage. Eventually the cage was able to supply support. The plant still has an main stem issue but looks really healthy. It has a really good color with new blooms.

Italian Heirloom looked quite thin and wispy for a beefsteak plant. It's taken off and the main trunk is thickening.

We had pulled Bloody Butcher and Vorlon(2). We replaced them with Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red and Aunt Ruby's German Green. The two new plants look great. They're a little behind the others only because they were planted later than the others. They're doing just fine.

Pineapple(2), the grafted tomato was planted on May 12. It was looking okay when originally planted. The lower leaves were yellowing and it had a scrawnly look. No longer. It's only about a foot tall but the color is gorgeous and it's reaching for the sky.

Both Snow White plants didn't look too great about three weeks ago. Scrawny and small. However, both have taken off and both have growing tomatoes on them. However, the plant grew sideways until it reached the cage, then grew vertically. Three or four of our plants have a pronounced "elbow" before growing vertically. This appears to be a downside of a wide cage.

The only plant that looks like it's struggling a bit is Kellogg's Breakfast. The plant is actually rather tall at about four feet in the air. But it has only two real branches. It's quite leggy with yellowing leaves at the bottom. I think we'll get a few tomatoes off of this plant but not many.

But...we have one somewhat struggling plant out of 93. That is great! However, last year we had several plants just stop once they got growing tomatoes on them. Assuming that doesn't happen this year, look out. We're going to have a great 2012 harvest. 

November 2011 Harvest Analysis

The harvest total for November came in at 125 tomatoes. This compares favorably with the October harvest total of 133 tomatoes. No dropoff to speak of.

Why was that? It's pretty clear -- SunGold(1). In October we harvested 26 SunGold(1) tomatoes. In November we harvested 90 SunGold(1) tomatoes. Some were quite large for SunGold tomatoes.

Here are the numbers for November for the prior years:

2007 - 0
2008 - 19
2009 - 181
2010 - 214
2011 - 125

Again, this year's total is right in the middle of the pack.

What does this mean? Nothing. 2007 could be considered our best year. It's too late in the season to glean much meaning from the numbers. 

October 2011 Tomato Analysis

The total harvest for October 2011 was 133 tomatoes. That is the third highest (and third lowest -- in other words, the middle of the pack) of the five years I've been tracking. The lowest was 26 in 2007; the highest was an astonishing 866 in 2009.

2007 year was a fabulous year. The low total was due to spending over 3 weeks on a honeymoon. It is my belief that if we weren't on a honeymoon, the October 2007 tomato total would be more that the October 2011 total. Granted, we were away for about 5 days this year, but my best estimate of the "loss" is 7 tomatoes. That isn't significant.

2009 was our largest overall harvest to date. The really high October numbers was due to replanting seedlings after vandalism. These plants got late starts, survived the hot summer, and produced in September and October. We kept getting hit, but we kept replanting.

So in practice I believe this month would have been the second worst of five seasons. I attribute it to not putting in enough new soil in our front yard. We'll try to correct that for next year. 

Tomato Analysis for May

For May 2009 we harvested 11 tomatoes overall, 0 in the front yard and 11 in the back yard, encompassing two plants.

In May 2008 we harvested 60 tomatoes, all in the front yard, encompassing four plants.

In May 2007 we harvested 98 tomatoes, all in the front yard, encompassing three plants.

I wouldn't make too much of the numbers.

This is the first month we've harvested back yard tomatoes in May. But this is mostly due to the fact that all the container plants are in the back yard this year.

In general...

The back yard tomato plants look fabulous. Not a bad one in the bunch. There are a few plants without tomatoes on them, but by and large they shouldn't have tomatoes on them as they were planted late in the season. By my unofficial count, 10 of the 36 plants are missing tomatoes. Of those 10, all six planted in May do not have tomatoes – entirely normal and understandable. Barring anything surprising we could have quite a large crop of tomatoes coming from the back yard.

The front yard, however, has been set behind due to prior bouts of vandalism. Mexico is the only plant to survive all the vandalism. Overall, the tomato plants are doing well even though they have been planted late in the season or have been damaged. By my count, 9 of the 21 are missing tomatoes.

The weather has been cooperating lately. It has been quite temperate, not getting above about 85 degrees and not getting too cool, either. This gives a chance for the late plants to catch up, produce blooms and later on, tomatoes. But if we have an extended period over 95 degrees in temperature in June, a lot of these plants in the front yard will produce very little fruit.

Something to note: In general, the front yard tomato plants grow and mature faster than the back yard tomato plants. There's simply less shade (more sun) in the front yard. That's another indicator that the front yard plants have a lot of catching up to do, and also an indicator as to how much damage was done.

Tomato Analysis For July

July analysis: In short, we were expecting more. Our total of 1629 tomatoes is 74% less than last year's numbers for this period.

In May and June we were looking to buy a freezer to store all the tomato sauce. That urge faded away as the numbers just haven't supported such a purchase.

Why?

First, the harvest is simply later this year than last year. All the tomato growers I know are reporting that their harvests are coming in later this year compared to last year.

But that implies we'd get similar harvest numbers later in the year. That just isn't going to happen with our harvest totals this year.

Now mind you, we're still enjoying great tomatoes and have more than we can handle. We're very happy with our harvested tomatoes but the numbers pale in comparison to last year's numbers.

In August 2007 we harvested 2806 tomatoes. I'll estimate we'll do around 900 tomatoes for August 2008.

Last year we harvested 11,000 tomatoes among 34 plants. This year I'll estimate we'll harvest about 4600 tomatoes among the 52 plants (3 pulled).

To repeat, why?

I believe it's simply a confluence of events that won't happen again. We just got a bit unlucky this year.

First, I believe the weather in the winter and spring has been more variable this year compared to last year. On the high side, I seem to remember hitting 90 degree temperatures in April, 100 degree temperatures in May and I know we hit 110 in June. July 2008, though, seems more mild than July 2007. That could bode well for some of our August and September tomatoes.

Second, our seed lady moved last year. She was kind enough to start seeds for us this year and she started the seeds at the same time she did before. Turns out that the new place is foggier, more damp and a bit colder than the prior house. In short, the first batch was started too soon.

The plants acquired from Green Thumb/Green Arrow didn't seem to do very well this year.

The Tomatomania event started a couple of weeks later than usual. That alone would shift the harvest to couple of weeks later.

I've been told after the fact that early season windstorms wiped out a lot (more than half!) of the tomato seedlings. I wished I had known that before picking them. Usually, the seedlings I select look healthy but are a little on the smallish side. But this year's smaller seedlings may have been small from damage created by the wind and cold. Note to self: Ask the grower about how they were raised.

If our generous seed lady grows for us again next year and doesn't move, she'll start between the two start dates for this year.

Third, our seed lady completely surprised us with a second batch of seedlings. We gladly took them but they were planted late in the season.

In short – Bouncing temperatures (not good for the plants), seedlings planted too early, late Tomatomania, seedlings planted too late, late season, and the 110 degree temperatures around the summer solstice burned out a lot of blooms.

In no particular order, here's discussion about some of the tomato plants:

Red Currant – Stunning production, great taste. An absolute winner in 2008.

Blue Fruit, Chocolate Stripes – Grown from first batch of seed. First ripe tomatoes showed up about 115 days after planting. We'll get only a dozen or so tomatoes from Chocolate Stripes, more from Blue Fruit.

Polish Pastel, Painted Ukrainian, Evan's Italian Plum, Kellogg's Breakfast, Olga's Round Yellow Chicken – No harvested tomatoes (except Polish Pastel, which started recently), but there are some on the vines. Evan's Italian Plum may have 50 tomatoes on it. The best is yet to come for these tomatoes

Jeff Davis, Yellow Brandywine – Platfoot Strain – No tomatoes, period. Plants are six feet tall, but no tomatoes.

Garden Peach, Snow White – The absolute busts of 2008. Last year: Garden Peach (which was really two plants): 1197, Snow White: 1771. This year: Garden Peach: 13, Snow White: 4. Everything off of these plants tastes bad and doesn't look like what the tag says they are. Probably ruined by severe wind damage.

Cherokee Chocolate, Stupice – Labels are wrong and we don't know what we have.

Black Krim, Pierce's Pride, Black From Tula, Paul Robeson, Carbon, Blue Fruit – We love dark tomatoes! We have yet to hit a bad dark tomato, and this year is no exception.

Red Yellow Cap – Impressive beefsteak. I'd grow it again. The yellow-red beefsteak tomatoes tend to get bruised and sun scalded, but not this one so far.

Piccolo, Black Cherry, Husky Cherry Red, Black Plum Paste, Salisaw Cafe, Green Grape, Jaune Flamme, Red Currant – Cherry sized tomatoes whose best days are in the past (exception: Piccolo, which is cresting right now).

Zhezha (front yard), Micro Tom, Red Robin, Prairie Fire, Taxi, Patio – This year's container plants. I've come full circle on this. I moved all the container plants from the back yard to the front yard so our Manchester Terrier couldn't get them. The problem, though, is that the front yard driveway is simply too hot for container plants and the Manchester Terrier simply eats other tomatoes planted in the ground. We'll move them to the back yard next year and give these plants some respite from the intense heat.

Tomato Analysis For June

Let's compare June's totals with the June 2007 totals...

In June 2007 we harvested 1259 tomatoes. In June 2008, we harvested 1538 tomatoes – 22% more.

However, last year I harvested from 22 different tomato plants among 34 planted tomatoes (65%). This year, I harvested from 23 different tomato plants among 52 in the ground (44%).

This year's June totals have been dominated by the Red Currant harvest. Out of the 1538 harvested, 1337 were Red Currants. That left only 201 tomatoes over the other 51 existing tomato plants (one died).

A week or so ago I predicted that we wouldn't hit last year's numbers. Then Red Currant really kicked in, harvesting 97 followed by 139, 136 and 98 tomatoes.

Therein lies the rub: Until the other plants start “cresting”, the numbers will rise and fall based on the Red Currant harvest. And Red Currant's best harvest may very well be last week's numbers. The second largest harvest, Husky Cherry Red shows signs of “cresting” having harvested 7 followed by 10, 19, 17, 15, 7 and 6 tomatoes over the past week.

We'll get a good harvest total from a lot of the smaller backyard tomatoes. These include Salisaw Cafe, Stupice, Black Plum Paste and perhaps Sioux and Kimberly as well. In the front yard, Piccolo looks pretty good. And Red Currant looks healthy enough to get a second wave.

Beefsteaks: Paul Robeson and the back yard Black Krim look particularly happy.

Disappointments (so far): Garden Peach, Snow White Cherry, Big Rainbow, Micro Tom.

In short, this year's tomato plants appears to be about two weeks behind last year's tomato plants. The July numbers should expose this.

June Tomato Analysis

This evening I picked 60 Red Currants, 3 Husky Cherry Reds, a Prairie Fire, Green Grape and Red Robin tomatoes.

The “cooling” trend continues, only getting up to 105. Yikes.

The Lime Green Salad in the “koi pond” had about 200 blooms on it. There are a few tomatoes poking out but about 85 percent are burned out, due to this intense heat.

We are ahead of last years tomato totals compared to this time last year. This year's crop is clearly dominated by Red Currant. By tomorrow, we'll have picked twice as many Red Currants as last year. Last year we planted Red Currant in a container, while this year we planted it in the ground.

Tomato totals for June 1 – June 22, 2007 – 491 tomatoes. Tomato totals for June 1 – June 22, 2008 – 750 tomatoes.

Last year, we started picking over 100 tomatoes as of June 26. On June 26, 2007, I picked 115 tomatoes from 14 different tomato plants.

So far, we don't have the breadth of harvested tomatoes like we did last year. As of today, I've only picked from five different varieties on a given day. For the tomatoes other than Red Currant, the most I've picked for a given day has been five.

In other words, we're ahead of last year's tomato totals due to the strength of the Red Currant harvest. But I believe the tomato harvest totals will start to converge again due to the low harvest of the other tomatoes.

Tomato Analysis For May

Since we're at the end of the month, let's do a comparison to last year's May totals.

I picked 7 more Red Currants to bring the May month total for 2008 to 60. Last May, we picked 98 tomatoes.

Last May, 3 tomato plants out of 34 harvested tomatoes (8.8%) while this May, 4 tomato plants out of 52 harvested tomatoes (7.7%).

The first tomato picked last May was on May 2 while this year the first tomato picked was on May 16. Last year the first tomato picked was SunGold, which also turned out to be the most productive. This year the first tomato picked was Red Currant, which looks like it will be the most productive.

I'd say that most of these differences are negligible with the exception of the last paragraph. This year's crop “feels” like it's about two weeks behind last year's crop. That may not prove to be true in the long run, but we'll see.

Last year, the highest harvest total occurred in mid-July (July 13 and 14, to be exact). In 2006, the heaviest harvest dates were in early July. This year, I'll estimate the heaviest harvest date will be around July 22 or 23 based on what we know so far.

All the plants look healthy, some better than others, but all appear healthy.