Planted Two More Tomato Plants

On Wednesday I finished off the third hole left from Tuesday and dug a couple more.

Thursday and Friday I didn't do anything about planting tomatoes. If I dig too much my right knee swells and I have to back off. This was a backing off period.

Saturday afternoon I had a little time to spread out some of the compost in the back yard, but it was too hot to plant.

Yesterday I worked the TomatoMania event at Flora Gardens in Ojai. Not only was it turning dark by the time I got home, I brought home some more seedlings. I went to bed early...

...and I got up early. But I did spend time before dawn prepping the dug dirt piles for planting. Also, I added compost to all of our seedlings not yet planted.

Tonight we got two more planted: Momotaro and Aunt Ruby's German Green. Afterwards I placed compost in the spaces between the planted tomatoes.

So the short term goal is to plant tomatoes in the six remaining holes and then move more compost around the areas recently planted. Then it's dig, dig, dig more holes in the back yard. When my wife pins back the sweet peas growing in the "koi pond" in the front yard, I can dig there as well. 

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. 

Friday's "Koi Pond" planting

Here's an image from Friday's "koi pond" planting. It might not show...but I'm really tired in this shot. This was after the Descanso Gardens TomatoMania preparation day, a full day in and of itself.

 

Catching up -- Summary Version

I'll give a summary of the past couple of weeks and leave the details for later...

I worked the TomatoMania events in Encino and Descanso Gardens. Both were hard work but lots of fun. Gayle Anderson did several drop-ins for the KTLA morning news at Descanso Gardens on Friday. Met several friends at both Encino and Descanso Gardens.

We've been planting! Five tomatoes in the "koi pond" last Tuesday, two more on Friday, three yesterday. The three done today replaced bad or missing seedlings planted in the back yard.

Also, two of the volunteer tomatoes were moved to raised beds.

Everywhere we dig we find cutworms. They're everywhere. Not good.

Time permitting I'll fill in the details later... 

Descanso Gardens TomatoMania was a Success!

On Friday my wife planted four more grafted tomatoes in the south garden -- Missouri Pink Love Apple, Michael Pollan, Gold Medal and Black & Brown Boar. She caged all the grafts with our homemade cages from last year. Also she added two layers of green ribbon twine across the bottom two holes of the cages to keep our dogs away from the seedlings.

In the evening I planted Vorlon, Black Krim, Black Cherry and Pineapple in the front yard "koi pond". My wife did help out toward the end of that planting, making sure we finished before the sun set.

On Saturday I helped out with the Descanso Gardens TomatoMania event. The Descanso Gardens location gets more popular and this year kept to that tradition. It was extremely busy in the early morning followed by a pretty steady pace throughout the day.

The tomato seedlings are kept on foldaway tables as opposed to being placed on the ground. I seem to be the designated person moving the stock forward and let me tell you, it's much easier on tables. I interacted with the customers a lot more than I did at the Encino location because I was (somewhat) less fatigured and there was simply less stock to manage. Keeping up at the main event in Encino this year was hopeless, but I did catch up with things at Descanso Gardens just before closing time.

We met some friends for dinner in the area and that was a lot of fun. I didn't get home until around 8:30 PM.

On Sunday I was back at Descanso Gardens. Our original plans were to have my wife working on Sunday but she changed her mind. So I worked it. It was a slower pace but by no means slow. Again, I got to talk with the customers more.

When I left for the day there were approximately 80 tomatoes remaining. From what I'm told, the Descanso Gardens event started with 370 flats (usually there's 16 seedlings per flat but a few had 25 per flat), or roughly 6000 seedlings. A successful event!

During the day my wife watered the planted tomatoes in the "corner office".

I check the planted tomatoes this morning and the plants were doing just fine! 

Five Seedlings Planted On Sunday

First off, I've been less than prolific posting about tomatoes this year. I'll try to do better in the future weeks.

Let's catch up first. My wife and I worked the Encino TomatoMania event last week. My wife worked Friday. I worked a little over a half day on Saturday and a full day Sunday. The seedling price was raised from $4.00 a seedling to $4.50 a seedling. Grafted tomatoes were sold this year at a $10.00 price point. I've been told that Friday was the best day ever "by far". It's not clear if that's due to total income or the total amount of seedlings sold (or both). Nevertheless the weather was good all three days. I was out in the field moving stock and I simply could not keep up.

Surprisingly I ran into an old client of mine. We had never actually met face to face before. It was a pleasant surprise to see him at TomatoMania.

As usual it was fun seeing the "groupies". It's hot exhausting volunteer work but that's true for everyone. We're all in the same boat.

So this weekend was planned to be devoted to planting some of our seedlings. That's right, we hadn't planted a single seedling yet. My wife thought that our soil level in the "koi pond" was too low, so on Saturday we went to Green Thumb in Canoga Park. We saw the end of Steve Goto's talk about tomatoes. Steve is a good speaker, very knowledgeable. We picked up a bunch of plants, about a half dozen more tomato seedlings and some bags of planter mix. But before we checked out, lo and behold, my old client showed up at Green Thumb! We met twice in the span of a week.

But we had tomatoes to plant. Oh, and other chores as well. We got home and took out all the materials. I raked back the hay in the "koi pond" to the north side, smoothed the dirt, then added the six bags of planter mix and smoothed the dirt again. Then I went to the post office, the dry cleaners, the bank, Lowe's, Walmart (to pick up Husky Cherry Red!), Petco and then back home. By then I was hungry. After eating...the sun had set. Darn it! Nothing planted.

So on to Sunday. Back to Green Thumb to buy more planter mix, tomato fertilizer and compost. I planted a Porkchop and then stopped because we were expecting company. The company came and went, back to planting. The next hole was a surprise (mostly dug before the first break) because there were a fair amount of rocks in the hole. That's a signature of our back yard but not our front yard. I filled up a one gallon bucket and parts of another bucket just with rocks from the hole. In this spot I planted a grafted Pierce's Pride. I planted the recently bought Husky Cherry Red in the next hole, followed by Hungarian Heart and Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(1).

Then I had to stop and take a shower in preparation of more company. We had a blast in the evening with our friends celebrating Easter! Thoroughly enjoyable.

But we're off to a sloooow start this year. We only have five tomatoes in the ground. I plan to come home during the week and plant one or two before sunset, time permitting. We'll see how it goes. 

Tomatomania 2011 Video

I managed to get some background time around the 6 minute mark in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3O76simiJRM#at=460

Ten In The Ground

My wife planted ten tomato seedlings in the back yard yesterday.We're so busy with things that I don't even know their names. I hope to fill in these details later. When I got home last night I opened up a 50 pound bag of gypsum and spread the gypsum over part of our unplanted growing area in the back yard. I shoveled it in as fast as I could, then raked the ground and watered it in to the soil.

TomatoMania was both fun and exhausting as usual. Do a Google search on TomatoMania 2011 and see what's returned.

One of the TomatoMania customers I helped had some mild notoriety about 15 years ago. I recognized him immediately. In the course of asking general questions, I asked him where he resided. I do this to all customers, as the tomato choices will vary if one resides in Venice versus, say Woodland Hills. He told me that he was off of Mulholland and another cross street (I won't say and it doesn't matter) so that verified that I knew the identity of this person. I said "I know who you are." but spoken to convey "I recognize you" and no more. We walked around and I picked out about 20 tomatoes of all shapes, colors and sizes and left him to pick several more. I believe he picked up a few strawberry plants as well but I could be wrong about that. At the counter he held out his hand and said "I'm Bob". Later on I put his seedlings in the back of his car.

He came back to his car and actually tipped me. What a nice thing to do! I immediately put it in my left back pocket...catching my shirt, putting both the end of my shirt and whatever money he tipped into my pocket. The moment I moved, the end of the shirt came out along with the tip. I never saw it again! That's okay, I'm smiling as I write this. He didn't need to do that...not that I wouldn't mind if he came back next year!

Over the last two weeks we pulled out most of the rest of the grass in our new planting area. I pulled up a lot of asphalt with a lot of it in large chunks.

My wife has also planted new tomato seeds recently.

I just got a message from my wife. The ten in the back yard are Snow White, Brandywine (Red or Yellow, we're not sure), Green Zebra, Quedlinburger Fruehe Liebe, Black and Brown Boar, Negro Azteca, Berkeley Tie Dye, Oaxacan Jewel, Coyote and Black Krim.

TomatoMania Weekend!

The main TomatoMania has started and will continue through this weekend at Tapia Brothers Farm in Encino. See you there!

Preparing for Planting

Saturday morning my wife and I went to see Scott Daigre's annual tomato class at CSUN. It was fun and engaging as usual. If you didn't go this year, try to catch this in future years.

I finished turning over the grass for our new growing area. We're by no means done, however, as the dead grass needs to be pulled before we can amend the soil.

We moved one of the raised beds to another part of the backyard lawn, providing additional planting area. We may move the original raised bed as well but that will require more effort.

My wife "challenged" me to find asphalt in a random area of our backyard near our east fence. Our tomatoes do not do well in this area of the yard. The plants tend to get about 3 to 4 feet tall and then struggle. I picked a spot, checked to see if this is an acceptable spot to try and started digging. The shovel went in and we heard the scratching sound we normally associate with asphalt. After about 15 minutes of digging I had pulled up a fair amount of asphalt including at least two slightly larger than a large, thick hamburger patty.

Yep, we have an asphalt problem. My wife has been pulling it out for at least 10 years and we're still pulling out large chunks about 8 - 12 inches below the surface.

For now we're going to plant again in this area. I may dig up this area in the fall after the tomato plants are pulled. We'll see. It is very hard work.

The results of last year's back yard soil test indicated our soil is lacking nitrogen. We'll continue amending the back yard soil to supply nitrogen to the growing areas.

Our tomato plants grown from seed are not doing well at all. For the most part they were doing fine but they became very sensitive to light/water/heat/cold.

During Super Bowl weekend I turned the dirt in the "koi pond". Another round of buckwheat was planted and it is starting to sprout. The buckwheat is simply a plant that puts nitrogen back in the soil.

Tomatomania is less than three weeks away! My wife plans to work all three days of the event and I plan to work the last two days of the event. For further details, check out http://www.tomatomania.com.

Planted 8 More Tomatoes

Friday evening I planted Sara Black and Azoychka in the back yard before the sun set.

That same evening my wife noted that our seedlings grown from seed are not doing well at all.

Saturday I worked the TomatoMania event in Fillmore. That event simply wiped me out.

Sunday I planted Toni's Round and Paul Robeson in the back yard. In the “koi pond” I planted Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge, Quedlinburger Fruehe Liebe (seedling), Black Krim and Kornesevsije (seedling). But my leg began to act up before I could complete the “koi pond” planting.

My goal was to plant out the “koi pond” with as many of our seedlings grown from seed as I could muster before the evening rains hit. The hope was to get them in the ground for nearly two weeks and then judge if they have taken hold. I'm due to work the TomatoMania event in Larchmont Village on the 24^th of this month and if the planted seedlings didn't show growth, I'd replace them with seedlings from this event. But I only got two of them in the ground. I'll have to wait a couple of days for the ground to dry out before planting more.

Some of the plants in the ground simply look amazing, such as Gypsy and Japanese Black Trifele. One of our beefsteaks planted on March 3 is nearly two feet tall.

An Exhausting Blast!

TomatoMania was an exhausting blast!

My wife and I worked the event for all three days (Friday and the weekend). My wife was one of the cashiers and I was out helping customers and sounding like I knew what I was talking about. That and pushing tomato seedlings around.

Also I was misnaming and forgetting the staff names left and right (I must be getting old). I kept calling Fran by the name of Judy (don't ask me why, even I don't know). Now get this, she's a Facebook friend of mine and I kept referring to her as Judy. Alison and Kevin came on Saturday with their newborn. In my mind I kept referring Kevin as Henry. Fortunately, I never called him by his first name. And don't even talk about the others whose names I forget but they remember both my wife and I. You hope to pick their name in casual conversation. Brian looked like a former colleague named Tim and in my mind he was Tim until I asked my wife what his name was. He's only been to every event since I've worked TomatoMania. I think I'll remember Trudy's name the next time around but for the rest of you I'll just have to ask every year.

Here's an image of me helping a customer at the TomatoMania event: http://twitpic.com/1b2gew

The customers are loads of fun as well. We met some old friends, made new ones and learned some new techniques, as you can well imagine.

We came back with sore muscles, dirt, a deeper tan, some cages and tomato seedlings.

My wife and I discussed the logistics of planting our new batch of seedlings as well as the plants we're growing from seed. Given time, I'd like to get a listing of each tomato plant, perhaps write the name on a small Post It, separate these out for front yard/back yard and them place them where I think they should go. We have hardwood floors, so just lay the Post It's around the hardwood floor, then write the layouts on sheets of paper.

That's not going to happen. We're supposed to get rain on Wednesday/Thursday.

So our goal is a quite clear – get the larger seedlings in the ground as soon as possible. I don't care where, I don't care how, just get in as many as we can before the front moves in. Slam them in!

Of course, one can plant after the rain showers so it's not a disaster. But you're dealing with digging wet ground, etc., it's just much more trouble than it's worth. Besides, a rainstorm after a transplant “feels right” for some reason.

We're going to have to move our seedlings grown from seed to a location that won't receive the roof runoff. We got burned by that the last time.

Tomato Growing Class at CSUN, March 6!

I received an email for this year's tomato growing class at Cal State Northridge. My wife and I plan to be there.

If you would like to sign up, send me an email or post a comment and I'll forward your email to the correct email address at CSUN. I won't publish their email address here because spammers will eventually find it. Send it to me before March 6 (ideally, before February 6) and I'll forward it.

See you there!

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: CSUN-al Gardening 2010 announcement - Crazy for TOMATOES!
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 15:59:20 -0800
From: bgarden <----@csun.edu>
To: bgarden <----@csun.edu>


CSUN-al Gardening Class: Crazy for TOMATOES!, Saturday, March 6, 2010
9 - 11 a.m. - Scott Daigre, PowerPlant Garden Design.

Regular registration begins February 6. (Note you are not registered until you receive confirmation of your place in the class. Friends of the Garden, new/renewed in 2009/2010, may register now. Not-yet-Friends must wait until February 6 to submit their requests.)

The irrepressible Mr. Tomatomania, Scott Daigre, will delight us with his practical tips on tomato growing and selecting the varieties best suited to the San Fernando Valley. As well as enjoying his own home garden, Mr. Daigre is the proprietor of PowerPlant Garden Design and the annual Tomatomania! event in Encino. His garden designs have been featured on DIY and HGTV programs.

Registration for the class begins on February 6; however, Friends of the Garden (new/renewed in 2009/2010) may pre-register now (for information on joining the Friends group, see the second paragraph below). While the class is free, registration is required. To register, please e-mail ----@csun.edu to request a space in the class. Due to the popularity of this class, it is suggested that you register as early as possible - the class is expected to fill quickly once the press release goes out to the local newspapers. Driving and parking instructions, as well as the classroom location, will be sent with confirmation of registration. The same email address may also be used for questions about the class.

The Cal State Northridge Botanic Garden is operated by the Department of Biology and serves as a field site for botany, entomology, photography, painting and other classes. In addition to geographically themed plantings and a butterfly garden, there are greenhouses where noteworthy botanical specimens are grown. The garden is open to the community. Visit the Botanic Garden website: http://www.csun.edu/botanicgarden for more information.

Friends of the Garden provide financial support for the special projects of the CSUN Botanic Garden, including the CSUN-al Gardening Series. For those of you wishing to join the Friends group, annual membership is $30 individual and $40 family. Checks should be addressed to "CSUN Foundation - Botanic Garden", and mailed to CSUN Botanic Garden, 18111 Nordhoff St - MC 8303, Northridge, CA 91330-8303. Your donation is fully tax deductible, and the CSUN Foundation will send a letter acknowledging your charitable contribution.

TomatoMania -- More Fun!

My wife worked the TomatoMania event in Beverly Hills on Saturday. I couldn't help out – I had a client to attend to all weekend. My wife's experience was nearly the same as mine – exhausting, but so much fun. From what she told me, that event was by far the most popular of the events held at that location.

Now for the good/bad news – she brought home 17 more tomato plants. We'll never plant them all. But she did bring home Turkish Striped Monastery, so that'll be one of our keepers.

My wife watered the front yard tomato plants on Friday and I watered the back yard tomato plants on Sunday.

Also on Sunday, cousin Stephanie, daughter Julie and friend came over, got the garden tour, and took away about a half dozen tomato plants – a couple of our seedlings and a few from Saturday's TomatoMania event.

We still have seedlings to give away, so please contact us if you're interested and in the SoCal area.

Husky Cherry Red has a third tomato growing on the vines.

TomatoMania Is A Blast!

It was a fun and exhausting weekend...

I worked the TomatoMania event both Saturday and Sunday. Most of the time I was walking around among the customers and seedlings, helping out the customers as they'd ask questions and whatnot.

It was hot on Saturday. I don't mind walking around at all, but it was outdoors and all day. I wore jeans, hat and long sleeve shirt to protect from UV rays. Michael Jackson showed up with his son. No, not that Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson, the erudite, British accented radio talk show host. I immediately recognized him. I helped him and his son pick out tomato seedlings.

A customer talked about how her wife corresponded with this tomato grower who blogs about his experiences...and it turned out it was me. Small world.

The Berkeley Tie Dye seedling showed up in the afternoon! Now I have one.

From what I saw on Friday, TomatoMania was a madhouse. Saturday was quite busy as well, easing up a bit in the afternoon due to the rise in the temperature.

I went home in the evening fully expecting to plant a few tomatoes but simply couldn't get to any planting before darkness arrived.

Sunday had cooler temperatures, making it easier to walk around. My friend from hiking, Becky, showed up with her daughter Sophie and friend. Scott Daigre kept a Jeff Davis seedling for me!

It's a fun event and the event seemed better managed this year (though last year's issues may have been more due to the weather before the event destroying seedlings more than anything) and it's clear the event is a big draw.

When I got home, my wife decided it was time to take apart the gazebo. After about an hour it was broken down and the scraps put in the front yard. Somebody will pick it up. And sure enough, this morning someone did pick up the gazebo pieces.

I managed to put up a couple of tomato cages over our planted seedlings.

I took a shower and went to bed by 8:30 PM. My wife said I was snoring by 9PM.

TomatoMania is a blast!

TomatoMania Has Started!!

It's been a busy couple of days...

My wife planted a bunch of tomatoes, filling out the “koi pond”. They look great, but as of now there's no identification. I do have a map of what's planted, but we need to use some popsicle sticks, write the tomato names and place them in the ground near them.

But she couldn't get to it and neither could I. We had to take apart a gazebo on the back porch before it fell into the house. We didn't get it apart, but we were able to move it onto the grass and out of harm's way for now.

Here's what I believe my wife planted yesterday, all in the “koi pond” -- Mexico, Nyagous, Gardener's Delight, Green Grape, Snow White, Kornesevsije, Oaxacan Jewel, Quedlinburger Freuhe Liebe and Jaune Coeur de Pigeon.

This morning, we went to Brent's Deli and then TomatoMania. We picked up a bunch of tomato plants when it opened. Man, TomatoMania was popular!!

My wife told me to check out the tomatoes on our list. I did, picking up a couple. But some of them weren't there. Noire Charbonneuse, Jeff Davis, Berkeley Tie Dye and Currant Red weren't anywhere to be found. But...they'll be new tomatoes on both Saturday and Sunday so it pays to go all three days!

When I met up with my wife she had a tray of tomatoes already picked out. I complained a bit, saying you asked me to look for the ones on the list, not pick new ones. Regardless, she has been taking care of them more than I am this year so far, so I pretty much accepted what she had selected.

TomatoMania was extremely busy. My wife said it was busier than last year's Friday.

I took today off from my main job, but neither I nor my wife could volunteer at TomatoMania. We were off doing other things.

We went to a couple appointments on the Westside. We came back and my wife rested, while I did chores.

I took the plants out of the back of the car and watered them.

Last night the wind had knocked a 4x4x10 piece of wood directly onto the Patio tomato. I took the post off of the tomato – but the cage absorbed the full blow, protecting the plant! The cage is a total loss, but the plant has been barely touched, if at all. A lucky break!

I did some work for a client for about 90 minutes.

I got the mail, went to a fast food place to bring food home for my wife and I, went to Green Thumb for compost and checked out the tomatoes (no Currant Red), drove to the Target nursery (nope, not there), drove to the Home Depot nursery (no luck there), then went to Trader Joe's to pick up a few things for the house.

I went home, put away the groceries, fed the cat, fed the dogs, took the trash out and took out the recycling bag.

I got my gardening gloves, a couple of eggs and thought I had time to plant two tomatoes. I started a load of laundry. When I started digging, the 7 PM church bell went off. I did have enough time to plant two tomatoes – Pierce's Pride and Italian Sweet – in the "corner office" and came in about 7:35 PM. For me, it takes about 15 minutes to plant a tomato. Put load in dryer.

I need to bring in our seedlings before the night is over.

So here we are! I'll be volunteering my help to the TomatoMania event over the weekend. I'll see you there!

It's TomatoMania Weekend!

My wife purchased an heirloom tomato yesterday called Yellow Perfection. She didn't get a chance to plant it, but she did plant vegetables in the vegetable area along the south side of the back yard. Also, she cleaned up a lot of the back yard. Oh yeah, she's been the one watering the tomatoes.

Cherokee Purple may be just starting to reach for the sky.

And remember, tomorrow and this weekend is the main TomatoMania event in Encino. See you there!

The Flag Has Dropped!

It's been a busy weekend....

On Saturday morning my wife and I went to the “Tomato Temptations” class at Cal State Northridge. The teacher was Scott Daigre, the operator of the TomatoMania web site. As always, Scott was both entertaining and informative.

After speaking with Scott after the event, my wife and I went to a birthday party for the son of our “seed lady”. The event started at ten in the morning so we missed most of the party. But we did catch the last hour or so, in time for the cake to be cut and the birthday boy to receive his present.

On the way home we picked up a crape myrtle given from a friend's house.

We went home and I began to catch up on things. The crape myrtle was planted in the front parkway. After about 45 minutes, our neighbor came by with the rented rototiller. (Oh yeah, he was going to rent one this weekend!). He was done with it and Bill, feel free to use it for about another 90 minutes, when I have to return it.

So I started it up in the back yard and let her rip...and more or less I was ice skating with it. The rototiller was skimming the surface dirt. A pin fell out with held another pin in place, which left the depth bar loose. This became a problem so my wife called the neighbor.

He came over with his two children. My wife watched the two children while we worked the back yard. We found the missing pin and reset everything. Based on his suggestion, we made it a two man job – one to break the soil and the other to run the rototiller. It worked beautifully! We alternated – one breaking the dirt in front and the other rototilling. Without his help we would never have finished in time.

After such an active day, my wife and I zombied in front of the TV for the evening.

Sunday morning we went out for breakfast and visited Green Thumb. We bought four tomato plants: Sweet 100, Sweet Olive, Cherokee Purple and Patio. Also, we bought three bags of planter mix, worms and worm castings.

I needed to do some work for my consulting clients, so my wife worked out while I did computer work. After she came back, she planted Cherokee Purple in the front yard and cleaned up the brick border surrounding the “koi pond”.

At that point I needed a break so I helped my wife plant the other three tomato plants in back yard containers. Also, I distributed the worm castings over the recently rototilled back yard. I started the internal tomato documentation.

My wife has just informed me that we have 95 seedlings growing. She's the new “seed lady”!

So there you go! I was sort of planning to rototill the back yard but didn't expect it to really happen. It did. There was no plan to buy tomato plants, but we bought four of them and they're already planted.

The flag has dropped and the race is on!

It Isn't Cherokee Chocolate...

I have a plant labeled Cherokee Chocolate...but it clearly isn't Cherokee Chocolate. Cherokee Chocolate a typical beefsteak in size and obviously a dark brown color. An image can be found here.

The original plant came from the Encino Tomatomania event.

A picture of the plant I'm growing can be found here.

What am I growing? It appears to be a red cherry tomato of some type. The tomato is shaped like a tiny pineapple for lack of a better analogy, about ¾ inches tall, flat top, more rounded bottom, taller than it is wide. I've seen several images on the net that look like it, but there's nothing I've seen where I go “That's it!”. At times a Juliet tomato looks a lot like this tomato, but Juliets get too big. This picture of Grape tomato is close, but the tomato I'm growing is a bit more squat than that. This picture of a Sprite tomato is fairly close, especially with the mottled tomato in the lower center whose color could be mistaken for brown but is in fact a day or two away from full red maturity. But there are too many tomatoes per cluster for it to be Sprite.

Sooooo....I don't know what I'm growing, but it isn't what the label indicated.

Black Krim, Lime Green Salad planted

Today was a pretty warm day, getting up to the mid-90's or so.

We still have the Old Ivory Egg/Speckled Roman mystery as an open issue.

While my wife was out doing a few chores, I planted Black Krim and Lime Green Salad in the front yard. The Black Krim in the back yard came from Tomatomania while the one in the front yard came from seed. Because of the proximity of the newly planted Black Krim to the birdbath, we'll move the birdbath to a new location in the front yard. I used the cage from Gregori's Altai for Lime Green Salad and gave Gregori's Altai a new cage.

That leaves two more Lime Green Salad tomatoes and a Piccolo tomato. My wife was real excited to get three Lime Green Salad tomatoes and wants to plant them all (We grew this plant in 2006 and has very fond memories of this tomato). If she wants three Lime Green Salad tomatoes planted, that's good enough for me.

When I had finished planting Black Krim and cleaned up the front yard, my wife came home. We discussed where to plant the other three tomatoes. We'll plant another Lime Green Salad in the back yard between Black Cherry and White Bush, using the cage from Black Cherry for the Lime Green Salad and replacing Black Cherry's cage with one of the newly bought ones. Also, Black Cherry needs some new landscaping.

We both looked at the Purple Russian and she agreed that there was new growth on the tomato. I told her I was afraid to pull it because we don't know if the issue is with the tomato or the location. She agreed and thought we planted it (and the nearby Zhezha) in a bad location. Time will tell.

That leaves two left. We'll plant Piccolo next to the water meter near the curb and the last Lime Green Salad near the small tree near the curb. I believe that'll be the last tomatoes planted.