Wednesday we put the finishing touches on the soil in the "Far East" in the back yard. It took about a week to prepare about a 5 foot by 15 foot section of the back yard.
That's slow progress, too slow if it remained that consistent. But the "Far East" was the worst area for rocks and asphalt. I do not expect such slow progress in the future.
I didn't find as much asphalt as I had expected. That's great news. It shows that all the hard work digging out the asphalt and stuff was providing dividends. I did empty out the one gallon bin used for plants six or seven times. Also I dug out one complete red brick, two half bricks and the broken pieces of the two half bricks. I also found two large round decorative stones with these bricks.
Here's a picture of my wife using the Mantis on the "Far East"...
The blue tarp covers the remaining compost.
On Thursday I turned an area of about 9 feet by 9 feet filled with grass. I had turned this area last year and the grass was plucked out of it. After that, nothing happened except the grass came back. So we're starting over with this new plantable area once my wife picks out the grass.
I moved some materials (wood, a hay bale and such) that were east of the lemon tree to the recently turned "Far East". This will be the next area I turn. This area does have a few rocks but not nearly as much as the "Far East" had. While we didn't plant in this area last year I still don't think turning it will be too bad.
I added a small wheelbarrow full of compost to the "South Garden". I didn't turn it, I just laid it on top.
Nothing was done with the back yard today.
We've been working on our soil for the past couple of weeks.
A week ago last Saturday we put six scoops of organic compost placed on our driveway. A friend's son had time and a truck available and through four trips to Valley Sod we brought seven scoops (a scoop being a skip loader scoop) to our house. The driver kept one and left the rest for us.
Over the next week or so I hand turned the dirt in both the "koi pond" and the "corner office". Normally this hasn't been an issue as the dirt in this area has been good quality. Not anymore, I'm sad to say. I know one year I turned the dirt in the "koi pond" during the halftime presentation during the Super Bowl (roughly a half an hour). This time it took around three hours.
The "corner office" dirt was even worse. I used to find worms everywhere in the "corner office", but not any more. I ran into one worm in the "koi pond"...that's it.
So I laid out some of the organic compost on top of the dirt in the front yard, added some gypsum and hand turned it in. Then my wife made an amendment "cocktail", consisting of some John and Bob's, Earthalizer and one other amendment and laid it on top of the soil. Then we added more compost on top and used a Mantis to turn the soil again. After that we laid hay on top of the dirt.
Hand turning and machine turning the dirt brought up about 50 cutworms, almost all full sized. I tossed them all into the street.
The dirt in the south side of the "koi pond" was better than the north side dirt. This is the reverse of how it has been historically. It was easier to turn and looked somewhat healthier.
We've also brought compost into the two new raised beds in the back yard and added compost to all the roses in the front yard.
I've started to hand dig the "Far East" in the back yard. Historically this has been the rockiest area. While the going is slow and I have dug out some large chunks of asphalt, I've been pleasantly surprised with the progress so far. It's not as bad as I expected. But I have a long, long way to go. Completing the back yard will take several weeks.
On Wednesday I spent all day moving the remaining compost from the driveway into a large pile in the back yard. We covered the pile with tarps on Thursday to keep it dry from this morning's rain.
In short: I believe our soil is depleted. I have some extra time at the moment and am trying to get our growing grounds back in good condition. The front yard is completely prepared. The back yard will take some time.
September 7 harvest includes 28 Black Cherry, 11 Sweet 100, 5 SunGold(1), 4 Pineapple, 3 Blue Beauty, 3 Vorlon, 3 Juliet, 3 Piement, 3 Dr. Wyche's Yellow, 2 Isis Candy, 2 Ananas Noire, 2 "Something Orange" (Dr. Wyche's Yellow), Shah/Mikado, Kellogg's Breakfast, German Orange Strawberry, Snow White, Supersweet 100 and Husky Red(1) for a total of 75 tomatoes.
We've now harvested over 650 Black Cherry tomatoes (664), over 100 Juliet tomatoes (101) and exactly 100 Isis Candy tomatoes.
While harvesting I partially pulled out the cages of the plants I wanted pulled, leaving them at an odd angles. I had business to attend to later that day and I wasn't going to be around when the gardeners arrived.
My wife had the gardeners pull out all the container plants as well. There were several container plants that were still producing so while I was surprised I guess I was okay with it.
But I later found out the gardeners had also pulled out Black Cherry, with neither of us wanted to happen. Ugh. They still didn't pull out Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(2), which was supposed to be pulled the last time they were here.
For the record, here's what got pulled: Husky Cherry Red, Vorlon, Black Cherry, Shah/Mikado, Kellogg's Breakfast, Blue Beauty, German Orange Strawberry, Piement, Crynkovic, Speckled Roman(2), Amos Coli, Ananas Noire, "Something Orange", Juliet, Sweet 100, "Rosella Purple", Supersweet 100, Isis Candy, Husky Red(1) and Husky Red(2).
After Black Cherry was pulled...our heart wasn't in it anymore.
September 8 harvest includes 2 SunGold(1), 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow, 2 Snow White and Pineapple for a total of 7 tomatoes.
September 12 harvest includes 7 SunGold(2), 3 SunGold(1) and 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow for a total of 12 tomatoes.
September 14 harvest includes 4 SunGold(2), Dr. Wyche's Yellow and Snow White for a total of 6 tomatoes.
And the rest of the tomato plants were pulled by the gardeners. They included Pineapple, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, SunGold(1), SunGold(2), Snow White and (finally) Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(2).
A lot of these tomatoes were given away to friends and family.
So for the year we ended up harvesting 3811 tomatoes. This is our worst yearly harvest total so far.
The only good news is now we have the time and space to prepare the soil for next year.
Five years ago today I was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times in an article about growing tomatoes. That link to the article, titled "You say tomato; so does he" is here.
Enjoy!.
Sunday's harvest includes 14 Black Cherry, 12 Sweet 100, 7 Blue Beauty, 4 German Orange Strawberry, 3 SunGold(2), 2 Husky Cherry Red, 2 Supersweet 100, 2 Isis Candy, Pineapple, Shah/Mikado, SunGold(1), Juliet and Husky Red(2) for a total of 51 tomatoes.
We've now harvested over 100 SunGold(2) tomatoes (101)! Neither SunGold tomato plant really took off but they were planted late and they weren't planted in a great area.
Today's harvest includes 18 Black Cherry, 12 Sweet 100, 5 Blue Beauty, 4 German Orange Strawberry, 2 SunGold(2), Vorlon, Pineapple, SunGold(1), Snow White, "Rosella Purple" (Aunt Ruby's German Green), Supersweet 100 and Isis Candy for a total of 48 tomatoes.
We've now harvested over 400 Sweet 100 tomatoes! This plant is having a good second wind. The plant looks bad but the tomatoes look all right.
Most of the harvest over the last two days was given to a neighbor that brought us some delicious banana bread. It was goooood....
We harvested 1320 tomatoes in August. That compares somewhat favorably to July's 1970 tomatoes (A harvest dropoff is completely expected for the west San Fernando Valley where we live, we just hope that the numbers don't fall off a table...). Here's how it stacks up to prior years:
August 2011 -- 3863
August 2009 -- 3250
August 2012 -- 3240
August 2007 -- 2806
August 2010 -- 2165
August 2013 -- 1320
August 2008 -- 1004
Again our numbers are the second worst we've had, only beating the 2008 year. In 2008 we ended up harvesting about 4300 tomatoes so we seem to be on about a 5000 harvest pace this year based on the numbers.
However based on what I see for our plants we'll never get there. The late August heat has absolutely taken the life out of most of our tomato plants.The only good one left is Black Cherry and that won't get us to 5000.
So we'll see what happens. We'll probably beat the 2008 harvest this year but we won't get much beyond that, I believe.
There was no harvest on Thursday or Friday. I needed to be at work early and left the house before 7AM. The same will be true next week.
Today's harvest includes 45 Black Cherry, 25 Sweet 100, 5 Blue Beauty, 5 German Orange Strawberry, 4 SunGold(2), 3 SunGold(1), 3 Supersweet 100, 2 Husky Cherry Red, 2 Dr. Wyche's Yellow (8 ounces), 2 Grande, Vorlon, Piement, Snow White, Cuor de Bue and "Rosella Purple" (Aunt Ruby's German Green) for a total of 101 tomatoes.
We've now harvested over 600 Black Cherry tomatoes (604)! These tomatoes look good and the plant is still cranking out more tomatoes.
The gardeners came by today and a lot of tomato plants were pulled. This is a partial list of what got pulled: Speckled Roman(1), Yellow Perfection, Porkchop, Jersey Giant, Black and Brown Boar, Indigo Rose, Japanese Black Trifele, Grande, Garden Peach, Aunt Ruby's German Green and Cuor de Bue. I know there are at least two more that the gardeners forgot to pull and I probably have missed a couple that they did pull.
Most of today's harvest was given to the hard working gardeners.
My wife watered the front yard tomato plants in the evening.
Today's harvest includes 10 Sweet 100, 8 Black Cherry, 8 Blue Beauty, 3 German Orange Strawberry, 3 Husky Cherry Red, 3 SunGold(2), 2 SunGold(1), 2 Speckled Roman(2), 2 Supersweet 100, Isis Candy, Porkchop, Jersey Giant and Piement for a total of 45 tomatoes.
We've now harvested over 3500 tomatoes this year (3511)! Still it's been a lousy year, production-wise. Also, we've harvested over 350 Sweet 100 tomatoes this year (353).
Today's harvest includes 11 Sweet 100, 4 Supersweet 100, 4 Blue Beauty, 4 Black Cherry, 2 SunGold(2), 2 Isis Candy, Porkchop, Pineapple, SunGold(1), German Orange Strawberry, Grande and Amos Coli for a total of 33 tomatoes.
We've now harvested over 550 Black Cherry tomatoes (551)! Also, we've harvested over 250 Supersweet 100 tomatoes (252).
Almost all of today's harvest was taken by my wife to her parents.
It's getting hot...
Friday's harvest includes 7 Sweet 100, 5 Supersweet 100, 2 Garden Peach, 2 Yellow Perfection, 2 SunGold(1), 2 Black Cherry, Husky Cherry Red, Dr. Wyche's Yellow (13.5 ounces), Black and Brown Boar, SunGold(2), Blue Beauty, German Orange Strawberry, Speckled Roman(2), Cuor de Bue and Isis Candy for a total of 29 tomatoes.
When I walked away from the Black Cherry tomato plant, something caught my eye. I walked back, stared for about five seconds and found a full sized hornworm on the plant. I pulled it off and threw it on the street.
Saturday's harvest includes 13 Sweet 100, 7 Supersweet 100, 4 Black Cherry, 3 SunGold(2), 3 Isis Candy, 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 Grande, 2 Shah/Mikado, Pineapple, "Rosella Purple" (Aunt Ruby's German Green), Vorlon, Japanese Black Trifele, Speckled Roman(2) and Juliet for a total of 42 tomatoes.
Today we harvested over 2000 back yard tomatoes this year (2033 tomatoes, now 2093 tomatoes)!
After the harvest we went to a birthday party for a 4 year old in Huntington Beach. We had a nice time there and met some very nice people. Then we went to the West Adams District for yet another party. We got home late and tired.
Sunday's harvest includes 21 Sweet 100, 6 Supersweet 100, 2 Isis Candy, 2 Black Cherry, 2 SunGold(1), Husky Cherry Red, Yellow Perfection, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, SunGold(2), Blue Beauty and German Orange Strawberry for a total of 39 tomatoes.
We've now harvested over 300 Sweet 100 tomatoes (320 tomatoes, now 332 tomatoes)!
In the late morning we brought down most of the tomatoes for a birthday party for my wife. It's her birthday today! We had a lot of fun down in San Juan Capistrano catching up with everybody. Fun, fun fun! Again we got home late and tired.
Today's harvest includes 12 Sweet 100, 4 Black Cherry, 3 Blue Beauty, 2 Supersweet 100, 2 Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red(2), 2 German Orange Strawberry, 2 SunGold(2), Dr. Wyche's Yellow (13 ounces), Speckled Roman(2), "Something Orange" (Dr. Wyche's Yellow, 9 ounces) and Isis Candy for a total of 31 tomatoes.
We've now harvested over undersized 100 Blue Beauty tomatoes! I had noticed hornworm excrement about a week ago underneath this plant but never found the hornworm. Today I found it and tossed it off of the plant.
