Big red sauce prep of 2017.

I thawed all of my "red" tomato juice for a large batch of sauce to can, on Labor Day.   (I still have two frozen bags of "dark" juice, which are either CP, F3s, or both.) By weight the frozen red juice was about 12.9 kilograms; this translates to over 13 quarts of liquid, assuming it's mostly water.  I had to thaw it out in 2 pots - the 12 qt pasta cooker and also my big canning pot.   After reducing it a few hours in both pots, and also reducing 2 quarts of the stuff in the oven in baking pans, it fit in the 12 qt pot and was around 8-9 quarts volume.   Added: 1.5 chopped onion, 1.5 bulb diced garlic+ 2 tsp garlic powder, about 1 cup fresh chopped basil (all that was left from my garden), about 2 tbsp salt, ~4 tbsp oregano and some sicilian spices. The end result was pretty good though when I had it on pasta the next day I thought it could use a bit more salt.   Better too little than too much though.

And in the end, I reduced it to about 6+1/4 quarts. (canned 6.) This was a pretty good thickness compared to my previous sauce attempts, but it really still could be reduced more - I bet if this got down to 5 or even 4 quarts it would be spectacular.  Of course the risk of burning it goes up the thicker it gets.   I may try to make a decent thick quart from the remaining "dark" juice.

Tomato press yields summer 2017

Saucy

On Sunday 8/20/17 I thawed all of amy frozen, pressed yellow tomato juice - by weight, this was about 6-7 quart equivalent.  I reduced this down to only 2 quarts of finished pasta sauce.  It turned out well.

World's smallest tomato???

World record smallest tomato??? My entry won "littlest tomato" in the Nashville Tomato Art Festival, 8/12/17.  7.95 mm.   There's not much out there in the interwebs about any such world record...Let the challengers rise.  Till then I claim the crown.   Actually they don't do any measuring at this festival, it's pretty informal.  The calipers are mine.   I carefully "dissected" it and found a total of two seeds inside. !

 

Those F3s tho

And the F3 collection is done, I think.  I am still summarizing but I saved some seeds from 8A, 24A, 46A, 55A, 10B, 20C, 28D.  I didn't save from 58, which was clearly a small red globe with slight purple - so it must be a sport with IR in it, probably an F2 from the prior year's backyard F1.  But it's just an IR-sized red globe with a wisp of purple, so, meh.  

8A yielded large 200g gf fruit but with only a wisp of purple in some of them.  Nice looking fruit though.

24a and 46a were not huge, but have strong purple + gf. So very nice looking color on these, and slightly larger than IR - about 80-100 g.

55A was the only one to really combine size, gf and strong purple skin. Woo hoo!

10B yielded large red fruit with purple, but no gf. It's still possible what I saved has gf/+, but not sure.

Finally 28D was a decent red cherry with a blush of purple, so that was kind of cool and worth saving.

I also saved IR and KB seeds.

Cresting the wave for 2017

They were beautiful once

Ugggggh bleaching

How fast July transforms a beautiful garden into a baked wasteland of dried branches, weeds and spotty fruit.   It's been very hot and dry for about 2 solid weeks and that is enough to do a real number on an unwatered garden. I saw a fair amount of sun-bleaching on tomatoes this time, which is something I haven't seen a lot of before.   I think it's the prolonged heat and sun during the ripening period.  Basically the hottest, sunniest part of the fruit turns white, and a week or so later develops dark purple fungus as it begins to decay.   So... too much rain, you get cracking.  Too much sun, you get bleaching.   More foliage up top would reduce the sun bleaching.
But it was past the main haul, and cracking was reduced thanks to the dry conditions.

Although I think I had a bit less fruit rotting on the ground this time - thanks to some good early twining - it still is an issue, and would be reduced by aggressive and proper pruning.  I just could not put in that amount of effort on 100 plants in the June time frame when it would have been required.  In other words, fewer plants might have had a better yield per plant.

Interestingly, I got a decent harvest of large, good quality MLs in the July 18 harvest.  But CP was on its way out.  By July 22 no decent CPs were left - CP got hit hard by rot.  Cracking may contribute.  Anyway , not a good year for CP. Perhaps it is too large, and a smaller similar variety like Carbon (or one of my new ones from the cross!) will be more productive to grow.

Awww yisssss July 18 2017

Yield data.
July 18:  SS+Roma: 15 lbs.  GZ+OS 15 lbs.  FL: 8 lbs.  ML+CP+RT: 18 lbs.
July 22: SS+Roma: 14 lbs.  GZ+OS: 14 lbs.  FL: 2 lb 10 oz.   "28D": 2 lb 10 oz. (58 might be in here too.)   This is about 90 lbs, almost all from the heirlooms.  I estimate about 3.75 lbs/plant from SS+Roma averaged; about 1.5 lbs/plant from Flamme.   ML, prob ~ 3 lbs/plant.

Green Zebra, toppling the twine

Green Zebra did quite well in contrast to last year.  Of course I had 6 plants this time vs 4 plants last year and 2 the year before, but, the past 2 years running GZ fruit seemed prone to disease?   Well this time I've got about 20 lbs so far from the 6 plants.  Enough to can 2 quarts of skinned fruit yesterday. Also canned 1 qt of romas.    Last week I also froze about 10 bags of puree for saucing.

Here's examples of well-pruned plants in my fellow farmers' plots.  Not all are immune to dying foliage.  Also, some of these may be hardy hybrids.  Food for thought anyway,

July 18 harvest

A nice big haul today, the peak of the season.  A big harvest of Flamme.  A few IR for seed banking.  Some large KB are growing but not yet ripe, also for seed saving.  Some very huge ML - picked a little before full ripe but close - so those did well.   Interestingly, CP did not do as well.  The fruit is by now mostly suffering extensively from sun burn/bleaching, or, rot, which may be due to cracking thanks to excess rain about a week ago.   I am not sure why: maybe they would be less sunburned if the plants were propped up better and maybe pruned to promote more leaves above.  Green Zebra seems to be yielding very well without the rampant disease and rot like last year. It is interesting how the different varieties fare differently this year...new location, slight weather variation, etc.?   Super sauce actually did very nice now, with about a dozen huge fruit today.   And a bunch of Romas.  But one SS is equal to like six Romas I think.

F3s are a mix of not yet ripe and some bleaching.  I didn't harvest many today, except some select ones for seeds and phenotyping, and the red cherries - 28d and 58, which are prolific. About 2 quarts each of 28d and 58.  The latter are golf ball sized or slightly bigger, so a good old fashioned nice red globe.    24, 46 and 55 have the strong purple + gf;  I will save some 8a to have a non-purple "gf" that is smaller than CP but still good sized, like ~150 g.  A nice slicer that will probably be less prone to cat facing and cracking than CP.  Taking notes on taste as I go along.

July 17, full swing

Awwwwright now.  So busy I haven't had time to update.   Well...the big garden made an abrupt transition from being really tight-looking in late June to kind of messy looking by 2nd week July.   But not horrible.  Weeds have not taken over thanks to the mats & straw mulch.  Many plants are sagging the twine, as I didn't quite get enough of it on some rows.  But overall it's not too bad.  Not much strong disease, but there is some sort of normal browning/drying up of lower branches.

Last week - around July 11 - I did the first "serious harvest" with about 30 Flamme, and enough CP + red tomatoes to make about 3 quarts each of juice for the freezer.  I gotta get back there tomorrow.

And, I've got F3s coming in. I saved seeds from 5 of them.

In the backyard:  HCs are about fully dead, but got a last hurrah harvest.  Flamme wilting but still harvesting. BC and Sun Gold still going strong.  Uluru Ochre was delicious - would plant again - but the plant is now having some brown leaves.

Dang that's a big CP

Uluru Ochre. 

Arrrrgggg wilt / but nice F3 development

Welp.  Backyard update: Some plants are > 7' tall now... requiring the 8 foot stakes.   Notably, these are Sun Gold, and BC.  Vigorous. But... HC prob has the wilt like last year.  In addition to increased yellowing of lower branches, both plants have stalled growing at 5', and one has some noticeable wilt at very top branches despite plenty of rain recently.   Since this happened last year too, it makes me infer that HC may be inherently pretty susceptible to this type of wilt.    On the bright side, BC looks great, FL is OK, and Sun Gold is great and now turning.  I tried a couple and they were good.

At the farm, some F3s are really looking good.  This one is from spot 5-8 which is a 55A.  These should all be gf/gf.   Purple+beefsteak+gf = goal!   Hope it tastes good.

55A in spot 5-8, farm.

DUDE NO: top wilt on HC, backyard

NOICE: backyard 6/25/17

NOT NOICE: yellowing HC, backyard

Noice

Backyard, June 19.  I like it when they get tall as me.

First one of the season was HC.   Julia approves

June 11 update

Today, the garden is doing well.  Flamme will start to color up any day now.   No wilting or disease to report, other than a few yellowing branches here and there but not serious.  I did notice a few plants with aphids, but the plants seemed pretty healthy despite them.   Probably, the aphids will suffer parasitism and decline.

Twining twining bla bla blah.  It's not too bad tho.   I can see now, though, that the whole twining thing really does call for more pruning.  It's just a lot more time intensive then I can afford.  So, I have decent twining with rather dense foliage.   Hmm.  One drawback is that the purple color is less likely to develop on those fruits, as dense foliage = less direct sunlight to trigger anthocyanin.

Nevertheless, here's more purple to report. There's very nice color on some of the 24a and 46a, which should definitely be gf/gf.   Some decent purple on some 50b and 10b too, some of which may be gf/gf.  There's clearly more segregation of traits still going on: note 24a 4-3 looks beefsteak-y while 4-5 is not particularly.

24a 4-5

24a 4-3

46a 5-11

46a 5-10

46a 5-13

50b 6-10

50b 6-12

50b 6-14

10b 6-3 

10b 6-1

June 3 2017 update

Today: more twining.  It's a little more work now, mostly because I haven't kept aggressively pruning suckers. In the last few weeks the plants are now each putting out a bunch of new stems, so, they are very bushy.  This is probably not optimal, but it would be significantly more labor to have done all the proper suckering on the ~100 plants.   It took about 2 hours to get twining caught up - a lot of this was "stuffing" the branches into the existing twining too. But it's ok. :)

And, some F3 fruit are showing purpling which is quite rewarding to see.  Here are examples:  IR for comparison; 24a in spot 4-5; 46a in spot 5-10; 55a in spot 5-8.  First number is the row # (top to bottom) and the second number is the planting position (left to right).  See map for reference.

May 28 update

Today at the farm I finished installing T-posts and caught up the twining.   So the farm garden is "caught up".!   Some of the plants in the rows 4 and up had flopped over already but rows 1-3 are ok. Plants in rows 1-2 are about 3 feet high.   Fruit set is happening, and I can already see purple on some of the F3s.  The IR plant already has an intensely purple fruit.

Backyard garden : tomatoes about 4 ft + and growing fast.  No signs of disease.  Fruit set on Flamme, HC, Sun Gold.  The Uluru Ochre plant will prob be last to set fruit.  Interestingly these were sowed about 1 week later in March than i sowed the same types this time last year but transplanted on the same date (April 16).  They are about a foot shorter than last year which must be due to the 1 week later sowing date.  I'm watching closely for signs of disease or wilt, since that started in the first week of June last year.

Update May 20 2017

Ran out of T-posts after putting all the ones from last year in the ground, and got a good amount done on the initial Florida Weave steps.   Need about 15 more posts to finish this year's layout.
About 12 or so corn plants germinated; i cleared out the weeds around them and got straw down.  And planted 1 each of: eggplant, "coolapeno" pepper, crookneck squash and zucchini.
Flowers are coming in well on the tomatoes.  Fruit set has begun on Flamme and also at home on HC.

More progress

I now have 6 rows of weed mat down; then i ran out of pins.  But it's good enough for now.  2 rows of T-posts are up, and I started twining rows 1 and 2.   Plants are moderately healthy and intermittent rain has been good.  For mulch, I got 6 straw bales which was overkill...I thought last year I got 4 bales so I thought "Better get more just in case".  Turns out I got 2 bales last year... 6 bales is a LOT. 2-3 bales is plenty to mulch 100 plants thoroughly.  These are big bales. I brought 2 home and still have about a bale and a half left at the garden.

At the home garden the plants are looking fine, and setting flowers.  I think it is about 1 to 2 weeks behind last year's schedule.

Going to the mat

Got 6 rows of mat pinned across the rows yesterday.  Hand watered some slightly wilty plants.
Home garden tomato plants are looking great.

Leaf anthocyanin induced by stress

Examples of purple color induced by stress - in particular it is visible in IR and also F3s that drooped a bit the day I planted them.  By the next week they had induced the pigment in the older leaves.  Newer leaves show less.   Below is a 24A and the sole IR plant, May 6.

All in.

That is, all the tomatoes are in the ground at last.  (May 6). The total count is over 100 plants at SCF (Stoney Creek Farm).  Actually, I planted 100 holes; one died, so 99 holes have live plants.  But, some positions have more than one plant - particularly the F3s, since I want as great a number of these as possible, even at expense of the plant size or fruit yield per plant.  Probably it's around 115 plants.

Got 2 rows of tarp down.  Also, planted some sweet corn.

Backyard 2017

April 16:  In addition to lettuce, cakes and sunflowers, I put 8 tomato plants in the backyard.   : 2 each of HC, BC, FL, one Sun Gold, and one Uluru Ochre.   I already need to replace the UO as the first one got trampled by dogs before I could put the fence up.  :/    I also treated the soil with daconil around one each of the HC, BC and FL.  The goal is to see if this helps resist blight compared to the untreated.... if blight is an issue this year.    The backyard soil has been fertilized with about a pound or 2 of 10-10-10 fertilizer, and about a cup or two of bone meal, and hand-tilled.  Also there's some charcoal & ash from a couple of small bonfires we had in that spot recently.

Pot transplanting done

Finally.  All seedlings are transferred to 4 inch pots.  Almost all are in the square ones. I have 8 trays of 15 square pots. Plus about 16 round pots.  = ~ 136 pots.  Didn't quite all fit on the three shelves. It's actually more plants than 136 because many of the F3s are 2, 3 or even 4 sprouts in one pot.  These I will not separate to maintain highest individual count possible, which is more important at this stage than the total yield.   So far, the first transplanted heirlooms are great and no signs of damping off.

Capacity

Last year I had about 100 plants.  This year it's going to be about 130, but I'll give away 20-30 of them (including some F3s).   This number reflects the sum of the "wells" sown initially, although some of those had 2 sprouts (or even 3 or 4.)  I am splitting a few of those carefully into separate pots; some will stay together.

I have 3 shelves of lights.  Each can hold two 5x3 tubs of 4 inch square pots, plus, one 10x20 tray that can hold another 10 or so pots. = ~40 pots per shelf x 3 =120.
These will be staggered a little.  HC, SG and UO are smallish plants and can go longer before transplanting, so I could sow a 2nd round of heirlooms in that tray.  Like I need more plants!

Some of the F3s have 2 or more sprouts per well.  These I will keep together because here I want the maximum possible number of F3 individuals to be cultivated.

Transplant mix

For 120 x 4" tall square cowpots @ 670 ml each:  80,400 ml mix needed.

Base = ~6.5 bags Jiffy seed starting mix = 6.5 x 12 quarts =78 quarts.
Add 8 quarts perlite = 86 quarts mix.  = ~2.9 cubic ft.
Add to this 2 cups plant food per cu ft = 5.8 cups plant food. Prob should reduce it to 5 cups, because the perlite and jiffy mix each have a little food already.
= ~ 87 quarts = 82,000 ml.

Transplant organization...

I need to maximize space efficiency since this year I plan to have more transplants than ever before.
I'm thinking the best way to compromise transplant growth with space is to use 4 inch square pots.
3" square pots were too small - the roots get crowded before I can get them in the ground.  5" round is too big - too much space is needed.  4" round pots were sort of ideal size wise... but I can't fit more than about 10 pots in my seed trays....

Therefore I'm going to use 4" square pots in carrying trays specifically designed for these.
The pots:  4" Tall Square Cowpots.
The trays:  Square pot carrying trays. They are 2 bucks each and carry 15 pots.
This will allow me to get 2 trays on each of the four shelves of my grow rig. 2x4x15 =120 plants !!

F3 sowing and growing 2017

F3s were sowed on 3/19/17.  As of 3/26/17 things look pretty good.
Fruit ID number = F2 parent.
Letter = phenotype category.

Group A:  Purple, gf/gf, big.                                      F2:  8,24,46,55,15

Group B:  Purple, big; +/+ or gf/+.                            F2: 10,50

Group C:  No purple; big; +/+ or gf/+.                       F2:  20

Group D:  (cherry): no purple, small, +/+ or gf/+.      F2: 28, "58"*

I had also listed F2 #49 in group C but I never saved seeds from it.

I also saved seeds from a 2016 backyard sport plant.  I've designated this as #"58" .  But  don't really know what this is.  It might be an IRxCP F2, that sported from the F1 plants I grew in 2015.   Or, it could be something else.  I saved it because it was smallish red fruit, ~15 g, so it might be a nice cherry.  But, it might be some sort of weird cross between other heirlooms in the backyard.  In which case it's actually some sort of F1 between unknowns.  If so, the F2s of this one might be interesting.  However I only had about 6 seeds and so far this week only one has germinated.

"Wells" = my name for the planting holes in 72 seedling tray.  Reminds me of a 96 well plate.

Heirloom list for 2017

Here's what I sowed 3/12/17 (except Sun Gold sowed 3/19/17):

IR and KB - need to preserve seeds from these.
SG and UO are new this year.   OS, SS and SG are hybrids.
Germination rates are all good except 4-year old KB.  Small sample tho.
I generally sow 2 or more seeds per "well" but I recorded it for each variety and the germination rates reflect this.

2017 is underway. First sowing dates and seed starting mix.

It's time to start sowing tomato seeds...

3/12/17  Sowed the heirlooms.

3/19/17 Sowed the F3s from the IRxCP cross.

Actually I plan to sow again in April to get a delayed harvest group... if i can handle it..

I used Jiffy seed starting mix, supplemented with ~1 cup of plant food per 1/2 cubic foot mix.  The plant food was Burpee Organic Starter and Transplanting 3-6-4 Granular Plant Food.   This food has beneficial microorganisms - Bacillus species, but also, "VAM Microrrhizae" and several Glomus species. What are these? Beneficial fungal species. Although it didn't occur to me at the time that these were fungal and not just more bacterial species...

However - to remove the nasty microbes that cause damping off, I tried to carefully bleach and lysol the under-trays first, and I am using new 72-well inserts so those should be clean.  Before doling out the mix to the wells, I moisten it a little so it doesn't fly around everywhere, but not so much that it's clumpy.  Then after sowing the seeds I sprayed it with a littler water on top, and watered it from below in the under-tray.  Heat pad of course.

After about 48 hours I noticed some fuzzy white mold appearing on the top of the mix in the trays.  Egads!   At this point, I freaked out because I assumed that the mix was contaminated with mold.  Well duh, it is supposed to be contaminated with fungus - beneficial microrrhizae fungus, that is.   But I had not realized that, and I assume that it was just nasty mold that was going to kill all my seeds.

So I rushed to the store and got some Daconil.  Broad-spectrum anti-fungal agent.  Spray spray spray on the soil where the mold is.  Added some to the water too.   And lo, in a few days the mold was gone.  Hooray.  Except today - 3/25/17 -  I realized my mistake, in that I just killed off all the beneficial fungus in the mix. 

Well.  At least at this date, germination has gone well and so far so good.  My major damping off episode of 2 years ago was (i am quite sure) due to my initial use of inferior potting mix as the seed starting medium.   This go around, even with the Daconil the mix should be pretty clean.

Daconil is the brand name for Chlorothalonil.  It is practically nontoxic to humans.    But its half-life is "moderately persistent" at 1-3 months (http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/chloroth.htm).  So having applied it, I am mostly stuck with it remaining in the initial sowing soil.  I can keep it out of the transplant mix, at least.