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.