Harvest Big Time

Time for some eye candy ..... you're probably tired of my comments about what a fabulous tomato growing year we've had here on the West Coast, but heh - how often do I get to do this :-)

Anyhoo, some harvest pics

The colander of red tomatoes are Kimberly - which were slow roasted in a 225 F degree oven for 3 1/2 hours - and now stored in freezer; they should keep up to 6 months (but I doubt they will last that long)

First Big Slicer

Well, here is Crnkovic Gold, I guess these fruits would be F3 and saved seed F4 - received seed of F2 in 2004 and grow out of F2 seed resulted in both a pink and a gold from a bi-colour - another grow out provided a white. While this tomato can't compete with the biggies like Cherokee Purple for taste, I love the colour, the plant is healthy and prolific and the fruits are juicy, creamy on the sweet side - and perfect for a tomato sandwhich (on white bread with mayo) ..... a nice light snack :-)

Papageno

Not a tomato, but couldn't resist - made it through our extreme winter and came back better than ever ......

Tomato Plants Mid August

And a pic of some of my plants providing the bounty, staying remarkable healthy thanks to the dry hot weather ....... one plant showing a wee bit of something??

All plants grown in 5 gallons containers, and all have received a very dilute feed of Schultz 10-15-10 with each watering - which during the hot weather has been daily - started out with 1 quart per plant and upped to 2 quarts with our record breaking temperatures - last Wendesday was 34.4 C !! hottest day ever recorded in Vancouver BC

The Harvest Begins

What a fabulous year for tomatoes - thought I'd post a pic of my first harvest ..... from 1 o'clock:

2 Ben Gantz

1 Sylvan Gaume

2 Galina x Grub's Mystery Green

2 Kimberly

1 Psamathe

1 Crnkovic Gold

Two Hearts

Due to fabulous weather toms are sizing up nicely for so early in the season:

two heart shaped varieties -

Sylvan Gaume (above)

Maria Amaziletie's Giant Red (below)

First Ripe

For those that follow Growing Degree Days (GDD)

http://ippc2.orst.edu/cgi-bin/ddmodel.pl

Kimberly first ripe at 972 GDD on July 21 - 1-2 oz, small red potato leaf; similar to, but tastier than Stupice, Matina, Bloody Butcher .....