First tomato harvest happened yesterday.  Here’s a shot of first bucket of non-BER tomatoes pulled from the main roof.  I estimate this haul to be around 20lbs and I pulled another 20lbs today; all good looking round tomatoes.  Overall the crop looks to be a success but there doesn’t seem to be a second growth as all the plants seemed to have stopped growing.

The tomato in caged position 2 which shares a 9 cuft container with two skinny eggplants has almost completely died.  Its stalks are still green and has lots of green tomatoes so I’m hoping they ripen.  This plant tipped over in high winds because I was lax at installing  wooden supports to secure  metal hoops to something.  Once these tomatoes get to a certain size the metal hoops can keep the plant together in one piece but they can’t keep the plant from tipping over.  Although this tomato didn’t die immediately it is pretty much dead now.  I suspect a main trunk got ruptured and it took awhile for the full effect of the damage to be seen.  Since the stalks are green I’m hoping nutrients are still feeding the surviving tomato.   Since this tomato shared one of the newer large containers it had gotten very large so it’s a shame to have lost this one.

An update on main roof tomato pics forthcoming.

Note: Preliminary plan for next season: NE corner will have 1 9cuft container and two 3cuft containers for a total of 4 caged positions.  The current row of 15 caged positions will be reduced to 10, 3 9cuft containers (2 new need to be built) and 4 3cuft containers as buffer plants.  The tomatoes will populate all four 9cuft containers, two in each.  I have come to the conclusion placing plants of different kinds in the same container is not always such a good idea.  The tomatoes that grow amongst their own kind have done the best so far this year.   I will do a material calculation later.

Also, 24 cuft of potting mix on veranda will be dumped into front parkway this fall to support fall wildflower seeding.  North wall planter will be eliminated as well as two 2x4x2 west wall sections.  The north pergola will be eliminated this fall to be replaced with a table — no plants.  I’ll try and get blueberries, grapes, or raspberry perennial bushes to grow in the remaining planters.  This should be easier to maintain.

No need for another harvest porn pic.  Should have gone up yesterday.  Picked about 20lbs and the squirrels got at least 5lbs (maybe more) — some ~2lb big Brandywines.  I left them on the vine too long.  The tomatoes are coming in too fast and I don’t feel like canning.  All plants are shot but I think they produced OK to somewhat heavy.  Not really sure.  Next year I want to build 4 new tomato planters at 2.5’x2’x1.5′ = 7.5 cu.ft.  This is 2.5x the current 3 cu.ft. planters.  If I do 4 planters that’s 4.5×4=18 cu.ft. of new mix which is 5 bags of pine bark plus a TBD amount of mushroom compost.  I think this will help the tomatoes last farther into September.  The neighbor’s in ground tomato plants look healthy and going strong even though mine appear to have more tomatoes.  There’s always next year.  Thankfully I can pull these soon and retire the main roof and quit watering early this year.

Harvested 27 tomatoes on 8/27 evening.  The Brandywines are huge with some tomatoes almost 2 pounds.  The harvest bucket felt like 20+ pounds.  The plants are producing heavily which may be why they’re dieing — they put everything they had into this harvest.  Each plant does have a lot of tomatoes so I shouldn’t be complaining about not getting a second harvest.  Have to give most of this away.  I don’t feel like canning and I still have the canned harvest from last year.

Today’s tomato harvest of 16, six of which came from a Celebrity in caged position 6. They’re all nice and round and no BER but they do have cracking on the stem side from overwatering. I waited 3 days since I last harvested so the average production is around 1/2 tomato per plant per day. Looking at the state of the plants this will continue for awhile. There is a second wave growth and more flowers. I found some mites on curled leaves and did some pruning. Some parts of the tomato plant are yellowing and wearing out from general age but there is lots of new growth. We’ll see how long this lasts. I’ll probably unload most of this haul onto the neighbors.

Update 8/23:  More mites seen more pruning but tomatoes are producing.  Pulled another haul as big as shown in the above picture today — maybe more.  Ended up giving all those tomatoes picked on 8/20 away and now am backed up again.  All the plants have second growth and lots of tomatoes are turning red.  I have the canning jars I just need the motivation to boil the water and follow the process.  I can however, no matter what happens from here on out, declare that the tomato crop has been successful.  I also think 8 plants are enough.  Celebrities are a keeper next year as they have always been, even in the worst of times, consistent and fighters to the end even when faced with death.  I am pondering whether to replace the Big Boys with Brandywines, the tomato with the pink fruit, for next year now that I know what has been killing them the last bunch of years.  I’ll think about this.  Still lots of time for next year and unlike the last bunch of years, I should be harvesting through September.