Cubbin’s Complex

Posted on March 31, 2024 by SEAMSFASTER

Blog title inspired by the children’s book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss. But please don’t read too much of the book into this blog post title. In fact, it’s better if you stop at just the title, and consider “500 Hats” as analogy for the many tasks of just about any small business owner. To name just a few:

Accountant, farmer, tax preparer, seedsman, customer service representative, seed packager, email and telephone operator, seed extractor, inventory manager, harvester, order processor, acquisitions manager, data entry specialist, food taster, data analyst, photographer, maintenance, trouble-shooter, deliveryman, nurseryman, researcher, production manager, etc.

500 questions like this could be asked, all of them without a simple answer:

“While I am typing my response to an email, who will extract seeds from the 1,000+ lbs. of rotting melons in the cellar?”

At least 20 alternate titles were considered for this blog post:

Internship/Apprenticeship/Replacement
Atomic Habits
3:00 A.M.
Multiplicity
Liminal
Perpetual Triage
Paralysis
Domino Effect and Time
Transition into?
Stressors and Struggles
Dopamine Addiction
Quality vs. Quantity
Sunk Cost Fallacy
A “Real Job”?
ROI by Variety
Sleep Study Results
DT’s FAQ’s
Martyr Complex
Groundhog Day: October 14, 2023
100 Was NOT the Goal
Dandarabilla

Maybe, hopefully, I will get a chance to expand upon each of these over the next few days and weeks. Regrettably, I am too exhausted at the moment to get anywhere close to completing the writing for this post. So far behind on so many tasks, including planting.

The clock waits for no person, now matter how far behind they are. And no amount of will power can surmount extreme fatigue.

I am very grateful for all the amazing support for the work i have been doing with saving seeds and making them available to other growers around the world! Getting seeds mailed out promptly has been my highest priority every day this month, and required almost every waking minute of my time and challenged my efforts to increase efficiency.

Photos above show nearly 500 packets for about 60 seed requests that came in over the last two weeks of March.

Following is the approximate time budget for those two weeks:

42 Hours: Preliminary work (organizing, printing, data management, planning) took around
65 Hours: Administrative (responding to emails, preparing invoices, etc.)
146 Hours: Label preparation
15 Hours: Seed Packaging
63 Hours: Sleep (sort of – more on that later)
15 Hours: Personal

I work as fast as I can in virtually every waking moment. Where can a cut back? I’m trying to develop a mindset of small, 1% improvement, on processing efficiency at each step: Atomic Habits (the book) approach. Quality vs. Quantity – or is it even possible to have both?

Seed Sharing, February 2024

Posted on February 29, 2024 by SEAMSFASTER

The biggest event of the year for Delectation of Tomatoes: Ogden Seed Exchange

There were about 750 participants this year! Crowded, lots of fun, lots of good people, very encouraging to see so many people interested in gardening!

I also offered seeds at Liberty Heights Fresh Market near downtown Salt Lake City for a few hours – a fabulous small market, not to be missed if you’re ever in the area!

Also had a display at a farm workshop in Moab, with seed packets now on offer at Moonflower Community Cooperative – another not-to miss place! A bit of trivia: the average age of a farmer in Utah is 65 years old! (I will spare you the essay that comes to mind…)

I am so grateful and encouraged by all the people, around the world, requesting seeds of some of the 3,000+ varieties of tomatoes that I have in stock! (and others…) I just wish I could figure out a way to keep up! I have had some hired help, but time management remains a significant challenge. (I will spare you photos of the stack of dirty dishes, etc…)

A few scenic photos included here, a brief travel log of sorts. Occasionally there is more on my mind than tomatoes and seeds — but not often; not this time of year. If I worked a “regular” job (just 40-60 hours per week), I would be doing a lot more exploring and hiking.

A couple of links to some locations shown in the photo gallery:

Patmos Head, 9,841′

Mount Elliott, 7,142′

Arches National Park

Lost in Space

Posted on January 31, 2024 by SEAMSFASTER

An interesting and entertaining tomato story made the news cycle a few weeks ago – the

LOST IN SPACE TOMATO

Specifically, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio misplaced a couple of Red Robin tomatoes on the International Space Station. What happened to those tomatoes was a mystery for 8 months, but the mystery was finally solved!

No need for me to re-write the story; read all about it at these links:

https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/nasa-astronauts-finally-find-1-inch-tomato-that-was-lost-in-space-for-8-months

https://www.wionews.com/science/iss-discovers-tomato-which-remained-lost-in-space-for-eight-months-667098

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/world/tomato-frank-rubio-space-station-nasa-scn/index.html

Lost in Space Tomato

Not that anybody asked me, but I would have concurred: Red Robin produces a lot of little tomatoes in a tiny little space – a great choice for a space tomato!

Coincidently, this variety was the headliner for a Delectation of Tomatoes blog post in 2017:

https://delectationoftomatoes.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/first-ripe-tomatoes-of-2017-red-robin/

On a related subject, January through March are the busiest months of the year for filling seed requests, and I am very grateful for all of the support! This type of work (procuring, propagating, promoting, and sharing seeds of thousands of heirloom tomato varieties from around the world) cannot be done without the support and encouragement of hundreds of gardeners.

This type of work does come with some unexpected challenges, however. With around 25,000 batches of tomato seeds, harvested over 15+ years, organized into about 35 boxes — well, one can only imagine how easy it is for a packet of inventory seeds to get lost. Especially since I have not yet finished the 2023 inventory and integration — or even the inventory and integration of the 2022 seeds! So a given packet of inventory seeds could be in any of at least five batches of boxes:

2021 seeds and older
2022 seeds
2023 seeds
Pre-packaged seeds (a small percentage, unfortunately)
The box of packets from yesterday’s seed packaging marathon.
The box of packets from today’s seed packaging work
Other temporary locations – challenging my memory…

Case in point, about 4 months ago, a packet of inventory seeds of a popular variety, starting with the letter W, just completely disappeared. Literally hours spent/wasted, looking everywhere. I had to list it as “sold out” until I had seeds from 2023 ready to go.

Then, out of the blue, a few days ago, that lost inventory seed packet should up, in the box containing varieties starting with the letter “F”! Talk about lost in space! And this is far from the only such incident. If you only knew how easy it is to misplace a packet, and how hard (not to mention frustrating…) it can be to find it! So many ways.

Anyhow, that’s my little “lost in space” story. There’s nothing too exciting about photos of packaging seeds. But here is a photo of my display table at the Utah Farm and Food Conference in mid-January:

It probably goes without saying, but it took many days to prepare seed packets, drive to, attend, and clean up from the conference. But it was very enjoyable to interact with many other gardeners from the region! My vocal cords were worn out within an hour, and I could hardly speak above a whisper by the end of the third day. Those muscles just don’t usually get much exercise…

Speaking of exercise, I just don’t get nearly enough of it during winter months. Packaging seeds and preparing labels just doesn’t count for the full-body exercise that my mind and body crave! So, over the past few weeks, rather than crashing (on the bed) from exhaustion upon returning from the post office every afternoon, I have been steering the vehicle to other places. Exploring and walking/jogging (alas, I used to run marathons…) for up to an hour at a time. Following are some photos from my wanderings in the area. For more about the local coke ovens, here is a Brick Beehives story, and lots of photos (285 of them as of this writing) uploaded to:

Google Maps, Coke Oven Ruins

Still have lots of tomato processing work to do, and the window is closing rapidly, as spring approaches. Getting some great help with seed packaging! Many thanks to all who support this effort at: Delectation of Tomatoes, List of Tomato Seeds Available.

Tomato-Time Management

Posted on December 31, 2023 by SEAMSFASTER

Tomato processing continues – and continues and continues. At this point I can only give a rough estimate that about 1,500 batches were harvested, with perhaps 600 batches still to go? In terms of varieties from the 2023 season, there are now seeds of 275 varieties that have been extracted, dried, packaged, and inventoried – that is, ready for shipping! This means that there are around 258 additional varieties of unknown status: all plants died without producing tomatoes for seed saving; unknown because of off-types, tag mix-ups, or poor record keeping; or, in most cases, I’m just too $&*^% slow with seed extraction work.

Here is where to keep up with the latest list of seeds ready to go:

DT Current List of Tomato Seeds

Case in point (aka, “another day in the life…)

December 25^th:

5:30 a.m. – Up (cold winter morning), committed to ignoring the rest of the world, left computer off and phone off all day so I could focus on one task.

5:45 a.m. – Began processing tomatoes

Interruptions from urges to eat and compulsion to sleep (unwanted, unwelcome, and very inconvenient naps)

9:30 p.m. – Exhaustion (again…), quit processing after ONLY 30 batches completed.😵‍💫

Some of the larger, complex batches can take an hour or more. Smallest batches are 10 minutes minimum. Average 3-4 batches per hour.

On the bright side, I finished listening to a very interesting and educational audiobook by one of my former colleagues, Jared Diamond (yes, once upon a time I was an ornithologist and endangered species biologist…), Guns, Germs and Steel. In part, it’s a deep history of agriculture around the world. And I listened to dozens of short stories (Librivox Short Story Collections – I have now listened to almost all of them).

This means that a day alone with nose to grindstone did not feel like punishment, but like serious self-indulgence!

A late planting of garlic. Figs in the dead of winter – such a delicious snack! Very small potted shrub moved into cellar under 400-watt metal halide light, along with Carolina Reaper pepper plants (year after year, just seems too cool at this elevation of 6,200’ and climate for this heat-loving variety) and potted plants of several varieties of basil (started from seed on July 3^rd – they just did not have time for seeds to mature and dry out before frost).

One of the more remarkable and interesting new tomato finds of 2023 was Tomat de Penjar Piel de Melocoton, which translates from Catalan to “Hanging tomato, peach skin”. This was a very productive variety with 2-3 oz., peach-colored fruits with fuzzy skin and excellent flavor: rich, fairly sweet, and memorable. Most remarkable, the “Penjar” part means this is a long-keeper class of tomatoes bred for hanging through the winter. That is, large branches, or the entire plant can be cut off and hung in a cool place – such as a garage, cellar, or cold house – for delayed harvest all winter long! And today (December 31st), the fruits still taste delicious, with far more juiciness and flavor than one might expect 3-4 months after harvest!

What is this fascination with living things? Maybe it’s that I have no time for pets, so fruit flies and their babies are the closest I come to companionship? Here’s a video of dark-eyed fruit flies, or some other fly species I’ve not yet identified, taken on December 31, 2023.

Tomato Flesh-eating Fly Larvae

Overall, 2023 was a very good year, with a significant increase in requests for seeds from gardeners around the world. More than 50 people donated time to help with planting, tying up vines, harvesting, processing, and seed packaging. Compensation was mostly seeds, seedlings, and fresh veggies, with a few dedicated, hard workers also getting some $ compensation.

Yet somehow, my time-management skills are still sorely lacking, and I will have to cut back dramatically on how much I grow in 2024 — or else… ”Over-extended” is an under-statement. ”Drawn-and-quartered” is a bit too graphic for a family-friendly blog post; but from an emotional perspective, it’s a fair fit.

I’m just not inclined to set goals for 2024, as I’m still slogging through mounds of unfinished work from 2023. May the sun stand still for me, but not for thee!

Seed Saving Status Update

Posted on November 30, 2023 by SEAMSFASTER

The 2023 seed saving project is about 30% complete. In other terms: at least 400 hours of work left to do before all seeds are extracted, dried, packaged, and inventoried. As mentioned in the previous blog post, updates, at least for tomato seeds, are being published frequently here:

Delectation of Tomatoes Partial List of Tomato Seeds from the 2023 Season

In reality, the tomato seed inventory from the 2022 season is less than 5% complete, though a rough inventory keeps me semi-functional. Packaged and alphabetized tomato seeds are currently distributed among about 33 boxes, with 2022 and 2023 seeds separated from the rest. Distinctly NOT an efficient way to run things when I’m trying to fill seed requests, and more than a tad taxing on the old memory.

The first significant snowstorm of the season arrived the day after Thanksgiving, and dropped about 3″ of the white stuff. Nighttime temperatures since then have been in the 11° to 22° F range.

First Serious Snow of Winter 2023-34

Cooler weather has dramatically reduced the activity of fruit flies, especially their reproduction. Indoor temperatures have been kept in the 41° to 52° F range, at least for the past couple of weeks. This means a transition from the less desirable “maggot method” of tomato seed preparation to the much preferred (and less stinky) fungal method. No more of this extra, unpleasant, and time-consuming step of separating out maggots from seeds, AFTER seed extraction!

Fruit Fly Larvae Surviving Seed Extraction Process

Fruit Fly and Other Larvae and Pupae After Seed Extraction

On a much more pleasant and appetizing note, there are still quite a few good looking and edible tomatoes, so I’m not yet suffering from lack of homegrown, ripe tomatoes to satisfy that never-faltering craving! Some homegrown peppers and melons also remain part of my diet.

Next up: figure out how to work four times as fast so all seeds will be extracted, processed, packaged, and inventoried before the first day of 2024. As usual, ambitions far exceed abilities…

Seeds from the 2023 Growing Season

Posted on October 31, 2023 by SEAMSFASTER

To date (October 31st), I have finished extracting, drying, packaging, and inventorying seeds of just 66 varieties of tomato seeds. This partial list is published here:

Delectation of Tomatoes Partial List of Tomato Seeds from the 2023 Season

With an estimated 700 hours of work left to go with this seed-saving project, I’ll be doing good to get this list finalized and published before the clock turns to 2024. I expect that the final list will contain around 440 varieties of tomatoes, including at least 100 that are new to Delectation of Tomatoes.

This year, I’m saving a lot of seeds from melons, cucumbers, watermelons, peppers, and even a few beans and other types. Hard to say when I will be able to find (manufacture??) the time to get those seeds extracted, dried, packaged and listed. Following are just a few teasers.

October has involved several middle-of-the-night bouts of chasing deer out of the tomato patch. They’ve learned to jump between two strands of electric wires, even while the wires are hot, with no chance of getting shocked — because all four feet are in the air at once, so no grounding! Clever buggers – I’ve watched them take a running jump through the hot fence several times.

At other times, they just ripped up and broke the wires, even breaking or removing some of the insulators. Persistent buggers.

Once all tomatoes were harvested, I finally gave up, unplugged the control box, and opened the fence wide, on the south and north ends. Sure enough, within 24 hours, at least five deer set up house in the tomato patch.

A single deer in one night can cause as much damage to a tomato patch as 100 tomato hornworm caterpillars.

End of Season Melon and Tomato Patches

Final Tour of the 2023 Tomato Patch

It turned out that the frost on October 12th was light (29°) and brief, causing minimal damaging. Thermometer in the garden recorded several daily high temperatures in the 82-88° range between 16-22 October. It felt like late summer again, and I was kind of regretting having harvested all tomatoes and melons before then. But the frost on October 26th, at 18° pretty much killed all vegetation.

Between the much colder weather and an indoor bug zapper, fruit fly population is much reduced. But it will still be a while before I will be able to clear off the stove, washing machine, floors, and shower of batches of tomatoes so that I can move around with some semblance of normalcy again. It’s been at least 6 weeks since I have been able to take a normal shower, as that space has been crammed with stacks of tomato batches waiting for me to manufacture time from something. Just sponge baths for now. And essentially, the only counter space available is a window sill. Piles of tomato batches on the stove get moved to the floor if I decide to cook. Plates of drying seeds get placed on top of containers of tomatoes, as not a single shelf of wire racks is available for drying plates of tomato seeds yet. Dare I risk the phrase, “Taku Whawhai”?

Perhaps an alternative to manufacturing time is to figure out how to clone myself. Or find several people who will work hard, efficiently, and safely, 40 hours per week, with a pay of less than $1 per hour. Clearly I’m in dreaming mode — which is only occasionally related to problem-solving mode…

On a much more positive note, over the past two months, more than 40 people in the community have come over to help harvest, consume excess garden produce, and in some cases (melons and peppers), save seeds. Even more significant is the positive feedback and expressions of gratitude!
👏 👍 😊

Delectation of Tomatoes 2023 Tomato Tasting Event

Posted on September 30, 2023 by SEAMSFASTER

On September 23rd, Delectation of Tomatoes hosted a tomato tasting event for the community. The announcement was posted here:

DT Produce Page

Here is the list of 55 varieties in the competition:

Amy’s Apricot
Black Cherry
Black Fire
Champagne Bubbles
Chocolate Cherry
Egg Yolk
Gajo de Melon
Ghost Cherry
Goluboy Les
Indigo Blue Berries
Indigo Rose
Iva’s Red Berry
Jasper
Kleopatra
Königin der Nacht
L:ariskino Serdtse
Lemon Drop
Lipstick
Maddeline’s Vine Candy
Matt’s Wild Cherry
Mexico Midget
Midnight Snack
Minusinskiy Mestnyi ot Garkalovoy V. Ye.
Mocross #9
Mom’s
Moonlight Mile
Mrs. Maxwell’s Big Italian Paste
Mule Team
Myra’s Giant
Nagcariang Striped
Natal’lny Arbuziki
Nearly Wild
Negro Azteca
Nosiki
Orange Paruche
Policki Divlji
Purple Bumblebee
Queen Aliquippa
Rose Quartz
Sakharnyi Gigant
Schlicht’s Orange Cherry
Sungold (OP)
Sunsugar (OP)
Sweet Apertif
Twilights
Una Hartsock
Unicorn
Valentine
White Cherry
Yellow Pear
Yellow Sweet 100

Participants were asked to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much they liked each variety they tasted. With about 50 people involved, including about 15 children, taste test results should give a good indication of which among these varieties are the best liked by people.

Regrettably, at this point, I do not yet have the data entered or analyzed. I will publish the results here as soon they are available. My favorite from among these 51 varieties was Queen Aliquippa.

This time of year, I try my best to work 100 hours every day, as fast and efficiently as I can. Even if, by some miracle, I were able to work 100 per day, in high gear and with boundless energy, I would still fall further and further behind with each passing day.

Adequate sleep is what suffers the most (rarely more than 4 hours per night). And at the moment, I am unable to complete this blog post. Hopefully, I will manage the time finish it in the morning.

Here is a continuation of the theme from a month ago:

Dominant Life Form: Fruit Flies

Fruit Fly Maggots Galore

Deer are another major issue.

And being more than 800 hours behind with tomato processing work, with frost in the forecast in 2-3 days.

To be continued…

DT’s Infamous Fruit Fly Factory

Posted on August 31, 2023 by SEAMSFASTER

Alternate title: Drosophila melanogaster Paradise

What informs the title of this blog post is the same phenomenon that explains why it will be far briefer than I had planned:

I just am not keeping up with everything. More than once I’ve use the term, “Triage”. But I’ll try for at least a couple of interesting tidbits.

First, explaining the title. Tomato avalanche is currently in full force, and I am struggling under the weight – over 200 batches of behind on processing for seed saving, with easily that many more on the vine, ripe and waiting for me to work faster – much faster. Literally thousands of ripe tomatoes – most of them itty bitty ones, of course.

Though I have a strong preference for fungi to do the fermenting and decomposing of tomato pulp, fruit flies are opportunists and seem to be extremely grateful for my inability to work 100 hours per day — they are reproducing like, um, flies!

Fruit Flies Having Fun

Fruit Flies Feeding and …

Final count of number of tomato varieties transplanted into the garden in 2023: 532

First/Last date tomato seeds planted from seed indoors: April 9^th / July 6^th

Fist/Last date tomato seedlings transplanted into garden: Math 26^th / August 5^th

Number of new varieties planted in 2023: around 115

Number of tomato plants dead or too damaged to produce tomatoes: Approximately 200, including about 70 that died from Curly Top Virus. The rest from overwatering (root rot) or critters (local Jackrabbits and Rock squirrels easily fit under the electric fence).

Number of photos taken to date in 2023: 3,057
Following are just a few samples – many more to follow next month

Ambrosia Gold: earliest, most productive, and one of the tastiest among the 120+ varieties of cherry tomatoes I’ve grown over the years. I’m thoroughly enjoying sampling so many tomato varieties; the challenge is to not allow myself to feel stressed for time. I’ve been getting some great help from a volunteer, up to 12 hours per week, which makes the work so much more pleasant and efficient – thank you JD!

Eight varieties of basil were planted indoors from seed on July 3^rd, and it looks like the plants may still have time to produce seeds! Basil seedlings were potted up from plug trays into 1 to 2 gallon pots on August 4^th, then scattered throughout the tomato patch, grouped by variety, to minimize the chance of cross-pollination.

A variety of interesting arthropods are making there way into the garden ecosystem.

White-lined Sphinx Moth, aka Hummingbird Moth, making it happen in the melon patch

Tomato patch and melon patch are a veritable jungle of green. With some great help, most of the tomato vines are tied up now (August 31st) – not an easy task! But a lot has been neglected and procrastinated.

Following is a quick tour down the center of the tomato patch on August 28th – after vines were tied up, more or less.

Tomato Patch Tour, August 28, 2023

Under the dense canopy of the melon patch are literally hundreds of cucumbers and melons. That black weed barrier fabric, and vigilance to make sure there was no wilting of vines, have helped make this the best melon patch I’ve ever grown. I just wish I had the time and means to make sure that there was 0%, rather than 30% (estimated) chance of cross-pollination.

Just a small sampling of what’s hidden here:

Lots of other non-tomato things are growing. Wenk’s Yellow hot pepper has medium heat and has always been one of the best producers in this high desert climate. I’m trying to grow 12 varieties of gourd, though half the seeds never germinated. They (the gourd vines, that is) are finally starting to put out blossoms – male blossoms anyhow. And who could not appreciate the beautiful display of an okra blossom?

Some miscellaneous photos of interest. Historic coke ovens are irrelevant to Delectation of Tomatoes, but interesting local tourist attraction.

Another double rainbow, framing the tomato patch.

Rainwater running down the gutter – a welcome event in this high desert climate.

A helicopter flying right over the garden with a Bambi Bucket – a clear indication of wildfires in the area.

Water from a welcome rainstorm

Helicopter transporting water to a wildfire

Garden Allies and Enemies

Posted on July 31, 2023 by SEAMSFASTER

Around here, there was near record snowfall last winter, along with many cold nights. My thinking is that many garden pests actually survived the winter better than usual because the thick blanket of snow, which persisted for months, allowed for high survival. The garden pests have been diverse, numerous, and destructive.

By far the most destructive pest this year has been beet leafhoppers, specifically those that carry Curly Top Virus (CTV). At least 100 tomato vines have been infected so far, with more showing signs every day.

Second most destructive is tomato hornworms, followed by potato beetles, grasshoppers, flea beetles, squash bugs, stink bugs, and yes, even termites! Only found on the roots of one dying tomato plant so far, there were so many that it was clear that they contributed to it’s demise.

Beet Leafhoppers Transmit Curly Top Virus

At the scale of a garden, predator populations typically lag behind prey populations by a few weeks. Following are just a few of the allies that help control pests.

Papilio multicaudata Swallowtail Butterfly Larvae

Preying Mantis on Lettuce

Camel Spider

The higher the biodiversity, the lower the risk of any one pest species causing extensive damage. Growing without chemical pesticides, if nothing else, makes gardening far more interesting! But Curly Top Virus really SUCKS! More than 10% loss already this year.

About 20 varieties of tomatoes have ripened in July. First blush was of Ambrosia Gold on July 10th, with the very similar Sungold (OP) and Totushka being the other earliest to ripen varieties.

Tomato patch, weekly progress from May 25nd to July 31st. With some great help, 800 tomato seedlings were transplanted from plug trays into the main tomato patch between Math 26th and June 1st. Replacements of dead plants commenced soon after the big hailstorm on June 3rd and are continuing through at least July 30th, with at least 40 more dead plants that still need to be replaced.

Tours through the center row of the tomato patch.

Hope after Hail

Posted on June 30, 2023 by SEAMSFASTER

Art credit: https://www.deviantart.com/hjoranna/art/Abandon-All-Hope-159726536

Despite the dire warning of Alighieri Dante, there does appear to be some hope after a massive hailstorm hit on the afternoon of June 3rd. I was on the road, returning from a delivery of about 800 seedlings to several locations in Wayne and Garfield counties, Utah.

The hail was mostly melted by the time I returned, but the damage was extensive. Young pepper seedlings were essentially shredded. An assessment of 799 seedlings in the tomato patch after the hailstorm yielded:

799 – damaged by hail

216 – “Weak”: significant damage, small, and/or apical meristem broken off – will likely recover, barring further damage or disease

29 – “Very weak”: severely damaged and/or very small – will likely die or never fully recover

9 – “Stump only”: all leaves stripped off, some possibility of new growth from below surface

18 – DEAD: no live tissue left

There has also been some damping off and possible bacterial wilt among transplanted seedlings. On at least 8 different days in June, I’ve replaced dead tomato plants. As of today, June 30th, I’ve replaced 49 tomato plants that died.

Of these 49, 13 were replaced with the same variety, 35 with a different variety. Among those 35, 31 replacements resulted in only one vine of that particular variety remaining, while for 4 varieties, replacement resulted in ZERO seedlings remaining for the 2023 growing season.

Initial transplanting of tomato seedlings (before mortality) was essentially completed on June 2nd, a full 6 weeks ahead of last year! But the month of June has been relatively cool. This, along with significant overwatering initially, has resulted in fairly slow growth.

However, temperatures have reached into the 80’s the past week, and growth is starting to pick up.

I’m attempting to take a photo and a video of the patch every Monday. Here is the latest video tour, walking down the middle of the patch.

[More to come]

Delectation of Tomatoes, etc.

Latest developments and activities