Cleanup Crews

Well, the clock is ticking rapidly towards November 1st, and it looks like I’ve barely made a dent into processing batches of tomatoes — which were harvested in October — for seed saving.

Every single decent-sized (1 gallon or larger) solid container I have has been filled with tomatoes at some stage of processing. I’ve resorted to using gallon freezer bags placed inside of pots to hold batches of tomatoes for fermenting.

Container Shortage!

Finding time to do “Fall cleanup” of the garden is absolutely out of the question. But I have a crew, or rather several crews of deer that are cleaning up the tomato patch, little by little, as many as nine deer at time, with small herds spending as much as two hours straight, gorging themselves on the leftover, frozen tomatoes. It’s been challenging for me to refrain from chasing them off – something I’ve been doing for months, mostly in the middle of the night.

They have pretty much ripped down the deer fencing along the south edge of the garden patch, so even for the youngest deer, it’s an easy hop in and out. They are getting bolder by the day, often starting their forays in the late afternoon, and continuing off and on all night long. On the bright side, at least I’m sleeping better, not stressing out about the damage they might be causing.

Circumstantial Evidence

So many beautiful, tasty, and interesting tomato varieties sampled this year. Loads of photos, descriptions, and recommendations to share. But the battle now is against exhaustion, and against tomatoes rotting before I get a chance to sample them or take decent photos.

Here are just a few teasers —

Chocolate Pear

Crovarese Grape

Coko Ladini

Diamante

Estonian Yellow Cherry

Dot’s Delight

Etoile

Garden Peach

Gargamel

Green Gage

Highlander

Himmelsstürmer

Indigo Pear Drops

Krasnaya Mishen’

Königin der Nacht

Mulatka

Perfection in Pink

Pineapple Pink

Purple Bumblebee

Vernisazh Zholtyi

Slovenian Black

The Muskateers

Thornburn’s Lemon Blush

Tiger Zebra

Red Charcoal

Apologies in advance for delays with getting seeds out, but I WILL get to them, just not as quickly as usual. Lately, I’ve been sending out seed requests just once a week, rather than the more typical frequency of 3-4 times per week. It’s just the nature of this beast — a very BIG bite this year, seeming, at times, to be more than I can handle. Best get at least a little sleep.

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Update 11/04/22022

Recent minor snowstorm, followed by 15.3°F temperature. Deer have pretty much cleaned up all but the tiny tomatoes from the main tomato patch. Now they are working on the extra vines that are still in 3.5″ pots – those seedlings that never found a home, but many still managed to send roots into the ground and produce some tomatoes. They have been covered with row cover fabric, but the deer pretty much ripped that to shreds, so I removed it. Following video was taken from 20′ away with the aid of a headlamp. They are so bold, at least when I move slowly and remain quiet!

Cleaning up the leftovers

Tomato Patch – cleaned up, snowed on

Building compost

Abundance and Overflow

Harvesting of tomatoes for seed saving has finally been completed, about 10 hours ago, in the high winds, cold rain, and plummeting temperatures of an approaching cold front and storm. It’s snowing outside now, with low temperatures of around 21°F (“RealFeel”) forecast in about 28 hours. That’s a hard freeze, a season-ending freeze for sure.

Here is what the tomato patch looked like at the end of the harvest:

Tomato Patch at End of 2022 Harvest

Some may suggest this is a surfeit of tomatoes for seed saving: Some 2,000 batches of seed saving at some stage from something like 877 varieties (sorry for excessive sibilance, sometimes I simply cannot suppress such urges).

At the moment, all shelf space, nearly all floor space, and now even the entire seed room are packed with batches of tomatoes waiting for me to get my act together and process them for seed extraction.

Overflow of Tomatoes for Seed Saving

This is, of course, in addition to the hundreds of batches shown in the video in my last post, “Ultramarathoning Revisited“.

I have taken only a few plants into the cellar this fall, placing them under metal halide lights to hopefully set and ripen more fruits over the winter. Not holding out a lot of hope, however, as this strategy had not proven very successful.

Plants in Cellar to Overwinter

When daylight returns in a few hours, I still need to harvest peppers, eggplant, basil, potatoes, and other small seeds before the serious cold sets in. Harvesting all of those tomatoes just sapped me of time and energy.

Fortunately, I have had many neighbors, around 30 people total, who have helped with tomato harvesting, both for seed saving and their own use – a special thanks to AD especially! 👍 Altogether, we probably harvested over 3,000 lbs. of tomatoes, leaving less than 1,000 lbs. still on the vines or on the ground for the deer, birds, mice, insects, fungi and bacteria to clean up. We just could not get to them all – 2022 has been an outstanding year for tomatoes, at least around here!

Now to really focus on seed extraction and saving. I estimate 800 hours of work left to do to get all tomato seeds extracted, dried and packaged from the abundant 2022 harvest. And I would very much like to get all of that done by November 1st.

Sadly, somehow, the math does not work out. So patience is appreciate from those looking for seeds from many excellent new (to me) varieties from 2022.

Meanwhile, seeds of more than 2,500 tomato varieties are available now:

DT SEEDS

And for a teaser of what is, or very soon will be available from the 2022 harvest, see the file, “List of 913 Varieties Planted in 2022” published here:

Delectation of Tomatoes Files Shared

If you are thinking, “nobody should ever attempt to grow so many varieties in one growing season”, my reply would be, “I could not agree more”.

But have you ever heard me claim to have a grip on some semblance of sanity? 🤪

Ultramarathoning Revisited

Just a short, mid-month update. This time of year really tries my endurance and conscientiousness, much as described in last year’s post, “Adventures in Ultramarathoning“. Similar principles and struggles, mostly in the realm of, “how the devil am I going to find the time to do all of this!”

First light frost is very likely tonight; that is, within the next six hours. Tomato harvesting, at least for seed saving, is about 75% complete. Thankfully several relatives and neighbors have been helping with the harvest, and with finding a good home for the extra tomatoes. The following photos depict a pickup truck, loaded down twice, representing maybe 20% of the extra tomatoes this season. “Extra” referring to those in excess of what I need for seed saving.

Regrettably, with such a late start in 2022, nearly all of the extra tomatoes have started ripening in October, and I have no opportunity (time, personnel, energy) to try to get these to market. So it’s a “Free for All”. There is a lot of poverty in this small town of 1,300, so resentment doesn’t enter the equation. I would have to drive 30 minutes to take them to the nearest farmers market, and neglect the hundreds of hours of urgent work while making the trip.

Here’s just a glimpse of what it looks like indoors, where I am eyeballs-deep into processing tomatoes for seed saving.

Significant changes since the above video was taken two days ago, including spillover into the shower and the office of batches of tomatoes waiting for me to get to them.

Between the numerous invasion of deer recently, the hailstorm on October 1st (see previous blog post), and much unavoidable trampling while harvesting, vines in the tomato patch are looking well paste their prime. And with frost pending, the following videos will likely be the last weekly videos of living tomato vines for the season.

Tomato Patch 12 Weeks After Transplanting Completed

Tomato Patch 13 Weeks After Transplanting Completed

I hardly know where to begin with all the wonderful, beautiful, intriguing new tomato varieties that I have been harvesting and tasting over the past couple of weeks. Below are just a few teasers.

Fleur de Reagir

Diamante

Early Ssubakus Aliana

Lithium Sunset

How I wish I could keep up with it all!

I have harvested at least 10 Domingo tomatoes weighing in at over 1.5 lbs. But this has not bee the biggest of the year. That honor goes to the variety Diamante, with the heaviest coming in at 1.936 lb

Hopefully much more than teasers to blog about at the end of October!.

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First frost of fall – a very light one. Remnants of hail damage can also be seen in the following photo: shredded, dried leaves all over the weed barrier fabric.

First Frost of Fall

All tomatoes need for seed saving have now (October 17th) been from the main tomato patch. Left to harvest: the overflow section, rows 17 and 18, which contain 187 tomato vines representing 119 varieties. Harvesting in this section is only 3% completed. I have a large tarp ready to cover the vines when serious frost is forecast to hit next weekend following the first low pressure to come into this area in several weeks.

The weather here has been absolutely wonderful every day since September 13th, with highs ranging from 70 to 84°F, and lows ranging from 41 to 60° officially — though my thermometer recorded 37° last night. Plenty of sunshine, very little wind, and so pleasant to work outside, harvesting tomatoes for seeds.

Now the real work begins: processing about 700 more batches of tomatoes for seed saving. Ultramarathoning every day — just too bad my body forces sleep upon me. Is there an “anti-hibernation” pill that can keep me fully awake and alert, 24-7, until Spring returns?