So Texans, Where do you Stand on Tomatoes?

[karstopography]

@FatBeeFarm I have another series of sheets with each tomato variety I grew this season and the two seasons before, each season has its own sheet, but each season the sheets record the total number and weight of the tomatoes from each plant along with the average weight of the fruit per variety. This season, I added the date I harvested the first fruit for each variety and then a date of last harvest.

I think the sheets with the harvest data help me stay more objective about a particular variety instead of relying solely on memory.

I might should add some tasting notes, good idea.

I really don’t aspire to be any kind of scientist or market grower regarding tomatoes. I just want to get an idea with the use of the spreadsheets on how productive a particular tomato variety might be year after year. I feel like I will, if I keep the sheets going year after year, get some better overall feel or understanding for my tomato growing efforts.

The future potential grow out spreadsheet helps me not lose track of the tomato cultivars that are attractive in some way. Otherwise, I might completely forget about them.

For about a decade, I kept a spreadsheet going logging fishing trips with a lot more columns of data, wind, water temperature, water levels, tides, etc. than I have done with my tomatoes. The fishing log spreadsheet helped me tease out some seasonal trends and other important factors, such as water levels, regarding where the fish might be when and which areas produced and why. With the fishing logs, I got much more intentional and informed about where the fish were likely to be on any given day based on what the past data suggested.

With the tomato spreadsheets, I’m already seeing trends that suggest that the heirlooms I have been growing are roughly equivalent with hybrid tomatoes on potential production and that finding surprised me. In other words, there’s no benefit, at least in my own garden, to growing a hybrid tomato over an open pollinated variety as far as production goes. Head to head, same season, no glaring difference between hybrid and open-pollinated tomatoes on production.

Armed with that data and knowledge, I felt liberated to grow for flavor and other desirable qualities and felt no longer chained to the idea that I should grow at least some hybrids for “safety” or to ensure production.

[FatBeeFarm]

@karstopography I don't aspire to much either except possibly to be your tomato spreadsheet padawan apprentice Seriously, that's pretty cool that you keep track of everything at that level. I'm feeling overwhelmed just hauling stuff inside most days. How do you go about weighing every tomato? Do you do it outside, inside? I'd love to know your process. I'd very much like to know the number and weights of all my tomatoes too, especially if I could streamline and simplify that process.

[karstopography]

@karstopography I don't aspire to much either except possibly to be your tomato spreadsheet padawan apprentice Seriously, that's pretty cool that you keep track of everything at that level. I'm feeling overwhelmed just hauling stuff inside most days. How do you go about weighing every tomato? Do you do it outside, inside? I'd love to know your process. I'd very much like to know the number and weights of all my tomatoes too, especially if I could streamline and simplify that process.

I don’t bother with recording any data from cherry or small fruited tomatoes. I barely even like most of those, they are mostly an afterthought if I grow any.

Discounting those small tomatoes, this season I only had twelve larger fruited tomato plants to record data from. Generally, I wake up, go out to the garden, pick what needs picking, and then bring it inside to weigh immediately. The scale is right next to the ipad with spreadsheet. I got where I knew which tomato was from which variety. They each have a look. I weighed 256 individual tomatoes from April 24th until July 9th, a couple of days after Hurricane Beryl decimated the remaining fruit and plants. What’s that average maybe 3 or 4 tomatoes per day? Obviously, at peak season, here around June 1st, the numbers per day were higher, but it was still manageable. Even if I had a dozen or more to weigh, it doesn’t take more than a few seconds per tomato to get it done and recorded.

[karstopography]

12 varieties, twelve plants, 49,603 total grams tomatoes or 109.36 pounds, 256 tomatoes total. Largest average weight, Hoy, 379 grams/tomato. Most tomatoes, MPLA, 41. Most total weight, Red Barn, 7,015 grams.

I didn’t account for any loses to bugs, vermin, or accidents which were rather light overall until and not factoring in the total loss incurred due to the hurricane.

I didn’t account for loses to BER, which were considerable with some of the plants.

[karstopography]

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Just a little tinkering with the 2025 grow out list. Now growing 18 tomatoes with the soon to be replaced 23 square foot bed with a 32 sq.ft one. I could grow 20 or even 22 tomato plants if I wished to in the three beds, two 4’x 8’ and one 4 x 10’, but prefer to give each plant a little more space.

Growing Five pinks and five reds, pink and red beefsteaks are the mainstay anchors and what I look forward to more than anything else in my tomato garden. Bulgarian Triumph will be the smallest fruit I grow. I have piles of dehydrated cherry tomatoes no reason to grow anymore cherry tomatoes in 2025. The rest, eight tomatoes, will be a mix of dark tomatoes, bicolor, tricolor, blue and orange.

At the bottom of the spreadsheet I added a column for what I believe are the “historical” heirlooms or heirlooms where the parents are unknown or lost to history and then another column for more modern stabilized crosses and a third column for the parentage of these.

[bower]

I have to say that your yield spreadsheet also inspired me to at least try to estimate yield.
My fruit are smaller and more numerous than yours, so I'm keeping a tally of how many picked, but instead of weighing every fruit, I've done some representative weights, and now and then I'll pile several onto the scale and take an average. I have a 'max' column as well for whatever seemed like the largest of the kind. At the end of the day, I'll multiply the number of fruit by the average weight to get an estimate of yield.
I've never managed to do this before, so I feel pretty good about keeping up with it.
The tally sheet, weight sheet and scale are all in the room where the pick gets triaged, so it's not that hard to do.

[karstopography]

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I, once again, messed around with my 2025 tomato list. Dropped a Pink and a Red for some other colors.

I figured 4 pinks and 4 reds would be more than enough to satisfy our own needs. The rest are all experimental.

[TomatoNut95]

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@Cornelius_Gotchberg Tah-dah! This is my In...uh, IR. I haven't opened it yet, but it sure is interesting looking! Is this a good size, or kinda small? This plant was one of three that produced during the summer heat.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

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@Cornelius_Gotchberg Tah-dah! This is my In...uh, IR. I haven't opened it yet, but it sure is interesting looking! Is this a good size, or kinda small? This plant was one of three that produced during the summer heat.

'Bout average, anxious to hear yer verdict once you's open it, here's one flanked by a Guido:

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And opened, please note the clean, near hollow innards:

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The Gotch

[Wildcat82]

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Texas will have a warmer and drier Winter. We may be looking at only 2-3 light frosts this winter, so I'm planning to have a lot of plants in containers November -March. Full tomato production before 1 April looks possible.

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https://www.statesman.com/story/weather ... 683595007/

[MissS]

@Wildcat82 Oh that would be great. I hope that it works out for you.

[karstopography]

Getting close. Might start some the 29th, 30th or 31st. I might wait a week longer and start them all then. I might do 12 during the first window and the rest during the second opportunity. I don’t use heat pads so I have to rely on favorable conditions either preferably outside or as a last resort inside the house.

Plan is to start 20-24 cells, maybe 15-20 varieties. Pick the 12 best of them all to transplant. The remainder will be backups, redundancy, or give aways.

Shooting for the first reasonable opportunity to transplant, typically beginning around February 15th. Will risk a less than even chance of frost to gain a two-four weeks on the front side of the season, around here the most important period, IMO, to get the tomatoes blooming well during the best fruit setting weather.

Too early, increased slight risk of frost loss. Too late, then forget about getting much production on the mid-late to late season heirloom beefsteaks.

No risk free tomato growing. Always a risk/reward calculation.

[karstopography]

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Couldn’t stand it, went ahead and started 12 tomatoes. Thought process went like this——weather favorable this week, but looks rather unfavorable for tomato germination for the first two weeks of 2025. Don’t want to risk getting too late.

When the weather turns more favorable sometime in January I will start some more tomatoes.

Pink Beefsteaks started today
Pruden’s Purple—about the last of the original vendor seed
Brandywine Cowlick’s—- MMMM swap seed, same as last year’s source
Dester—— original vendor seed
Cleota Pink—— vendor seed
Marianna’s Peace——MMMM swap seed

Red Beefsteaks
Red Barn——MMMM swap seed, same as last year
Huevos di Toro —— vendor seed
Ashleigh—— vendor seed

Bicolor
Pineapple—— vendor seed
Lucky Cross—— MMMM swap seed

Dark
Vorlon—— vendor seed

Orange
KBX—— MMMM swap seed

[karstopography]

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My grow light setup for 2025. The bar holding up the grow lights is a new addition. Adjustable for height.

The garage tends to be cooler and better overall for nightshade seedlings and young plants than the house as far as temperature goes, especially if the temperature is around seasonal norms in January and February. Plus, they get some natural light in the afternoons.

[karstopography]

Went out a moment ago to take a soil temperature reading with my starter cells. 79-83°, pretty perfect overall for these nightshades.

[karstopography]

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My daughter picked this beauty today. She couldn’t remember which type. Evidently, they are covered up with tomatoes.

[karstopography]

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BTW, Daughter’s tomato in post above is Bread and Salt.

In other news, Cleota Pink is the first up. Seeded December 26th.

Pruden’s Purple and Vorlon are also breaking free of the jiffy soiless mix.

[karstopography]

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More tomatoes sprouting. Six out of the twelve varieties showing signs of life. A bit cool in the garage, doing laundry to help boost the temperature. The afternoon sun will be even more helpful.

P.S. One eggplant up, Nadia. No peppers yet.

[karstopography]

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All twelve tomato varieties have at least one seed that germinated and broken the surface.

Really, not too long considering no heat pad was used. Seeded December 26th, all up by January 3rd. Pineapple was the last holdout and that seed had to be at least four or five years old.

[Harry Cabluck]

Planted seeds Dec.31, 2024, in 18 cups, three seeds each, see photo. Above heating mat, under LEDs. Planting medium is diatomaceous earth from auto supply store (not kitty litter). Here it is Jan. 5, 2025 and we have germination on most. Note: the green labels denote older seeds...hoping for signs of life there. Cold front headed this way and hope we don't lose power. Austin, Texas city water is alkaline pH 8.0 ish. About ten drops of commercial phosphoric acid mix bring it to 6.0-6.5 pH.

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