The Best of the Harvest

It has been just about a week since my last posting. Since then I have harvested the largest tomatoes of the growing season that my plants created. The two largest turned out to be 10oz and 11oz. They have a weird "navel" like formation on the bottom, as each of them are really two tomatoes kind of conjoined. The remaining ones are quite a bit smaller, coming in at 7oz or less. A couple turned out to be about as small as the typical mini-tomato variety.

I didn't take many photos in the latter half of the tomato season, as I'd been a bit exasperated at not having gotten nearly as many tomatoes as I'd anticipated. The only thing really keeping me thankful was hearing about the horror stories of other tomato growers, who lost entire crops to blight, poaching by animals, or just miserable weather conditions.  But what really has me hooked is... THE FLAVOR. I'm a fan of Kumato tomatoes and have been buying them instead of the bland beefsteaks you typically find at the supermarket. Well, these Black Krim tomatoes make the Kumato taste like a bland hothouse tomato!  Amazing... I've been spoiled.  ;-)

Ultimately, I do have a lot to be thankful for. First of all, I learned a ton about tomato growing. If I'd run into my blog as it is now before I got started, assuming it was someone else who posted all this last growing season, I'd have skipped nearly all of the mistakes that first time tomato growers tend to make. And I'd probably have harvested about 60% more tomatoes as a result. So... if my blog gives you that boost, please post and let me know--it would feel good hearing that I've made a positive difference for some other folks.

The next big thing to wonder about is what to grow next year. I already have a big bunch of seeds I harvested from my Black Krim tomatoes, so I will grow this variety again. I also bought some seeds from Gary Pilarchik, namely Russian Orange Oxheart 117 and Sara's Galapagos. He threw in Black Plum as a gift, but I'll probably get them going as seedlings and then give them to my neighbors for growing in their garden. I'd really like to try a couple more varieties, but if I'm still living where I am I won't have a lot of room to grow more than just 4 varieties. TomatoVille has some topics about what have been people's favorites ["What are your favorites this year", "2013 tomato variety report -- winners", and "What are you growing next year, no matter what"]. Those are packed with responses, so you need a lot of time to peruse. I'm very tempted to grow about 8 more varieties, but... I'll have to whittle it down to just 2 more.