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]

IMG_20240914_192832666 (1).jpg

@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