Dave's Submits His Soldacki Tomato for Weigh-In

On Saturday (9/6/08) after tennis, Linda and Raf performed the measurements of Dave's tomato for the competition.

Dave had brought a Russian Beef Steak called Soldacki. It didn't look completely ripe as it still had a shade of yellow-green. He had taken this one off the vine by mistake (See his post below). It looked like it could have used a few more weeks on the vine.

Anyway, the tomato weighed 19.9 oz with a girth of 14-7/8 inches. It was bigger than Linda's entry, but didn't beat Carmel's.

Carmel's entry is still on the lead.

My Russian Soldacki That I Prematurely Picked

By Dave Davisson

I was asked to relate the story of my 1st weigh-in tomato of this season by Zack, so here it is :

I was looking down at my garden and realized that it was time to do a tomato harvest. I got to my competition tomato's and realized I should pick a couple of the smaller fruit (ripe, I didn't want it go to waste).

Well, I had this one tomato that was ripe just above one of my tomatoes that was going to be a big one. Problem was that it's feeder branch was trapped tight to the tomato and it was trapped tight to the tomato cage (see picture, the tomato I was going for is next to the tennis ball, the weigh-in is below) not wanting to cut or harm the tomato I was picking, not thinking, I cut the branch lower. I did not notice until after that I had cut my big weigh-in tomato free also (being connected to the feeder branch also), early ... not fully ripe, darn. The tomato variety is a russian extract beefsteak tomato called "Soldacki". It ripens quickly after picking, eat it within a few days after picking or make salsa before it starts to go to goo. Good if you screw up and pick early. Maybe I'll get another biggie, but this hotspell we just went though has all my tomatoes turning earlier than I'd like for a BIG tomato.

Hope we see a 3 lb. tomato someday!

Linda's Heirloom Pineapple

On Saturday, August 30, Linda brought to the tennis courts her Heirloom Pineapple tomato for official weigh-in. Tina performed the measurements.

This beautiful tomato weighed 17.4 oz with a girth of 12-3/4 inches, not big enough to beat Carmel's Marianna Peace.
Linda had brought other tomatoes to eat, we sliced and diced them all and served them with the other goodies for RAT (Refreshments After Tennis). I love home-grown tomatoes!

Carmel's entry is currently in first place. Participants are beginning to harvest their tomatoes and I anticipate more entries will be forthcoming to challenge Carmel's Marianna Peace before the season is over.