Re: 2009 Tomato Contest Update

Thanks for hosting this contest, lol. I'm only where I am because of the poor growing season this summer. I was really dissapointed in my harvest this year, but the 'Chronicle had an article on how this was a poor growing for this summer's homegrowers of tomatoes. Zack kicked my butt on tomato harvest in volume by a factor of at least four. I don't think I've won yet, Zack has a couple of tomatoes that could easly beat my tomato if we don't get a heavy frost (hmmmm ... heavy frost) anyway, I look forward to the results.

Dave Davisson

Re: 2009 Tomato Contest Update

Thanks for 'captaining' this contest, Zack. And congrats to the winner. Guess we're all winners if we have those fresh tomatoes on our tables...ours were sparse and small but tasty. We planted them in our wine barrels again so thinking we need to change the soil; also, our pine trees and redwoods are huge now and too much shade. Your friend, Carole

The 2009 Tomato Contest to end Dec 12

Our 2009 tomato growing contest is coming to an end. The leader is Dave's Big Zac, officially weighed at 18.3 oz with a girth of 14.0 inches.

Please advise if you plan to submit any more entries for this season. I have two more tomatoes on my vines that could beat Dave's Big Zac. I should find out in a couple of weeks.
This contest will officially end on December 12, but can be extended if anyone expects to submit entries beyond that date.

Thanks to those who participated in the contest. I have enjoyed my home garden-grown tomato salsa this year.

Zack

My Big Zac

By Dave Davisson

Zack asked me to do a write up on my tomato that is, so far, winning our contest. So far this year my biggest tomato came from seed that I received from Zack Chavez, the variety was called Big Zac. Zack had done some research on the variety and decided to grow it and harvest the seeds, which he generously gave me some.

I grew my tomato's this year trying a new idea. I decided to mix my own soil mix and then digging out a hole that you could drop a 5 gallon paint bucket in flush with the ground, I planted in my tomato's. The mix was fairly simple :

* 1/3 Fox Farm's organic soil mix (something like that, lol)
* 1/3 HomeDepot indoor/outdoor potting soil (big bag, green color on it)
* 1/3 1 year aged compost (my own), primarily coffee grounds and veggie scraps, and more red worms than either of the other two

I mixed it all together using a large tarp (less mess) and filled around the plants. I will add that all of my plants that I wish to survive must be planted into chicken wire mesh pots under the ground, where we live we have a very severe pocket gopher problem. If it isn't in a wire mesh pot it will be eaten. I am also using an idea that Zack was the first to use in our circle, red mulch cloth. It is a stretch calling it that, basically it's perforated red plastic a little thicker than Glad garbage bags in 2'x2' squares. I have read a few studies that have proved that the red color does help the plants to grow more vigorously and fruit better.

The last couple of things I do are what I think helps produce great tomatoes no matter what size you are shooting for, I dig a well around my plants. I figure that if my plants are healthy and growing well each tomato plant will need at least a 3-4' diameter circle to grow in (branches growing out and overflowing). So, the well I plant them in is about 2-3' in diameter, that will allow me to hand-water each plant with at least 2 gallons of water a watering that will soak the rootball and the surrounding soil. I also grow my tomato plants in cages. I use "hog-wire" or foundation wire for my baskets, the stuff lasts a lifetime and the squares are big enough I can shove my paws through them and still pick the fruit and pull it out without mauling it.

That leads to my final idea on growing great tomato's no matter what size, hand watering. This is a luxury that I am fortunately able to indulge in, some may not be able to enjoy. The idea is, if you are hand watering you take time to do it, what do you do? I f you are someone like me I start to look at my plants ... do they look healthy? Are they yellowing? Damn, they are dying. You end up looking at your plants more, and the more you look, the more I've learned. You start to see the sucker growth you want to pinch off, the yellowing that either means too much water or too much fertilizer, the stunted growth that could be really heavy soil. It's a learning process, but what is so much fun is watching it grow in such a short period of time and being able to enjoy the fruits of your labor. I really enjoy the flavor of summer tomato's it will ruin you for the store bought.

Now It's Dave's Big Zac

Our tomato contest is coming to a close. We have about eight weeks of tomato growing season left. My Delicious was in first place until last Sunday, 10/4, when Dave brought his Big Zac tomato for weigh-in. Vinnie and Jason were the designated weigh-in officials and they performed their duties by taking the required girth and weight measurements.

Officially, the Big Zac weighed 18.3 oz with a girth of 14.0 inches, beating my Delicious by less than 1/2 oz!

Dave's Big Zac now has the lead. I have a few more tomatoes on the vine that could potentially beat Dave's Big Zac. I will find out in about three weeks.

Dave's Big Zac came from seeds I obtained from my garden last year. I bought the original plant on-line. If anyone wants some Big Zac seeds I have some I can give out.

My Delicious Tomato has taken the lead!

I brought my tomato type Delicious on Sept 6 for official weigh-in, my first tomato entry for 2009. This one was grown from one of our Tomato Success Kits. Our visiting friends from North Tahoe, Duane and Lore obtained the official measurements to be 15" girth, weighing 17.7 oz. My Delicious now leads the contest, beating Dave's Watermelon Beefsteak that was entered a week ago.

Zack's and Louise's Tomato Garden - 2009

Our first competition tomato this year - type Delicious

We started many of our tomato plants this year from seeds out of last year's garden. Our first entry in this year’s competition is type Delicious, and is doing well in one of our tomato Success Kits, a type of self-watering container we bought on-line. There are more tomatoes on the vines that are still green and it looks like some of them can be competition tomatoes for this year's contest. Besides the two Success Kits, we have several plants on half-wine barrels, and also in-ground.

The Success Kits came with their own soil mix. I made my own mix for the wine barrel containers.

This year, we started our seeds using Aerogarden, a revolutionary indoor garden appliance. The seed starter kit for the Aerogarden had 72 pods, so I was able to grow other plants besides tomatoes. When the seedlings were about 4” tall I transplanted them to small pots to hardened them before they went in our garden.

Tomato Weigh-In 08/29/09

Dave brought in his first entry of the year, a watermelon beefsteak tomato for official weigh-in at the club yesterday at RAT. Raf and Sabrina performed the measurements in front of about a dozen witnesses. The tomato weighed a little less than a pound, 14.9 oz to be exact, with a girth of 13-1/2 inches.

The winning tomato last year was Carmel's Mariana's Peace, weighing 27.0 oz with a girth of 16-1/2 inches.

Dave's Watermelon Beefsteak - 8/28/09

By Dave Davisson

I got the computer to listen to me, lol. Here is a picture of the weigh-in tomato for tomorrow, it is a watermelon beefsteak and we should plan on eating it tomorrow at RAT. I do not think it will be my biggest one, holding out on the Big Zack or Delicious.

My Tomato Garden - by Cyp

By Cyp Fednandes

Lets just call the first, Cyp's Medium Beefsteak, and the second sweet and tasty, Brandywine, I should try Laurel's favorite Liquid compost, and also the energy drink for plants... maybe that will give it the boost.

Cyp's Medium Beefsteak


Brandywine

Cyp

Laurel's has a lot of good info on how to grow tomatoes.

Tomato Contest 2009 is well underway

This years tomato contest attracted eleven participants. We are well into the growing season and I have heard from some contestants that their plants are now bearing fruits. It won't be long and we will start doing our weigh-ins.

Carmel, who has won this contest the last two years is not allowed to compete this year in accordance with our contest rules. She says she is still growing tomatoes to see if she can still come up with the biggest fruit just for the heck of it.

The participants this year are:

Zack (that's me)
Karl
Dave
Larry
Linda
Darrick
Raf
Cyp
Rudy
Richey
Carole

I have four competition plants this year, two Big Zac and two Delicious all being grown in containers (half wine barrels). The plants were grown from seeds from last year's harvest.

Carmel Wins the 2008 Tomato Contest

Our tomato contest ended on November 1st. Congratulations to Carmel for winning the 2008 Tomato Contest. The winning tomato was Marianna's Peace, weighing 27 oz with a girth of 16.5 inches. Carmel will be keeping the tomato glass trophy for another year. She has won this contest two consecutive years.

Many thanks to those who participated. It has been fun and for me, even when I don't win, every year has been a learning experience. I am sure I will be trying something different next year!

My Competition Tomato

I am disapppointed that my biggest tomato, which I submitted for the competition only weighed 17 ounces. It was an heirloom, type Delicious. I have several Big Zac plants with plenty of fruits but I didn't get anything bigger than the Delicious one.

Although I didn't win, I enjoyed tending our garden and our harvest this year has been the best since we started gardening. Our two Tomato Success Kits produced the most fruits.

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.

Linda's Garden

Here's an email from Linda describing her tomato garden:

Zack,

Believe it or not, I managed to get these pictures to you!
They were planted on March 29, 2008. (Yes, Bill helped.)

We planted 1 of each of these: Cherokee Purple, Guiseppi Big Boy, Heirloom Pineapple, & Mortgage Lifter.
The Cherokee Purple wasn't getting enough sun so Bill moved it to a sunnier spot. It is much happier and now has some baby tomatoes on it.
The real tomatoes are on the Heirloom Pineapple. They aren't as big as I hoped but they sure are pretty.



I think I will bring them tomorrow. With this heat, I don't think they will last on the vine another week. So, bring your measuring devices!
See you in the morning.

Linda

Carmel Submits an Entry

On Saturday, Aug 9, Carmel brought in her entry for the Giant Tomato Contest, the first entry in this year's contest. The tomato was an heirloom type Marianna Peace.

Dave and Bob performed the official measurements while the rest of the SHIT group observed. The data obtained which will be entered in the official log are as follows:

Tomato Type: Heirloom Marianna Peace
Weight: 27.0 oz
Girth: 16.5 inches

This tomato, like all of her tomato plants this year is grown on a raised bed.

It's Harvest Time!

We have started picking ripe tomatoes from our garden. Our Success Kits are producing lots of fruit. I am hoping to get some big ones for the competition soon!

Our garden is a jungle

Our twelve tomato plants are flourishing and all of them have fruit. My two Big Zacs are healthy. It is too early to tell if any of the fruits will be big enough to win the competition. My biggest Big Zac fruit is about the size of a ping-pong ball.

I have another competition tomato in a tub of the Delicious variety. This variety is supposed to be a record holder, and the biggest one on record was over 7 pounds! However, mine is not doing very well. I have one fruit and lots of blossoms, but the leaves are starting to turn yellow already. I suspect it caught some kind of disease.

It looks like our two Tomato Success Kits that we purchased online will be producing lots of tomatoes for eating. We have harvested some already and a lot more are appearing on the vines. We didn't plan these to be for competition. We just wanted to see if the kits were as good as advertised and so far they have exceeded our expectations. They will be producing a lot more eating tomatoes (maybe 20% more) than the rest in our garden.

This year may not be a good season to grow tomatoes according to other competitors I have talked to. However, I heard Raf has a giant mutant tomato the size of half of his butt from what he told us. I can't wait to see it (his tomato, that is) at the weigh-off. Also, Linda says she has some good candidates for the weigh-off.