Brooklyn1 wrote:
....
Just how many acres of tomatoes do you grow that you can average your
yield accurately in a 50 percentile range, or do you just have a
couple three plants... I'm serious...

between 16 and 50 plants depending upon what we
have for space and what we need to put up. it is
easy to measure output in the rough because a full
pail of tomatoes runs about 22lbs and when canned
that usually ends up around 7 quarts. do it enough
times and you get an idea of what the yeild roughly
is.


I put in about fifty plants of
various types and often plants right next to each other have a very
different yield.

yes, that is true, i just measure it roughly as
a whole and we keep track of what we can so that
gives us a lower bound (i don't keep track of what
we eat fresh).


However with ~fifty plants I always harvest way WAY
more than I can use, I give plenty away, feed those bitten by rodents
and bugs to deer, and at end of season I harvest many more green
tomatoes than I feel like frying/pickling...

we put them in the garage on a table and they
eventually ripen, they are not as good as fresh
but they are better than nothing or most of what
we get at the store. a few will rot, but while
i love fried green tomatoes i can't eat that
many of them.


deer eat green tomatoes
too. I long ago gave up canning tomatoes, salad tomatoes are too wet
and besides I can buy canned romas by the case at the big box stores
and use those to make sauce for a whole lot less money, time, and
labor.

to me the whole reason for growing veggies is
to cut down on food expenses and i like knowing
what goes into the food i eat. canned store bought
tomatoes taste like metal to me.

the silly thing of it all is that i'm getting
reactive to tomatoes. after 50something years of
eating many lbs a year and now i start reacting
to them?


The only time I may weigh/photograph is when I happen to find
an exceptionally large/unique specimen. I've actually never bothered
to weigh/count any of my crops, there's always more than I can
possibly use... in fact a few years ago I decided to donate a third of
my 2,500 sq ft garden to growing blueberry bushes.

i'd like to put in blueberry bushes too, but at the
moment i'm having fun with what is here.

as we grow many flowers in addition to the veggies
and a lot of our space is just wasted IMO we don't
get a huge over production, but when we do Ma will
turn it into something and take it around to the
families or we'll can it or i'll make jam.


songbird

Boron Elgar wrote:
....
I find a measure of unpredictability and variability, even when I have
grown the same varieties over several seasons.

well sure, but after ten years of growing
them you should have some idea of which kinds
will produce.


I see this in many of the kitchen garden crops, though. It is not
unique to tomatoes. Some year I get a lot more of a particular bean
variety, or huge broccoli, or more cukes than I can shake a stick at
and another year even a tried and true favorite may do poorly.

yeah, last year a lot of our crops were eaten by
animals and the weather wasn't very sunny. that
along with the rot in the tomatoes meant a pretty
varied and lower harvest of a lot of things than
all of our other years. still, we had enough of
some things and more than we could eat of others.


Obviously, one can only "control" for so much in these observations,
as my garden is outdoors and subject to the elements, but I still love
to try to outsmart the critters, the bugs, the weather and the rain
each season.

sure, it helps to plant a diversity of crops if
you have the space for it. it also helps to have
different soils to try things in.

i'm enjoying things too, it's a lot more fun than
many other things and i like the schedule. part-time
and when i want to, leaves time for reading during
the winter and best of all the boss, once in a while,
actually listens to me...


songbird

On Fri, 24 Apr 2015 19:35:35 -0400, songbird
wrote:

Boron Elgar wrote:
...
I find a measure of unpredictability and variability, even when I have
grown the same varieties over several seasons.

well sure, but after ten years of growing
them you should have some idea of which kinds
will produce.

I am too adventurous (the older I get) and try many new varieties each
year.

I am an inveterate seed saver and off-season seed buyer. Whenever I
see an unusual tomato or other yummy cultivar, I grab the packets and
stash 'em.

I brought back two tomato plants from California this past Monday.
Happened to pass a sale at an arboretum and saw some tomatoes I had
never noticed here in the east or online in my usual haunts. What the
heck...we will see how they do.


I see this in many of the kitchen garden crops, though. It is not
unique to tomatoes. Some year I get a lot more of a particular bean
variety, or huge broccoli, or more cukes than I can shake a stick at
and another year even a tried and true favorite may do poorly.

yeah, last year a lot of our crops were eaten by
animals and the weather wasn't very sunny. that
along with the rot in the tomatoes meant a pretty
varied and lower harvest of a lot of things than
all of our other years. still, we had enough of
some things and more than we could eat of others.

As it is almost every year.

Obviously, one can only "control" for so much in these observations,
as my garden is outdoors and subject to the elements, but I still love
to try to outsmart the critters, the bugs, the weather and the rain
each season.

sure, it helps to plant a diversity of crops if
you have the space for it. it also helps to have
different soils to try things in.

I have very little space. Other than asparagus, garlic, blue and
blackberries, everything I grow is in tubs up on my deck. Even then,
it is hard to keep the groundhogs away.

i'm enjoying things too, it's a lot more fun than
many other things and i like the schedule. part-time
and when i want to, leaves time for reading during
the winter and best of all the boss, once in a while,
actually listens to me...


Yup.


Boron

Boron Elgar wrote:
songbird wrote:
Boron Elgar wrote:
...
I find a measure of unpredictability and variability, even when I have
grown the same varieties over several seasons.

well sure, but after ten years of growing
them you should have some idea of which kinds
will produce.

I am too adventurous (the older I get) and try many new varieties each
year.

i'd like to, i'm getting reactive to them now
so i'm cutting back in how many i eat. Ma has
boycotted me planting new varieties because she
says they are too much work to put up.


I am an inveterate seed saver and off-season seed buyer. Whenever I
see an unusual tomato or other yummy cultivar, I grab the packets and
stash 'em.

I brought back two tomato plants from California this past Monday.
Happened to pass a sale at an arboretum and saw some tomatoes I had
never noticed here in the east or online in my usual haunts. What the
heck...we will see how they do.

good luck!


I see this in many of the kitchen garden crops, though. It is not
unique to tomatoes. Some year I get a lot more of a particular bean
variety, or huge broccoli, or more cukes than I can shake a stick at
and another year even a tried and true favorite may do poorly.

yeah, last year a lot of our crops were eaten by
animals and the weather wasn't very sunny. that
along with the rot in the tomatoes meant a pretty
varied and lower harvest of a lot of things than
all of our other years. still, we had enough of
some things and more than we could eat of others.

As it is almost every year.

yeah. life goes on. we're not in danger of starvation
so i don't get worried about such things. it's just life.


Obviously, one can only "control" for so much in these observations,
as my garden is outdoors and subject to the elements, but I still love
to try to outsmart the critters, the bugs, the weather and the rain
each season.

sure, it helps to plant a diversity of crops if
you have the space for it. it also helps to have
different soils to try things in.

I have very little space. Other than asparagus, garlic, blue and
blackberries, everything I grow is in tubs up on my deck. Even then,
it is hard to keep the groundhogs away.

those are indeed the critters. up until last year they
had not climbed into the fenced gardens to raid. they
are still around, but i did get rid of the den site they'd
dug out in one of our drainage ditches so they are not as
quite as close. i'm hoping they'll not return as i don't
like to get out the airgun. they get two warning shots...

i think there are now reasonbly good electric chargers
for fences that are solar and i'd be going that ways as
soon as i can when i can. the existing fence here is not
very good, but it is what you'd call a sunken cost (or more
like leaning at the moment ).

we have all the other usual suspects too. i try to
accept that they do some damage and plant the most
sensitive things in the fenced gardens. doesn't always
work. the other thing i do is plant some areas a ways
away and hope that will decoy the animals away from the
closer gardens. not a sure bet, but it takes some of
the pressure off.


songbird

Well, in addition to the 24 large-sized fruit tomato plants that I bought, I have about two dozen cherry tomato plants that came up from the seeds I planted. Enuf to fill all the remaining allocated garden space. Thanks, everyone, for the encouragement.