The weather has finally made a turn for the warmer over the last few days. It is expected to only get nicer over the next week and I have a feeling that we will have a few more weeks of nice weather until the true fall time gloom settles in.

With the heat has come even more ripe fruit hanging from the plants. I am still planning on having the first harvest take place on the 2nd of September, but if there isn’t a large enough quantity of ripe fruit, I may push the harvest back another week to be sure that all varieties get accounted for over a 5 week period. Right now the only variety with ripe fruit on it is the Red Racer, and while I can see some blush starting on the shoulders of a few tomatoes, the majority are still deep green. I will make the definitive decision this week, as Sept. 2nd gets closer and closer.

Minimal field work was necessary for the last week, aside from some strategic pruning and trellising. As the plants continue to bulk out I have been trying to keep them contained to there own string of plants, even if it is a futile action.

While I was working with the plants, over the last two days, I was surprised at how much they were transpiring and oozing that all-too-familiar smell that is special to tomatoes. My face and arms are covered in the plant’s ‘exudates’ as I write this, from handling them and wiping sweat off of my fore head. By far, it was the stickiest day of the season, but I suppose it could be due to the heavy rains followed by a few hot and sunny days. Those sunny days also lead us to hope that the plants are pumping loads of good water and sugars to those tomatoes!

While taking disease observations on the Crimson Sprinter string of plot 2, I notice that one of the branches had bent under the weight of a single fruit, and that the pith of the plant seemed nonexistent. I usually cut those branches off of the plant to try and slow the spread of disease. When I did cut off the branch I saw that there indeed was no pith, and when I cut the plant lengthwise down the stem, I found a nice little colony of insects. At least I think they are insects. I sampled a few of them and will put in under a microscope this week to try and ID it. I was surprised to find small critters crawling around the inside of my tomato plant and I am quite excited to find out exactly what they are.

I also gave a small talk to some members of the Food and Ag committee of Evergreen today. They came to the tomato plots and I shared my experience up to this point with them all. I appreciated it, and I hope they enjoyed the walk on the farm.

I will spend the coming week preparing for the harvest and enjoying some sunshine!

I hope you do the same.