Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Tomato inventory

I thought that I had put in enough tomato seed. But just like last year, I feel that we could do with a lot more, maybe double.

We stand at 98 healthy plants now:
23 Plumb Dandy
13 San Marzano
18 Cherry Buzz
6 Amish Salad
12 Peacevine
3 Striped Roman
16 Black Cherry
7 Orange Oxheart (Heirloom, yellow/orange)

I also have a smattering of plants that suffered, but didn't succumb to the great die-off of soggy roots and damping off. There maybe a dozen in this category, but they are stunted, shocked by their ordeal and will lag behind forever, not producing to their potential. Given that, I may try to find some room for them. Shari wants to dry a bunch of tomatoes this year. It sounds like a great idea and for that we just need quantities of specimens to play with.

We'll take 10 of the Plumb for canning purposes, 3 San Marzano for backup, an Amish because it is my favorite salad tomato, and a couple cherry for miscellaneous eating and drying. That puts us in the 70s someplace with the Shari's mommas group and a plant sale at the Tacoma Nature Center to supply.
I'd be happier with twice the remainder. It is far too late to start any new. We did lose 20-30 starts this year after potting them into their 4" homes. I should have counted the losses better, more evidence for documentation.

Lessons learned are to plan for partial failures and to think about the ultimate audience more completely.

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