Pics of some of the tomatoes I picked yesterday

[Waylon05]

Despite all the wind and high temps in the Houston area, our tomato plants are still producing pretty well. We're having alot of problems with birds, so we're picking the bigger tomatoes as soon as they start turning to keep them from being ruined (which is why you will see alot of tomatoes in the pics that aren't ripe yet).

Anyway, we probably picked about 300 tomatoes yesterday. The attached pics show what I had left after giving about half of the harvest to friends and family...

 

[journey11]

Nice! Are you planning to can them?

Mine are just getting going finally. I have a few blooms setting. Won't be long!

 

[lesa]

Holy tomato!!!! What a harvest! I was just showing Dh the first blossoms on one of our plants!
What kind of birds are bothering your tomatoes? I've never heard of birds (other than chickens) eating tomatoes...

 

[Greenthumb18]

Wow that's A lot of tomatoes

Congrats! on a great tomato harvest

 

[Waylon05]

Nice! Are you planning to can them?

Mine are just getting going finally. I have a few blooms setting. Won't be long!

It's not hard to find good homes for fresh tomatoes so I'll probably be giving alot more to friends and coworkers. I'm planning on trying to make some salsa too, but if that doesn't go well, I'm sure we will can anything before it goes to waste!

Anybody have a good salsa recipe to share?

 

[Waylon05]

Holy tomato!!!! What a harvest! I was just showing Dh the first blossoms on one of our plants!
What kind of birds are bothering your tomatoes? I've never heard of birds (other than chickens) eating tomatoes...

There are several different kinds of local birds that have quite the taste for tomatoes. The worst (by far) are Mockingbirds - Those things are absolutely fearless! It's not uncommon at all for them to attack cats, dogs and the occasional human so it's no surprise that hanging owl/hawk decoys and pie pans or wind chimes does little to deter them. Obviously, they don't really pose any physical threat to us or our pets, but they really do some damage to the tomatoes. To make matters worse, because they are the state bird of Texas, they are a protected species so we can't utilize any effective means of population control...

 

[4grandbabies]

Wow that is a lot of tomatoes!! I am a LONG way from harvest on ours!
I did not know that mocking birds bothered tomatoes, but in very dry years, I have had squirrels after ours, we thought they were after the liquid!

 

[wsmoak]

Holy tomato!!!! What a harvest! I was just showing Dh the first blossoms on one of our plants!
What kind of birds are bothering your tomatoes? I've never heard of birds (other than chickens) eating tomatoes...

Especially where it's dry, the birds will go after the tomatoes for water. I had trouble in Arizona when I tried to grow them -- birds would make holes in Every Single Tomato. I would have been glad to share a few, and I even cut some open and tossed them out in the yard... but no, they had to ruin ALL of them.

-Wendy

 

[trunkman]

WOW!!!

 

[skeeter9]

Wow! What a wonderful harvest!!! We don't even have blossoms yet. Hope they taste as great as they look!!!