I finally counted my balcony tomato harvest this year and hit 87

I've been growing tomatoes on my 8th floor balcony in Portland for about 4 years now. Never kept track before, just enjoyed eating them. But this season I started jotting down how many I picked each week, mostly out of curiosity. When I added it all up last weekend, I got 87 ripe tomatoes from three plants in 5-gallon buckets. That number surprised me because it felt like less when I was grabbing a few for sandwiches. It matters because it showed me the effort of daily watering and trimming actually pays off more than I thought. Has anyone else tracked their harvest and found a number that shocked them?

2 comments

2 Comments

lisar144d agoMost Upvoted

@felix_coleman87, you brought up a good point about counting the little cherry ones that get eaten straight off the vine... I do that all the time and totally lose track. So here's my pointed question: did you actually weigh your harvest too, or just count by number? Because I counted 62 from my bucket plants last year but when I weighed them it was only like 8 pounds total, which felt way less impressive than the number made it seem. I think the cherry tomatoes inflate the count a lot since they're so small, so maybe we're both getting tricked by the numbers. Like, 87 sounds huge but if half are cherry size that's really not that much actual eating. What do you think, does the number feel less special when you think about it in pounds?

felix_coleman875d ago

Did you track how many were actually fully ripe on the vine versus ones you had to bring inside to finish? I mean, I always think I'm getting way more than I actually am until I do the math, and then it's kind of a wake up call. For me, it's the smaller cherry varieties that end up adding up fast while the big beefsteaks feel like a bigger win but only give like 4 or 5 a plant. Also, were you counting every single little one or just the ones that felt worth picking for a meal? Idk, maybe it's just me, but I feel like I'd be way off if I didn't write it down because I'd forget half of what I ate straight off the vine.