Reaver G's Hawaiian Pineapple tomato planting
Solanum lycopersicum

This has been a confusing set of plants. I’ve harvested six fruit so far and they’ve had four different shapes.
There have been two beefsteaks that were slightly flattened with big shoulder.
Also two oblong, egg, almost gourd shaped tomatoes (photographed on scale).
Then one heart shaped (photographed on the dehydrator) and one globe-shaped fruit.
Absolutely beautiful fruit, ribbon winners maybe, but each one has had a different taste so I can’t give a taste review yet. Maybe after the second batch.

The temperatures let up three weeks ago and the flowers have started to pollinate again and there are plenty of little ones and thick new vines. Anyway, I’ll have a better idea of how they taste raw, toasted, and dehydrated after being soaked in triple sec in another month and by then I’ll have harvested enough seed for trade. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Today I added straw underneath my Hawaiian Pineapples to keep the soil from splashing onto the leaves when it rains next time. So far I’ve had many problems with these plants like deformed flowers that always fall off or develop wrong, transplant shock, high temperatures, pests, and now I believe a fungus is among us. I believe it’s late blight coming to steal my harvest so I’m trying a fungicide in an attempt to get at least a little fruit.
Some of the ones closer to the house are also growing real thin and skipping their first set of flowers because they get shadowed by the cedars more than the others. Since blossom drop is such a large problem I’m only going to list their height, number of flowering shoots, and number of flower clusters.

• Plant 1: 25’’ tall – 2 flower clusters on 2 different shoots
• Plant 2: 23’’ tall – 0 flower clusters on 3 different shoots
• Plant 3: 22’’ tall – 1 flower cluster on 2 different shoots
• Plant 4: 24’’ tall – 2 flower clusters on 3 different shoots
• Plant 5: 16’’ tall – 0 flower clusters on 2 different shoots
• Plant 6: 26’’ tall – 6 flower clusters on 6 different shoots
• Plant 7: 24’’ tall – 6 flower clusters on 6 different shoots
• Plant 8: 29’’ tall – 4 flower clusters on 2 different shoots

The first picture is a double flower, second picture is of abnormal stem growth, third picture is of even more abnormal stem growth.

Today makes seven days since I’ve last charted growth and it marks about one month since I’ve transplanted these guys. To chart the growth I’ve assigned letters to parts of the plant. X represents the number of 3’’ or longer shoots that I can expect flowers to form on. Y is the number of suckers I don’t expect flowers to form on yet. Z is the number of current viable flowers; I did not count flowers that have not opened up or have turned yellow and look like they’re going to drop.

• Plant 1: 21’’ tall 2×2y1z

• Plant 2: 20’’ tall 3×1y0z
• Plant 3: 17’’ tall 2×1y0z
• Plant 4: 19’’ tall 2×2y4z
• Plant 5: 13’’ tall 1×1y1z
• Plant 6: 22’’ tall 5×3y6z
• Plant 7: 23’’ tall 2×6y8z
• Plant 8: 20’’ tall 6×0y12z

Plants 6,7, and 8 are planted closest together and are doing much better than the rest. None of the flowers have dropped to show a future fruit yet; most have just aborted. I blame the 15th day of 90+ temperatures.

I went out to measure growth today and here are my results for Hawaiian Pineapple. X is 3inch+ long shoots. Y is suckers. Z is buds (counting dropped buds)

• Plant 1- 15’’ tall. 2×3y3z

• Plant 2- 17’’ tall. 3×0y0z

• Plant 3- 13’’ tall. 1×2y1z":

• Plant 4- 16’’ tall. 2×4y4z"

• Plant 5- 11’’ tall. 1×0y1z"

• Plant 6- 17’’ tall. 4×3y5z"

• Plant 7- 20’’ tall. 2×6y6z"

• Plant 8- 16’’ tall. 5×1y20z"

Soil amended with composted cow manure, dolomite lime, and bagged top soil. All eight were fertilized the day before and didn’t have mulch the first two days after transplant. I think that the lack of mulch, the unnecessary lime, and fert the day before led to transplant shock (imagine that…).