Today I found five eggs. Three of them were actually in the nest box – way to go girls!

There is quite a bit of variation in egg colour/pattern. At least one appears to be fairly light colour, while another is darker and has some speckles. One of the eggs I picked today (the lightest coloured one in the carton on the left, main photo) weighed in at 50g. My supermarket eggs weigh between 57g and 59g, so 50g seems like a pretty good size considering they’ve only been laying for a week. Most of the other eggs averaged around 40g.

Yesterday I picked some tomatoes for myself (so far, the rest have gone into others’ CSA shares). The first Jaune Flamme, and Snow White were ready along with Tiny Tim and Tigeralla (which were ready last week). Here are some thoughts about each variety:

Tigerella
It’s been a few years since I’ve grown this but I’m still a fan! Pretty stripes, a tangy flavour, and early maturity with a heavy fruit set. It does however to lack disease resistance and I am constantly working to prevent early blight.

Tiny Tim
These guys appear to have septoria leaf spot – I’m not impressed as I’ll have to pull them just as I was thinking I could depend on them for filling CSA baskets. They were really reliable and heavy producers (especially for a dwarf plant) last year though so this may earn them a spot in the garden next year.

Snow White
This one is new to me this year. It’s not nearly as white as the name would suggest (am I letting them get too ripe? not ripe enough?) but they are tasty enough and pretty meaty for a cherry tomato.

Jaune Flamme
I had high expectations for this one and was trying to get 8 plants in the ground after I read rave reviews from a few other local CSAs. In the end, only 3 of my plants were healthy enough to make it into the garden. It seems as prone to blight as ‘Tigerella’ (both of which seem to be much more prone than my other tomato plants, including many heirlooms) but has a similar size and growth habit/fruit set. The flavour was okay in my books, but not spectacular. I was hoping for a lower acid tomato that wouldn’t be too “mild” (which I now interpret in seed catalogues as code for… little to no flavour). On the plus side, it is a pretty colour, has shown no signs of cracking, and it wasn’t a bad flavour (I’m probably just a tomato snob now!)

Photos

1. Today’s egg harvest (left) and yesterday’s (right).
2. Tomatoes from yesterday (for individual tomato photos, see harvest data below).
3. Eggs from July 30. (I’m logging 13 eggs today to make the harvest tracking work.)