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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Easy to pick cherry tomatoes

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  • From: bcluton AT aol.com
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Easy to pick cherry tomatoes
  • Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:21:19 -0500

I grow Sweet Chelsea Cherry and Juliet almost exclusively.  (we do have some Sungold and Black Cherry in the You-Pick area)  The move to Chelsea and Juliet has been a good one.  We were growing Sungolds for market for awhile and the picking time and splits weren't getting made up for by the prices.(they did attract attention though)  Our market demanded a more "standard" cherry at competitive prices.  Sweet Chelsea has really nice flavor, the tomatoes set in good clusters and they are larger than Swt 100 / Sungold types cherries.  Under most conditions they bear prolifically and pick easily.  A good picker under good summer conditions can probably pick maybe 40 - 60 some quarts an hour.  Juliets which are a "saladette type" tomato are somewhere between a plum and grape tomato in size.  They also bear prolifically and pick quickly.  They are a really nice versatile tomato that is equally suited in a salad as it would be chopped into a bruschetta.  Under good conditions you can literally pick an 8 Qt handle basket in a few minutes.  The economics of both when it comes to production and picking efficiency is the best I've found.  I'm sure there are other tomatoes of these types that would accomplish the same thing but I haven't felt the need to look for them.  If the market demands something else, ie Sungolds then the market is also going to need to pay more for them in my mind.  We started switching to Sungolds in half-pints and priced higher to account for loss and labor and we watched (most) of the market choose the standard varieties.  

In terms of general efficiency we've found picking into handle baskets and making pints or quarts from those is much faster to handle in the field.  Additionally if you aren't doing so already learn to pick two handed.  The human mind can get pretty darn mechanized if you let it.  Fragile varieties are probably better picked straight into quarts or pints.  I'd opt for that with Swt 100 or Sungold or heritage types.  Also if you're picking either of those varieties for market I'd pick them a day to three days under maturity and leave them in "warm" storage until market.  You'll ripen a lot more with fewer splits and the quality is essentially indistinguishable.  

God I could go for a warm juicy vine ripe tomato right now!!

Brian





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