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Touring The Tremendous Tomato Tree

I may never see a plant like this again so on August 16th I made this video tour of my cherry tomatoes. Keep in mind that I did not plant this, I didn’t feed it, it just appeared in my garden – and it’s ONE plant!  It’s grown to about 25 feet long and 20 feet wide, vining in every direction. I had been picking tomatoes for seven weeks and in this video I picked 151 tomatoes! (it took 15 minutes so we sped up the video – even I don’t want to watch 15 minutes of tomato-picking!) That’s 151 tomatoes in one day! That brought the total to 2,352 tomatoes but since then, I’ve picked over 1,000 more – you can follow the daily tomato count in the “Tomato Progress” posting above. I still can’t believe it! How many more will come? There may be another contest yet…

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Vegas was a bust

Driving to Vegas in August… what was I thinking? It was 110 degrees! Going to hell doesn’t scare me now. We went for three days and I guess I’m not a very good traveller. It took me more days to pack than we spent in Vegas. I had to bring sandwiches & drinks for the road, 110 proof sunblock, my own sheets, my teapot, disinfectant wipes, hard boiled eggs, phone chargers, my skincare products…  I forgot my face scrub but that’s okay – I just rubbed my face with the hotel washcloth. When we hit the casino, I couldn’t breathe. I said to Denis, “This must be a  smokers’ convention.” Or else people who quit years ago were so stressed about losing money, they started smoking again.  I tried to have fun but it seems like I enjoyed Vegas more when I was younger. The clubs are all so loud. Where I enjoyed the music most on this trip, was in the elevator.

They need more Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas. Com’on! There’s too many! They’re not even exciting any more. With titles like “O” and “KA” I should send them my idea: “BLAH” – acrobatics based on the history of how paint dries. Even my gambling was a bust. I lost my twenty dollars at  blackjack in less than a minute. They should call it Whackjack:  as soon as  you start putting money on the table, they whack you with a big stick.

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We have an EXACT winner!

Congratulations, Kari !! You should head for Vegas right now because you guessed 1,721 tomatoes and by 10 this morning, I picked exactly 1,721 tomatoes!


Kari says, “I am a mom of two wonderful children and an avid gardener.  My husband, the kids and I plant a garden every year as a family and we too are having a booming tomato season. We love to cook so sauce, salsa, toasted tomato sandwiches, we’ll have enough for it all… Thank you so much. You just made back to school shopping a bit easier.”

Kari guessed 1,721 and when I counted my tomatoes up this morning I was shocked that someone hit the exact number. I still can’t believe it! And Lee (from my hometown – go, London!) came close with his guess of 1,758. A lot of you missed the blog posting just below where I said that I had already picked 1,014 tomatoes by July 29th.

This tomato plant is still producing like crazy! I thought it would be almost spent by now but it looks like I will eventually get about two and a half thousand tomatoes. Enough for me, the rabbit, and the mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking, tomato-eating squirrel. Thanks, everybody, for playing. Kari, your gift card is on the way!

UPDATE 6:00 pm

This is crazy! Here’s what I just picked tonight at 6 o’clock. Sixty-two more tomatoes for a new total of 1,783!


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Win $100 American Express gift card!

All you have to do is guess how many ripe cherry tomatoes I will have picked from this plant by Friday morning. At 10 am on Friday, I will go out and pick all the ripe tomatoes I see and add it to my running total. Whoever comes the closest to the total, whether over or under, will win as $100 American Express gift card!  Sounds like fun! 🙂

Here’s all I can tell you:
~~It’s one humungous plant that showed up on its own and I started picking ripe tomatoes on July 6th.

~~They are large (and delicious) cherry tomatoes.

~~The plant is around 25 feet long, 6 feet tall, and around 15 feet wide.

~~I’ve been picking tomatoes every day.

~~One guess per person.

~~Here’s a close-up view…

~~Someone is picking & counting tomatoes while I’m in Vegas, too.

~~We won’t be counting the ones eaten by the mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking squirrel.

Good luck!!

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Headed for Vegas!

Denis and I are off to Las Vegas for a few days. So what if it’s 107 degrees? Okay… it was my idea. I’m not concerned about the weather (just crank up the a/c!), but what about my tomatoes? And my hummingbirds? Who’s going to pick tomatoes and feed the mass of hummingbirds around here? No worries. We’ve arranged alternating shifts of people to come by every day to pick & count tomatoes (to make sure that  mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking, tomato-eating squirrel doesn’t get them) and fill the bird feeders. I should be worried about my gambling luck in Vegas but noooo, I’m more concerned about the birds running out of food! Oh well, I’ll have peace of mind to focus on the $20 I plan to gamble away. That’s all I’m willing to lose!

The car is gassed up and it’s only a 4 1/2 hour drive but I like to be prepared. So I’m taking hard boiled eggs, cut up carrots & peppers, salmon sandwiches, homemade oatmeal cookies, apples, bananas, water, kleenex, paper towels, handiwipes & bandaids. That’s just for the ride.  Once we get there, it’s party time! I’m staying up ’til midnight!

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So far… 785 tomatoes!

My sister was here for the weekend and we had fun, fun, fun. We hung out, shopped, watched the hummingbirds, did jigsaw puzzles, went to my favorite restaurants (mostly small family places), and picked tomatoes. We had to… my plant is out of control! Three weeks ago it was 14 feet long. Now it’s over 25 feet and taller than I am! And I didn’t even plant it. It just showed up. It’s so heavy it just lays on top of itself and I prop it up with fencing and tie it up where I can without breaking it. It’s like a mass of giant spaghetti. So far, we’ve picked 785 tomatoes and it’s not even making a dent. That’s 40 to 50 huge cherry tomatoes a day!!  It will easily produce 2,000 tomatoes or more. Sis says I should inform the horticultural society about this freakish plant.

We pick every other day, wash & drain them and so far, I’ve given tomatoes to our housekeeper, our assistant, the gardener, the pool guy, the critter guy, Denis’s niece & nephew, two friends, we keep a bowl for snacking all day long and I’ve made two pots of awesome tomato sauce, not to mention salads. These tomatoes are super sweet but the best part is… the mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking, tomato-eating squirrel is gone. Gee, I hope he didn’t choke on one of my peaches… because I’m only trained in CPR (Catapulting Pesky Rodents).

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Remember 1998?

I just came across a video of highlights from my show from 1998. That was our 8th season on the air and there was so much fun stuff that year. Watching it made me realize how much fun we all had and how much I miss the audiences in Chicago. I feel like they were my co-hosts with the energy and excitement they brought every day… not to mention the best guests ever! I hope you enjoy the video and seeing why I loved doing this show.

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Chaos in my backyard

The hummingbirds in my backyard are now in charge and we work for them. We’re going through five pounds of sugar every week! We have seven feeders all around the yard but the one on the yellow hook is their favorite. The sugar water in that one disappears by the end of every day and we have to make more. I’m a prisoner. I want to go to Vegas for the weekend… but I can’t. Who’s gonna feed the birds? I don’t want them to leave. But I want my freedom. I shot this video yesterday and there are four instances where one bird lands on another one’s back and literally pulls him off the feeder. It turns out that hummingbirds are always looking over their shoulder. Maybe they got that from my squirrel.

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No Heimlich for you

I’ve picked about 150 tomatoes already from my unwanted, unplanted cherry tomato plant. I almost stepped on the rabbit yesterday who was trying to hide under the plant again. If he’s eating the tomatoes I wouldn’t know since there seem to be around 1,000 tomatoes on the plant which has now grown to 16 feet across. There’s even enough tomatoes for the mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking, fruit-stealing squirrel. But he doesn’t want my tomatoes.. Nooooooo. He eats my white peaches.

I hope he chokes on a pit. He can beg me to give him a Heimlich but the only thing I’d give him is a shoebox. “Get in. We’re goin’ for a ride.”

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