I thought I would start this diary to record the tomatoes that Elaine and I submit to the 2023 Mike Demars Memorial Tomato Contest.
So far our tomatoes are not particularly large. I’m mostly doing this for transparency.
First here are Elaine’s entries for team 11
2.13 lbs
I thought I would start this diary exclusively for a watermelon scale project that I have started to work on. This will be an ongoing endeavor because I’m sort of making things up as I go. Last March, I watched Frank Mudd give a presentation to a group of giant watermelon growers down south. I found it very fascinating to hear that Frank (and other growers) use scales under their melons to monitor the growth. It seemed like an important tool, so that you can see what affects the growth of the melons throughout the season. I knew I couldn’t justify buying scales so I got thinking of ideas to make my own. After a lot of research I had an idea to build a scale using load cells. I don’t know if this has ever been done DIY before with watermelons. I do know that some beekeepers build these…
The next step in this project was to build a stand to keep the control box off the ground.
Then I made a box out of aluminum that will fit over the control box. This will hopefully keep rainwater from getting inside the box.
I entered the tomato below in the Woodbridge Fair weigh-off (Oct 7th) and was lucky enough to get 1st place.
5.6 lbs. (team 5 entry)
I also entered the one below as exibition only to get an official weight. 4.76 lbs. (team 5 entry)
This was grow from the 7.88 lyons