Saturday, July 08, 2006

Week 6

Holy Mary, mother of God it's an update. That's right, finally I'm all moved, and Mike and Zeina finally sent me some photos. So without further ado, let's get started.

Mike's Photos

Here we see Mike's plants. They're much taller, but hey, it's been almost a month. As we can see, I was correct about Mike being too cheap to actually buy a pole to tie his plants to. It seems he's content with his rusty railing. Hopefully tomatoes can contract tetanus.


Yes folks, that is in fact a tomato, the blog's name is finally starting to make sense. He's already got some decent size going on this one.


And here's another tomato on his second plant. He blabbered something about his first plant having one big tomato (previous photo) and this plant having two smaller ones. While he claims his hand is in the picture for perspective on size, I know it's actually because he just can't stop fondling his plants. That's a sick fetish Mike. I'll let the reader decide which definition I'm referring to.


Zeina's Photos

Remember the basil plant that was planted with plant #1? The trench plant? Come on, I made a witty assocation to the plant and warfare... Anyway it wasn't growing very quickly, so Zeina planted some basil in the pot with it, hoping to help the tomato plant grow. Obviously the basil plant has become ginormous. So has it helped the trench plant?


In a word, no. In fact, it's dead. If it weren't a plant we'd be witnessing rigor mortis. The fact that the leaves were entirely eaten off by some sort of insect (possibly a caterpillar) did not help either. At least she'll get a nice basil yield. Shortly after this picture Zeina pulled out the remaining stump, and now the only thing to see in the pot is the basil.


That's ok, at least plant #2 is still kickin. It's obviously grown as well. It's now in a new location where it gets a far greater amount of sunlight each day.


Not to be completely out done, Zeina has also achieved tomatoness. While her tomato may not be as large as Mike's just yet, she at least demonstrates she has a superior camera.


So that wraps it up for this week. Mike's plants took an early lead in growth originally but Zeina has managed to keep up a constant pace since then. Unfortunately now Mike has 2 to 1 odds of producing a better tomato than Zeina. Once again I apologize for the truancy of the posting, but trust me, you didn't miss much inbetween this post and the last. Now there are at least some tomatoes. Stay tuned for next week when we might actually start seeing a color other than green. Meanwhile I think I've achieved a personal record for number of links in one post, happy happy, joy joy!

23 Comments:

At 7/09/2006 1:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, based on these pics, and the previous photos, vs. the stats in the VOTING, I'd have to say 1 of 2 things is happening either a) someone is stuffing the voting results, or b) people are voting emotionally, (ie gender bias) and in denial.

I particularly like the dead one, which through simple logic alone would indicate that Ziena now has reduced her chance of winning by 50%... (Never was good with statistics.)

 
At 7/09/2006 12:11 PM, Blogger deadish said...

The voting is basically worthless. For one thing the program I'm using claims people can vote only once, but it seems there's a timeout as I see the same IP can vote several times in one day. The online votes won't really decide the contest anyway, as the contest primary deciding factor will be the taste of the tomato, so some neutral judges will have to decide locally. I've been thnking of taking down the online voting all together, as I can see the IPs of the voters and they're generally the same people over and over, it seems Zeina's party just votes more often. The lead does vary though, last week Zeina was up by 17 votes, then earlier this week she lead by only 1. She's pulling away again though.

 
At 7/09/2006 12:46 PM, Blogger Zeina said...

Very bad statistics, both of you.
The problem in your theory is in the premise. You are assuming that each tomato plant will produce a specific amount of tomatoes. Also, as far as I know, Mike is treating both plants the exact same way (no experimentation); so I can safely assume that he has only one plant with double the crop. Now, how much difference would exist between tomatoes of the same plant? Add to this, nothing says that my crop would be exactly half his crop.

Regarding, the VOTING dilemma, there is actually few people voting over and over again. This is possible because Frank’s voting system sucks.

P.S.
My name is Zeina not Ziena. It sounds like the French “é”, not the French “i” or the English “e”

 
At 7/09/2006 12:49 PM, Blogger Zeina said...

oops, please disregard my comment about the voting. I didn't see Frank's reply before posting ...

 
At 7/09/2006 8:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

While I buy your voting logic, I don't buy your crop logic, because as I understasnd it, the winner is based on the "Best tasting" tomato... there is no reason why you would not get a great tomato, and an awful tomato from the same plant. So my logic had nothing to do with the quantity produced, rather the idea that a plant should however, reasonably produce fruits which would be virtually undetecable in their difference, hence if you have 2 plants, and lose one, you are now 100% likely to not win the contest with that plant... leaving you with only 1 plant, while your opponent has 2, thus doubling his chances against yours that he will have a plant that produces the best tasting tomato. (If there is such a thing...)

Personally, I'd focus on your Basil.

Sorry for the name spelling, what the hell do I know...

 
At 7/10/2006 1:49 PM, Blogger Zeina said...

the more tomatoes you have, the better chance to get at least one of them that look and taste good.

so for example, if each of Mike's plants produced 20 tomatoes (i.e 40 total), and my plant produced 30 tomatoes, then my chance of winning is 3:4 not 1:2

I'm trying something that is supposed to give me a higher crop. I think I still didn't learn not to experiment :D

 
At 7/10/2006 9:01 PM, Blogger Zeina said...

I know what Scott was trying to say. Read my first post again and you can see my reply to the two different plants.

Anyway, I'm not expecting to win, but this has nothing to do with one of my plants dying.

But, you never know. I might have the beginner's luck :D

 
At 7/13/2006 2:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ziena,
Well, the greatest yeild may be the opposite of giving you the best tasting tomato... look at wine for example, it is during periods of drought that red's produced the best tasting wines. Many vineyards are specifically not irrigated, to produce smaller crop yeilds, and even smaller fruit but with a greater taste. So, you may want to rethink your strategy that producing MORE tomatos from one plant will increase your chance of having the one that tastes best.

Also, your pictures are really indicating that your plan to "Produce more" from a single plant is working vs. Mike's which seem to have about 3 or 4 times more flowers/fruits than your one live plant, and an infinite number more than your dead one...

Mike,
I think your tying the plants to wrote iron is unfairly enfusing them with iron fragments, and thus yielding you better plants... but what the hell do I know.

 
At 7/13/2006 6:48 PM, Blogger Zeina said...

yeah, that's true, all my tomatoes my taste bad... but I'm not really doing something that is supposed to affect the taste (I don't think so at least). Oh well ...

Regarding my pics, I already have 10 tomatoes growing since I last took a picture. My plant is just a week or 2 behind Mike's plants; so we should wait and see.

PS
why do you keep attacking my dead plant? have some respect for the dead, will you?

 
At 7/13/2006 10:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dead plants tell no tales... and grow no tomatos apparently...

Personally, I think it is sabotage... I think you should investigate Frank's sock drawer for suspecious substances.

 
At 7/13/2006 10:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, and have I mentioned that tomatos are foul?

 
At 7/14/2006 4:41 PM, Blogger deadish said...

Mike is so owned.

 
At 7/14/2006 9:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Two words... Pest Asides.

 
At 7/17/2006 11:34 AM, Blogger Zeina said...

Same as he did with Mike, Frank put a hornworm on my plant, but I was on to him.
I crushed them like the worms they are!

 
At 7/17/2006 11:38 AM, Blogger deadish said...

But the worms are so pretty when they become moths...

 
At 7/17/2006 3:07 PM, Blogger Zeina said...

see? he didn't even deny his treachery!

 
At 7/17/2006 3:17 PM, Blogger deadish said...

Oh, yeah... I mean I don't know what you're talking about, I wholeheartedly deny these hollow accusations!

 
At 7/17/2006 10:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

LONG LIVE FRANK: LIBERATOR OF THE HORN WORM! DOWN WITH TOMATO'S. You're my hero.

 
At 7/18/2006 1:09 PM, Blogger Zeina said...

Mike,

The enemies are gathering against us, and their forces getting stronger by the hour.

Let's unite to protect our tomatoes!

 
At 7/19/2006 1:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Frank,
Get the bombing runs ready... with a little notice I'm sure I can whip up something incendiary...

 
At 7/23/2006 5:29 PM, Blogger Zeina said...

When are you going to post again?
I want to show my pretty tomatoes.

 
At 7/23/2006 5:31 PM, Blogger deadish said...

Umm, when Mike and you send me some damn pictures...

 
At 7/27/2006 4:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, the suspense is just killing me... or is it boredom? (What is the sound of grass growing?)

 

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