Porter Tomato

[hmoosek]

chrysanthemum and I are growing Porter this year. I’m looking forward to this.

[chrysanthemum]

Those are looking nice, ahead of mine, I think. I’ll have to see if I can remember to grab a photo tomorrow. Right now mine are outside for the night since it’s in the sixties here overnight right now.. They’re still tiny, but I think they’ll be getting ready for me to put them in some soil (in a nursery bag, not the ground) perhaps this weekend.

[chrysanthemum]

My Porters are growing.  They’re the third pair from the left in the top row.  There’s one Porter’s Pride immediate to the the right of them as well.

[chrysanthemum]

I don’t seem to have the date of my transplanting the Porter tomatoes.  I may have it somewhere on the forum, so I’ll need to look around.  In the meantime, I’ll post of photo of how one of my plants has grown.  I’m starting to see some flowers opening on several varieties.

[chrysanthemum]

I noticed quite recently that I have some small Porter tomatoes on each of my plants.  Even though they’re little, I can already see the egg shape.

[chrysanthemum]

Porter is not my first tomato to blush this year [that honor is going to a hybrid called Madera], but every time I check on the plant or try to train its stems through my cattle panel trellis I notice just how sturdy this plant is.  It has thick stems, and I wonder if that bodes well for how much fruit it plans to put on.  It already has lots of small green tomatoes and is still growing like crazy.  I’m not sure that a picture can really capture it.  I’m eager to test a ripe one, but I’ll need to be patient.

[chrysanthemum]

The Porter tomatoes continue to impress me. They look like they’re really going to produce a lot. They still aren’t blushing yet, probably because they’re too busy pumping out new tomatoes. It’s hard to capture in a photo, but here are some shots of the clusters on each of my two plants.






I’m also growing Porter’s Pride right next to it.  It doesn’t have so many fruits, but they are bigger and rounder.  It will be an interesting comparison.

[chrysanthemum]

hmoosek,  I wanted to let you know that I’m planning to pick my first Porter tomatoes soon.  I have several turning pink, and they are such pretty fruits.  I’m really looking forward to trying them.

[hmoosek]

chrysanthemum I so happy!

[chrysanthemum]

I picked my first bunch this morning.  A couple are fully ripe.  Others are well on their way.  The Porters are the pinkish ones in the center on top.  

I haven’t tasted one yet, because I want to cut several at the same time to save some seeds.  I’ve discovered in the heat and aridity down here that if I try to save too few seeds, my tomato goo dries up in the jar before it really has a chance to ferment, so I don’t want to try too few.

[hmoosek]

Here’s my Porter that returned after being mowed down. I have given it absolutely no care, it’s been growing amongst the johnson grass, so I’m surprised. I haven’t even watered it till today. Things sure didn’t turn out as planned this year. 

[chrysanthemum]

That’s so exciting to see a fruit on this plant, HMooseK. I wasn’t sure that you’d even have a plant at all.

I haven’t done a germination test on the seeds I saved, but once I do, if they look okay, I’ll send you some. I’m excited that you may be able to save some of your own, though, because you’re way more experienced at that than I am.

I don’t have a picture of it, but I picked a bunch of tomatoes this morning to give away to folks at church, and a good number of them were Porters. They are definitely prolific plants.