Huge lesson to buy seeds from a source you can trust, because I had the wildest ride with this thing. Tracking every part of its growth and wondering "Gold Nugget or Scam Nugget?" at every step was seriously a rollercoaster. In the end, I got a great deal on lots of seeds and really got to learn this plant's growth behaviors, but man I don't think I've ever gotten so excited and bummed at multiple points, lol.

Main points:

Grew well and is fruiting decently in tropical late summer/early fall (aka hotter rainier season) with direct sun only during the hottest 4-5 midday hours, shaded by buildings in early and late hours. Well-pronounced determinate growth stages.

Fast vegetative growth to about 3.5 feet with lots of suckers bushing out from near the base.

Then came flowering. The weird part was that all petals only opened to a half-assed relaxed state, like they didn't want to attract pollinators. Then the flowers did NOT drop but instead, 80% hung around with shriveled/lost petals until the plant wanted to swell the ovaries. This first wave was 12 fruit and there are a bunch of flowers still in a "hold" state.

Funny part about the fruit: they started developing irregular dips as they grew (now I know this was a sign of parthenocarpy). Fruits turned from green and growing -> pale yellow for 2 days -> dark orange so fast it threw me off, because I was expecting a long "golden/bright yellow" stage based on like every single seed seller's marketing pictures. At one point, I gave up, believed they'd turn red, and that I'd been scammed of 2 months, but they didn't turn red, and ended at dark orange. Cuttings verify parthenocarpy with no mature seeds from 6 consumed fruits so far.

Flavor is a nice defined tomato taste, not intense in any direction. Already started new seeds because it's my first tomato plant to have 12 fruit at once during hot wet season.

The plant did get some EB-like foliar spots a few weeks back, but not as badly as its Honeydrop and Pink Princess neighbors. That was a relief because I don't want to be pruning a determinate down to the skinny things my Honeydrop and Pink Princess are now.

More details:

Seed source was Specialty Seeds from eBay. Paid $2.16 for 120+ seeds, received exactly 200, but seeing how the price has increased, maybe they're selling fresher seeds now?

Grown in 15L Kratky bucket, first in MaxiGro (10-5-14), then MaxiBloom after flowering (5-15-14), then 50/50 Gro/Bloom because I always seem to get more foliar problems when I cut too much N. I'm refilling to 60% every 1-2 weeks now, and hotswapped twice.

Seeds started 07/18/2025, first blush to pale yellow observed 09/22/2025 (66 days), first almost-ripe fruit harvested 09/26/2025 (70 days from seed).

This is one of four parthenocarpic tomatoes I seeded on 7/18, and it's the first to provide harvest. Oregon Spring doesn't want to flower and has been making itself really tough (leaves, stems all thicker and tougher than normal) with leaves cupping downwards and sideways and all sorts of things, lol. Honeydrop and Pink Princess grew really well vegetatively, but two rounds of EB-like disease has left them scant. I've pruned them down to two stems each, and they are finally starting to swell some of the ovaries they've been holding on to for weeks.

Temps: nighttime lows of about 78-82, highs of about 85-92 (ish), humidity probably 70-90% almost every day lol.