This first tomato on our Tropic Boy porch experiment is now visible to the naked eye, although barely:
Three days ago and now. It is hard to tell if it got any bigger.
If our Arizona winter remains mild, this will grow into a medium-sized red tomato. The plant is too big to bring inside.
The base of the plant still fits in a quart food container, but the plant won't branch out. It just keeps getting taller.
I have wound it around in circles at the bottom to keep it from bumping its head on the porch ceiling.
It is still my little baby :-)
This plant now has four or five clusters of flowers, but they are all near the top of the plant, which, uncurled, stretches out about 8 feet in either direction.
To keep the sun off its roots, I put the planter inside a decorated paper bag from the dollar store. You might think it needs a taller stake, but I am going to keep on wrapping the stem around in circles, which should shorter the stem a few feet for each revolution.