Hi all, Not sure if this is where to post this. I am curious about finding the Burpee Ponderosa Beefsteak tomato seed. I live in Canada and I'm having trouble finding a place to get me the seeds. Can anyone help? Thanks so much.

This tomato now goes by the name Ponderosa Pink. See the following link for some history.
[URL]http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Ponderosa[/URL]

Looking at my post I've noticed; that my device autocorrected it and put ponderosa. I should have typed "Porterhouse" Sorry about that.

Is the issue that Burpee and other US sellers can't/won't ship to Canada? This seller on eBay has a Porterhouse listing and says they'll ship worldwide: [URL]https://www.ebay.com/itm/114645456585#shpCntId[/URL]


Or maybe you could do a new post in the "Wanted" section, with Porterhouse in the title. Your post might be kind of lost here in this thread.

[QUOTE=montyb;766671]Looking at my post I've noticed; that my device autocorrected it and put ponderosa. I should have typed "Porterhouse" Sorry about that.[/QUOTE]

I grew Porterhouse last year, was not in any way, shape, or form impressed. Was extremely late setting fruit, did not produce near the amount I expected, flavor wasn't anything to brag about, and the size of the fruit wasn't near what was advertised or expected. From my records I show the biggest one at 16.3oz, not too bad, but there was only 1 or 2 that go to near that size. Most of them ripened at the 10-12 oz size. But that's just my experience, if you find seed hopefully you'll have much better luck.

My results (in Indiana) should not sway your intent to try a variety -- in this case Burpee's Porterhouse. But FWIW, it has grown well for me and seems to be more disease resistant than most large OP varieties. YMMV (always!)

Where does an F1 seed come from?
 

It sounds like a simple answer would suffice: F1 tomato seeds are the result of a cross between two stabilized OP varietals.
But when you cross tomatoes like this, the result would be unstable seed, as I understand it. The seed you got from this wonderful new tomato would bear seed that most likely would not bear fruit that looked just like that wonderful new tomato you took it from.
It is my understanding that it takes somewhere between 7-9 generations of seed selecting for you to get seed that would produce the wonderful new tomato you got from the cross fertilization.
If this is the case, then what is it that I am getting in that package marked F1? It can't be the seed from either of the parent plants. But if it was seed from the F1 hybrid plants that I created, I would be looking at "proving it out" over 7 to 9 generations.
I read somewhere that a farmer here in California is growing out the "F1" seeds and finding they are coming true.
I definitely see getting an F1 plant as it could be done with grafting. But I just cannot figure out how the F1 seeds I am buying can be "F1".
Please help me understand ....