Dwarf tomatoes

Any body here growing these? I’m thinking of giving them a try in my greenhouse this year. Was curious whats others experiences have been. They sound interesting for sure.

Drew

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I tried a variety they called patio tomatoes once that produced heavy and were fine for salads.

I grew Tidy Treats (cherry tomato) last year, and will again. Super productive, still grew pretty vigorously but less so than my ‘normal’ tomatoes.

@Drew51 has been growing them for a while, check out my thread “planting out tomatoes and peppers”. He has lots of pics and good info on them. Very interesting subject.

I grew two plants of patio tomatoes. They were ok, but did not have that great summer tomato taste like heirlooms do. But they put out medium sized tomatoes right through octorber!

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Thank you I’ll check that thread out for sure.

Drew

I have grown the Patio princess before and it was ok. I’m really interested in the varieties that were part of a special breeding program to produce true dwarf tomatoes. I believe they call them tree types and have features of both determinate and non determinate tomatoes. Thanks for the replies everyone!

Drew

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I listen to the “A Way to Garden Podcast” with Margaret Roach, and this Saturday her guest was Craig LeHoullier, one of the guys involved with breeding the dwarf tomatoes. He also talk about the best places to get them (like what Seed Companies have agreements to distribute them).

Anyway, if you’re interested in dwarf tomatoes it’s worth a listen. I think Margaret Roach always says something about a website or Facebook page or something for A Way to Garden? Some of the info might be on there without having to listen to the podcast.

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That sounds great! I’ll try and find that for sure.

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The Dwarf tomatoes are interesting plants. I have only grown one, Tennessee Suited. The tomato was fantastic, although I’m partial to dark tomatoes.I would let them ripen a bit more than the ones I harvested. Well let them mature before use, on or off the plant. I grew two of them, one had OK production, the other good production. Remained about 4 feet high, white flies seem to love it though.They all were going for that plant. I can’t grow as many next year as I did this year, I will though trial more. I think we have about 60 varieties now.
If you want to learn more about the over a decade long Dwarf Tomato Project and where to get seed, listen to these podcasts. I can send anybody my saved seed of Tennessee Suited, just pm me.
Craig LeHoullier is the founder of the project which was run on a site much like this one. Tomatoville. I’m a member, and a few others here are too.
Anyways America’s Home Grown Veggie’s radio show has a number of podcasts with Craig LeHoullier, who also grows other things too, but many podcasts focus on the tomatoes, and his cool book, “Epic Tomatoes”
http://www.americaswebradio.com/podcasts/veggieHour.xml

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Great! I really like podcasts. I saw the seed for sale at victory seed for sure. They have an incredible amount of varieties. The stocky shape looks like it could be great for container growing in my greenhouse. I just want to see if they can keep up with my standard varieties for production.

Drew

In the podcasts, Craig may mention the more productive types.
As mentioned I like dark tomatoes, so Chocolate Lightning Dwarf is going to be tried next year. It is supposed to be a heavy producer of 4-8 oz fruits. Seems any plant that produces this size, kicks out a decent crop. I grew Rutger’s this year, and it out produced everything else. To bad it is lightly colored. I really like the taste of dark red, or the purple.black types the best. Sweeter I guess? Yet with acid too. At first you get a sweet taste finished with a slight tartness, perfect for me.
Rosella Purple is another, one of the more popular dwarfs. 6-12 oz tomatoes. Similar to ‘Cherokee Purple’ in color, size, shape and flavor. Not related though, one of the parents is Stump Of The World.
Sweet Scarlet Dwarf a red that is one of The best tasting out of the dwarf project, so I have to try that one too! Craig lists all three in his top 15 dwarfs, I wrote them all down from one of these podcasts.

I listen to many podcasts, mostly for fun, although I have learned a lot, got some great tips, and some leads on the best plants to try for my area, etc. Like Craig mentions to collect seed from the first round of fruit. As it is most likely self pollinated, as the bees are yet to be out be out that early, so a better chance of keeping heirlooms pure. It beats bagging fruit!

A little off subject, a regular plant, and I mention it because of my fondness for black tomatoes, Carbon is often used for commercial purposes, as it is very productive, and the color is very dark, and has great taste. Sounds like a winner to me, i will be trialing next year also. Taste Test winner, 10-14 oz.
Carbon Copy is a cherry sized version of Carbon. I’m trying that too.

Drew,
Rutgers taste very good in this area. Cherokee purple has a deeper flavor but you sacrifice yield by a 20 to 1 difference between Rutgers and Cherokee purple in my location. After several years of light crops we quit planting Cherokee purple. Rutgers does not produce like early girl but in our experience is more the balance between yields and flavor we look for. Perhaps performance varies a lot from location to location. Early girl is a very heavy producer in this area for us with good disease resistance.

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Growing tomatoes outdoors in pots and growing them in a greenhouse are distinctly different endeavors, I believe. There has been considerable breeding work done to develop tomatoes that do well “under glass”. You may want to look at these types as in my greenhouse I’ve noticed that only certain varieties that were not bred for this do well. Sungold, and Striped Roman are two. Neither of these are dwarfing, but the pots will accomplish that somewhat. If you search for sources known productive in the greenhouse, I’m sure you will find.

@wildscaper, here’s a link to Craig’s site which details the dwarf project and lists varieties that have been released along with descriptions.

One negative opinion about dwarf tomatoes and many determinants as well. They grow close to the ground so they catch fungal and bacterial diseases easily. They also grow slower, so often they succumb to the disease pressure whereas indeterminate tomatoes simply outgrow the disease. Dwarfs especially have very thick dense foliage which is good for catching diseases

Just to avoid confusion, the dwarfs are inderterminate. I also found Tennessee Suited to be resistant to septoria spot, the last to get it. It was one of the first and last to produce. Very impressive.

Here too, it’s just the flavor profile of pinks is not my favorite. It was an exceptional plant this year for me. [quote=“alan, post:14, topic:8237”]
Growing tomatoes outdoors in pots and growing them in a greenhouse are distinctly different endeavors,
[/quote]

I would agree, growers I know use pots in greenhouses for tomatoes. Mostly heirlooms.


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It is a different world for sure. Last year was my first year to try it. I had Early Girl, Patio, Better Boy and Celebrity. Oh and Roma. All did great except for Roma. They literally ran away from me growth wise (Hoping the dwarfs would help here) though and eventually picked up some disease at the end of the season. Spider mites were relentless as expected but I was able to manage them and did get some great yields. I think with a few tweaks I can get even better results.

Drew

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These would be grown in pots on top of concrete floor and I plan on spraying for disease pressure this year so hopefully this will help. You are right about these problems grown outdoors though for sure.

Drew

OK you talked me in to it. I want to try it for sure. I’ll PM you in a bit.