Sophie's Choice

Here are my other tomatoes to match it for earliness of fruit-set in my area this year, so far (but I can't vouch for the plant/fruit size, and ripening speed, yet):

* Chocolate Pear from rareseeds.com (I've got 7 fruits on it, as of today!)
* Matina (PL) from timeless-tomatoes.com; about 4 fruits
* Big Sungold select from dianeseeds.com; 1 or 2 fruits
* Mexican (the one from Sand Hill Preservation that might be Mexico, or another kind of Mexican): 1 fruit
* Tropic (Sand Hill Preservation's): 2 fruits (on a small plant)
* What I thought was Jackie (but it has the wrong fruit shape) from doublehelixfarms.com: 2 fruits
* Super Sioux from timeless-tomatoes.com: 1 fruit

I think they're all supposed to be indeterminate, and some of them are said to be midseason, but Mexican sure looks like a compact plant, so far (like a dwarf, of the Husky Cherry Red F1 sort of dwarf, which isn't the tree-type), and Tropic is tiny. Tropic doesn't have the look of a dwarf, though, like Mexican does.

Correction: Sophie's Choice set three fruits instead of just one!
Also, I found tomatoes on the following:
* Creole from timeless-tomatoes.com: 1
* Mountain Princess from timeless-tomatoes.com: 1

These are the results for the first fruits set out of 101 varieties (if I counted right). The only F1 hybrid of them is Celebrity F1 (it has plenty of flowers, but I haven't found fruit on it, yet; it was the first one I transplanted). Well, there might be some accidental crosses that constitute F1 hybrids in the mix. My Kimberly tomatoes are RL, for instance.

I began transplanting in early May, and finished in late May, with a few exceptions (like a variety I didn't realize I hadn't transplanted). Sophie's Choice has spent less time in the ground than probably over half of the tomatoes (definitely less than Matina, Big Sungold Select, Creole, and Mountain Princess), but Tropic and Mexican have spent less time in the ground than Sophie's Choice. That's at least one reason why Tropic is a small plant, at this time.

[BlackBear]

I find Sophies ...has ..earliness , compactness, (culture "forgiveness") and ....

Medium size fruit.....and decent taste ....very hard to match actually .

I am growing Matina as well ..very good ...but Small fruit ..

Some not quite as compact ...but Early container varieties with medium
fruit are

....0-33, Demidov , Sibirskiy Skorospelyi , Zarayanka , etc.

Tatiana's site offers about 12 varieties of the Sarev Line of Tomatoes all are listed as Container .....Early ...with Medium fruit ....

I still find Sophies so far is just so hard to beat in a compact gardening situation

You might be interested in the Dwarf Tomato Project. I recommend looking it up. They seem to have the ideals you mentioned in mind with their goals.

Also, Tatiana's has a big list of dwarves here (the list says fruit size and if they're early, mid-season or late) that may have some to interest you: http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/All_Dwarf_Tomatoes

They may not meet all of your criteria (and I'm not saying they're as early as Sophie's Choice), but some of you might like these:
* Early Wonder
* New Big Dwarf
* Payette (the one from Snake River Seeds, which is reported to have 3" fruit; the one at sandhillpreservation.com, although supposed to be the same variety, I think, appears to have a different size description, since 3" is pretty big)
* Lime Green Salad
* Coldset (4" fruit; 65 days; determinate; heat and cold tolerant; from Canada; frequently used in breeding new tomatoes)
* Siletz
* Legend
* Beaverlodge Slicer (Caroline already mentioned this)
* Celebrity F1
* Heatwave II F1
* Oroma, if you don't mind paste tomatoes

Volgogradskiy 323 looks like a tomato worth trying out. Early, reasonably large fruit, and a dwarf. If I was in British Columbia, I would try that one (I might anyway, some year). It looks like it's not early for a Texas grower, though, but maybe in the PNW or elsewhere it would be early.

[BlackBear]

I have seeds from my 2015 season plants of Volgogradskiy 323 and collected seeds ...but never got around to regrow ...in 2016 . To many "projects"
I still say it is hard to beat Sophies in a sub 5 gallon container .....


Fuzzy Wuzzy is more container friendly than I expected but with small red striped fruit and woolly gray-blue leaves ..... Early .