Favorite Dwarf Varieties

[sjamesNorway]

This may be of interest. It's a list from Craig LeHoullier of varieties from the Dwarf Project which he rates at least 8/10 in taste and produce at least 10 pounds per plant.

"Here is my suggested list for the yield and flavor combo you seek. Dwarf Emerald Giant, Summertime Green, Rosella Purple, Mr. Snow, Wild Fred, Sweet Sue, Summer Sunrise, Summertime Gold, Summer Sweet Gold, Wherokowhai, Blazing Beauty, Orange Cream, Golden Gypsy, TastyWine, Wild Spudleaf, Loxton Lad (or Lass). This is a tough criteria - the 10 lb is not as tough as the 8 minimum in flavor - and these are according to my particular taste buds. Good luck!"

Steve

[george k]

I grew 16 dwarf varieties in containers last year. They all did very well. My favorites were Dwarf Blazing Beauty (highly recommended), also Sweet Scarlet Dwarf, Dwarf Golden Gypsy, Rosella Purple, Wherokowhia,Tasmanian Chocolate, and Summer Sweet Gold.

[BigVanVader]

Another nod to Dwarf Mr. Snow. The flavor and texture were outstanding for a yellow. I mean like next level flavor. I pruned mine to 3 main stems so my fruit were larger. Several near a pound.
1467127623102.jpg

I didnt have a pic of one alone on my cpu but the 2 big yellows in the box on the left side are Snow. Like mentioned the production was low but still very worth. I find my mouth watering just thinking about them.

[adewilliams]

Thanks, again, for all the suggestions, everyone. There's a lot of food for thought here.

[oakley]

Maybe the SampleSeedShop has some more suggestions. She posts on the Seed and Plant Sources. It's a good idea i think. To grow some sturdy dwarfs. Some do not need much support. In containers you'll have fruit at easy pickin' height.

Hope your rehabilitation is going well. What a mess.

I let a SunGold run wild on my deck. It went up and down and all over.

[Patihum]

One that did very well here and had very good flavor was Sleeping Lady. While Mr. Snow did well for me there's been quite a number of people I know that have been lucky to get 2-3 tomatoes off of the plant. Seems to be very hit and miss. If you like cherries it's hard to beat Yellow Dwarf for production and it can be grown in a smaller pot.

[ibraash]

Adewilliams, I am in the Lawrenceville GA area, and last year Rosella Purple, Big Bush, Tasmanian Chocolate all did well for me.

Good luck

[PureHarvest]

I was disappointed with the dwarfs I grew this year with the exception of Wild Spudleaf and Brandyfred.

To be fair, it could have been my production methods or the climate etc. Beautiful plants and tons of blooms and good fruit set. Just not a lot of full size fruit. It almost seemed like the plants made too many flowers and did not abort enough to handle the load.
And for the ones that did make full size fruit, they were few and the rest were undersized when ripe.
This may not be a bid deal for someone that is looking for a container type tomato and isn't looking for consistently large tomatoes.

Here are some pics that my help you get a feel for size of plant. First pic is of Wild Spudleaf fruit production. Taste was great too.

Wild Spudleaf.jpg

Dwarf 1.jpg

Dwarf 2.jpg

Dwarf 3.jpg

Dwarf 4.jpg

[Greatgardens]

I had very good results with Dwarf Pink Passion last year in an EarthBox. For me it is the very best from the Dwarf Project. Perth Pride is also very good, but does tend to split and has a short shelf life. But year after year, I've had the best results overall from Better Bush F1. If you seek dependability, try it. And let them get fully ripe before eating. I let them soften a bit in the kitchen. They are very tasty once fully ripe.
GG

[Cole_Robbie]

Just not a lot of full size fruit. It almost seemed like the plants made too many flowers and did not abort enough to handle the load.

The same thing happened to me, but I had really odd weather. It was 80 in April and 50 on most days in May. The phenomenon was very variety-dependent, too. Mano was a trooper as always, but Cyril's Choice and Sweet Scarlet gave me saladette-sized fruit, some even smaller. Utynok was the production winner of the reds. Yield was a little lower this past year with Sweet Sue and Jade Beauty, but they still had full-size fruit.

And I don't know what the heck happened to my Bosky Chabarovsky. It went from being my best tomato to my worst. I don't know if my seed got crossed - I still got a dwarf plant with fuzzy peach-looking fruit. But they were dry, spongy, and just gross, not like a tomato at all. I sent some to Charline in France and she had the same experience.

Years like this past one are good for narrowing down my lists of varieties. Cyril's Choice was a favorite from last year, but I dropped it after this year. I'm only going to grow one plant of the Bosky this coming year, to give it one more chance.

[AKmark]

Pure Harvest, your plants look great.

[BigVanVader]

I think you need to prune them to get full sized fruit. In ideal conditions many varieties seem to produce more fruits but overall smaller ones. I think the dwarfs can only produce so many pounds of tomatoes so you either prune/cull for size or take what you get.

[PureHarvest]

Thanks Mark.
I think dwarfs are really cool. Their foliage and habit is dense and attractive to the point where it makes you look like you really know what you are doing. Just probably not the route to go for commercial production. Excellent choice for the home gardener with limited space or containers as the only option.
I tried 10 or so varieties to see if they could be grown commercially with the thought that what would lack in yield would be made up for in more plants in the same given area and less labor with not having to go vertical with a string and pulling suckers.
This did not prove out in this years attempt. However, I still think the idea has merit if one variety could be proven in my climate/system to produce uniformly. I am going to try some New Big Dwarf this year. You can definitely space the rows closer together, so you could increase the population to offset the lower yield versus full size plants.
One other challenge was triying to find the fruit amidst all that dense growth. Nice thing about single stem and vertical growing is picking fruit is a breeze.
Big van, you are probably on to something with pruning, but I was trying to limit the labor on the dwarfs to offset the labor that goes into full size plants. Plus everyone that I asked seemed to think I would get very little fruit if I removed suckers. I remember watching the plants grow and thought it was a stretch for a plant to throw out 10-15 suckers on such a short plant and think they could support full size fruit. But I took the advice to not prune (although I did on a few, and lower laterals on all for air flow) and I think you are right that it limited sizing up. Perhaps the plants responded too well to my high fertility program and made tons of fruiting branches and flowers and then could not grow full size fruit.

[Black Krim]

Marking. Need reasonable sizes for indoors.

Love the measure of production as pounds per plant. To my math mind, more defined, and useful comparing varieties.

[WLeClair]

I am growing Waratah, Golden Gypsy, Rosella Crimson, Oluru Ochre, Sweet Scarlet, and Brandy Fred...seedlings up an going already...will post in May/June with my results and favorites. With all of the comments on New Big Dwarf, I think I am going to give that a go next year, as well.