Anne's 2021 Dwarf Garden

[aclum]

Here's a little update on my Dwarfs.

It's been a beautiful slightly breezy day today (Feb 27) so I took my dwarfs out for a little fresh air and a "photo shoot."

I'm doing the seedlings Kratky style with DE in 2" net cups starting with plain tap water and now using very dilute Maxi-Gro 10-5-14 for my nutrient solution. They were started from seed on Jan 30. Some of them are in Boost Bottles and some are in net cups over nutrient solution in Activia cups.

Before the roots coming though the slats in the net cups get too big, I'll tease the seedlings out of the cups and transfer them to basins or buckets with stems supported by cloning collars (as seen in the photo of my 5 Mountain Gem seedlings sitting over an 8 quart basin).

I've also got a side by side photo with a Boronia dwarf (in a 8 oz - 237ml - Boost bottle) and a Mountain Gem determinate (in a 591ml Gatorade bottle). The top of the Mountain Gem is at about 10-1/2." The plant without the root part is about 4-1/2." The Mountain Gem seeds were started on Jan 24 so they're 6 days older than the dwarfs. The dwarfs were slower to germinate.

After a while, I'll pot them up in WonderSoil and when the weather's right, plant them in the garden soil or give away. I MAY try one of the dwarfs in Kratky, but I expect it might require too much maintenance.

Anyway, so far so good! The dwarfs are really beautiful little things - so cute!

[aclum]

Hi - Another update with a couple of photos and a question.....

The Mountain Gems are 2 days shy of 6 weeks and the Dwarfs are 1 day shy of 5 weeks from starting the seeds. It's been really pleasant weather and the plants have been gradually hardening off in the shade/partial shade of the patio for about a week now.

Today I set up my shade house (with 40% or 50% shade cloth ??) and moved the tomatoes in . As of a few days ago temps dipping down to the high 30's had been predicted, but I now see that the lows for tonight just go down to 46-47 for a few hours so I'm planning to cover them with weighed cardboard boxes or maybe buckets or a 27 gallon tote. Let me know if you think I'm flirting with danger by leaving them out

I think I need to move the Mountain Gems into larger containers soon - maybe 2 liter bottles for now?? I've moved most of the Dwarfs (supported by cloning collars) into half liter Dr Pepper bottles (thicker than water bottles) covered with insulated sleeves. I've got some slow germinating stragglers still in their boost bottles and will move them up to the Dr Pepper bottles when I can get more insulated sleeves. All of them are in a nutrient solution of 3 grams General Hydroponics Maxi-Gro to 2 liters tap water. (I'll switch over to Master Blend after a while).

Once the tomatoes can stay out in the shade house without worries, I'll start hardening off my eggplants and peppers - provided the weather cooperates. What are overnight lows that they can tolerate safely? I'm talking about in the shade house or insulated buckets - not in the ground. I assume it's quite a bit warmer than the tomato temp.

FWIW! Anne

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by aclum

Thanks for the responses!
....
Anne

Actually my non dwarf favorite list has many of the ones you enjoy.

I have tried all the dwarfs mentioned in this thread + maybe 2 to 3 dozen more. Before the 2020 releases, I know I had tried more than half of the tomatoes from the DTP.

I will say that once you try most of them, many of them have overlapping or at least nonmemorable tastes. Many exist to fill a particular niche for size, shape, coloration, etc...

I tend to prefer bold sweet tomatoes in purple, pinks and reds or subtly sweet in the yellows, whites. I remember comparing notes with Craig on this a couple years back, and he's of similar preference.

For blacks, hands down Wild Fred. Tried purple heart, boronia, bradyfred, tastywine, rosella purple, rosella crimson, tas chocolate, velvet night, B. rumball, Kookaburra Cackle, Kangaroo Brown, etc... etc.. WF still beats them all.
KBX - loxton lad is pretty good. I still prefer Blazing Beauty or Summer Sunrise. Orange cream is good for a more subtle sweet taste.
Bi-color Russian Swirl for me, better than 'Wherokowhai
Green - Emerald Giant or maybe Jade Beauty
Yellows - Sweet Sue and Summer Sunrise (S. Sue is bold strong, Summer Sunrise is more subtle sweet but still intense), Mr. Snow to a lesser extent
Red - Sweet Scarlet

There are a lot of stellar looking bi-colors - confetti, caitydid, firebird, A. Festival, metallica, etc.. These are good tomatoes, but imo, they aren't absolute standouts. Other than appearance, they aren't memorable to me.

Actually, after trying 50+ (i've lost count at this point) of the dwarf tomato project releases, I have to say that there are more "winners" as far as taste goes in the earlier releases than the latter ones. For whatever reason, the Sneezy and Tipsy lines in particular seems to have the greatest concentration of "winners" if you're judging solely by taste and taste alone.

[tryno12]

Scooty, what varieties were in the Sneezy and Tipsy lines?
Thanks
Pete

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by tryno12

Scooty, what varieties were in the Sneezy and Tipsy lines?
Thanks
Pete

Sneezy - 'Dwarf Beryl Beauty' (2011), 'Dwarf Emerald Giant' (2011), 'Dwarf Jade Beauty' (2011), 'Dwarf Mr. Snow' (2011), 'Summertime Gold' (2011), 'Summertime Green' (2011), 'Dwarf Kelly Green' (2013), 'Dwarf Sweet Sue' (2013), 'Summer Sunrise' (2013). 'Summer Sweet Gold' (2015), 'Barossa Fest' (2016)

Tipsy - 'Dwarf Blazing Beauty' (2014), 'Banksia Queen' (2015), 'Sweet Scarlet Dwarf' (2015), 'Dwarf Golden Gypsy' (2016), 'Dwarf Orange Cream' (2016)

Fruit size isn't usually a criteria for me, but the only of these I haven't tried is Beryl Beauty, Kelly Green, Barossa Fest. These are sub 5-6 oz tomatoes. When I am trialing the dwarf tomatoes, I usually pick from several lines and try to avoid too much overlap in characteristics, and it just so happened I was trying other saladette size dwarf tomatoes like the Kangaroos, Kookaburra, etc... that these were left out. If I had to wager a guess, they probably are close to Emerald Giant and Jade Beauty taste, but the entire sneezy line runs on a spectrum when it comes to flavor.

[aclum]

Wow Scooty - that's a bunch of Dwarfs! Thanks for the great, detailed reply. Looks like I may have to start a few more seeds, esp. Wild Fred.

Anne

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by aclum

Wow Scooty - that's a bunch of Dwarfs! Thanks for the great, detailed reply. Looks like I may have to start a few more seeds, esp. Wild Fred.

Anne

Flavor-wise, I don't think any will disappoint. They'll all taste better than store bought ethylene ripened tomatoes. However, if you're one of those people that grows primarily for flavor (like myself) there are definitely standouts.

Like if you're doing a taste test with 10 pinks blindfolded, I probably could pick out Aunt Ginny's Purple. Or 10 yellow/orange cherries, I could pick out the original Sungold F1.

In the same way, I can pick out Sweet Sue, Sweet Scarlet, Wild Fred, etc... That is what I mean by standouts. They are assertive enough and or in some way distinctive enough they stand above the rest. Are the other releases good? Yeah, nearly all of them are pretty darn good. Are all of them great? IMHO, no. Just a handful belong on that list.

[tryno12]

Scooty, I agree with you on the taste of the Sneezy Line for sure. Also Sweet Scarlet, Mr. Snow, Summer Sunrise, and Sweet Sue put out buckets of tomatoes.

[aclum]

AARGH!! I have NO self-control! I went ahead and ordered Wild Fred, Sweet Scarlet, and Blazing Beauty. I'm really looking forward to giving them a try.

I'd hoped to limit my tomato plants to 8 (plus the Mountain Gem for 9 total), but looks like now it'll be at least 12 or, if I go really wild and plant the Sweet Sue and Beryl Beauty that I already have seeds for, 14. Oh well.... at least I'm still limiting my eggplants and peppers (so far ).

Thanks again for the helpful information!

Anne

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by aclum

AARGH!! I have NO self-control! I went ahead and ordered Wild Fred, Sweet Scarlet, and Blazing Beauty. I'm really looking forward to giving them a try.

I'd hoped to limit my tomato plants to 8 (plus the Mountain Gem for 9 total), but looks like now it'll be at least 12 or, if I go really wild and plant the Sweet Sue and Beryl Beauty that I already have seeds for, 14. Oh well.... at least I'm still limiting my eggplants and peppers (so far ).

Thanks again for the helpful information!

Anne

Pace yourself. There's plenty more dwarfs to try and they do pretty well for indoor gardening with a bit of pruning and a south facing window. Much more manageable than indets. in a pot

[aclum]

Scooty,

Thanks for the advice, but I think I'm getting somewhat old and don't feel like I have the luxury to "pace myself." I want to try all the good ones NOW

After doing Kratky lettuce and pac choi indoors last year and having lots of flying insect problems, I'm not too anxious to try plants indoors again anytime soon. BUT I am interested in the possibility of growing the dwarfs in containers with soil mix (as opposed to Kratky with hydroponic solution). Any tips in that department would be welcome - I've never done it before.

I do have plenty of room in my garden for the plants, but we can only consume so many tomatoes (I'm an optimist ) and I want to save room for other things. But I do have a couple dozen dwarfs to give away and need to get them from Kratky to soil before too long. Rather than transition to solo cups, etc., it would be cool to have them ready to go in fabric bags.....

Oakley,

I was looking through old posts today and saw one from you (I think) saying that you grew dwarfs in 2 gallon fabric bags on the patio. Is this correct? What media did you use in your containers?

Thanks for any info.

Anne

[GrowingCoastal]

Originally Posted by Scooty

Flavor-wise, I don't think any will disappoint. They'll all taste better than store bought ethylene ripened tomatoes. However, if you're one of those people that grows primarily for flavor (like myself) there are definitely standouts.

Like if you're doing a taste test with 10 pinks blindfolded, I probably could pick out Aunt Ginny's Purple. Or 10 yellow/orange cherries, I could pick out the original Sungold F1.

In the same way, I can pick out Sweet Sue, Sweet Scarlet, Wild Fred, etc... That is what I mean by standouts. They are assertive enough and or in some way distinctive enough they stand above the rest. Are the other releases good? Yeah, nearly all of them are pretty darn good. Are all of them great? IMHO, no. Just a handful belong on that list.

Scooty, is it possible for you to compare the taste of Dwarf Wild Fred with that of Spudatula indet? I just can't add another variety to my list but might switch if I knew they were comparable.

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by GrowingCoastal

Scooty, is it possible for you to compare the taste of Dwarf Wild Fred with that of Spudatula indet? I just can't add another variety to my list but might switch if I knew they were comparable.

I've grown plenty of large black/purples, but Spudatula is one of those I have not. Black from Tula I have grown and I find myself preferring Carbon and Black Krim as sweeter, bolder, more assertive options. All else being equal, weather, grow conditions, etc... Wild Fred is much more in the vein of its parent "Carbon" in that respect.

[aclum]

Hi - another quick update ......

Dwarfs are now 2 days shy of 7 weeks old.

I took all of them out of kratky today and potted them up in WonderSoil in 18 oz cups. The roots were pretty long (typical of Kratky) so I sort of had to had to swirl them over the bottom portion of the cup in order to get a good deal of the stem buried. Hopefully they won't be too stressed!

They've been pretty much hardened off in terms of sun exposure but weather-wise they haven't been exposed to much below 60 degrees unprotected. Tonight won't go below 53 so I'll be leaving them out in their new overnight home - old refrigerator drawers insulated (with reflectix) on the covered patio. A few extra plants are in a more or less insulated 3.5 gallon bucket.

They're crowded right now, but I'll spread them out so they have some room to stretch a bit when the weather allows. We'll be having a few warmish days (with rain) coming up but then a few dips down into the low 40's so I probably won't be able to plant out until April.

In addition to the photos of the dwarfs this afternoon, I've got a photo from 2 days ago before transplanting - just to compare whatever .

The Dwarf Wild Fred I started a few days have sprouted and are now under lights and I started some Dwarf Sweet Scarlet yesterday. Not sure if I'll try an other varieties.

I'm really having fun with the dwarfs. They're so co-operative - so sturdy looking and a beautiful shade of green. Fingers crossed that they still look so enchanting in the morning!!

Anyway - fwiw!

Anne

[Whwoz]

Beautiful plants, hope they do well by you at cropping time.