Perfect tomato plants for a small garden space.
For nine years I grew an assortment of indeterminate tomatoes in 15 gallon Smart Pots. Most were planted in the fall and ripened during our coolest weather. After I moved, I had very limited garden space and full sun from only March through October. In the spring I can still grow some paste and cherry varieties if they're heat and sun tolerant.
From seeds to ripe tomatoes within 3 months.
In mid-March, I trialed micro dwarf tomatoes. Surprisingly, these tomatoes grew really fast and produced an abundance of small to large cherry tomatoes on miniature plants. Depending on the variety, they grow around 1 ft tall.
These were the tomatoes I trialed this spring:
From Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. They grew so fast, were the first to flower and produced an abundance of small yellow-orange cherries. At 2.5 months, these plants were so full of fruit - I had to stake them to keep them from falling over. They were really sweet. In late June, the tomatoes were smaller due to the rising summer temps.
I purchased these seeds on Etsy. They flowered later than Orange Hat and produced large blue-red cherries with a blocky shape. Typical of blue tomatoes, they took longer to ripen and had a tart and moderately sweet flavor. However, they started cracking when the temps reached 85 plus in late June.
This is a Wild Boar Farms creation. They flowered and produced fruit later than Blaue Zimmer but ripened earlier. The fruit were a variegated orange and shaped like a mini-paste tomato. They had a sweet citrus flavor. They also grew smaller when the temps reached 85.
At 2 months Orange Hat was already producing fruit.
I planted two plants in each 5 gallon container to hopefully get at least one plant to grow as I have a lot of issues with powdery mildew attacking my tomato plants. Amazingly, none of these plants were affected.
Tomatoes really do need a full day of sun. If you have limited garden space but sufficient sun I recommend trialing these. They take up far less space, are resistant to powdery mildew, need less water and fertilizer and produce a lot fruit on very small plants.
In Kihei, October through mid-March are the ideal months to plant these seeds so they're ripening by mid-June. The temps and sun intensity increases during the summer and most varieties of tomatoes stop producing fruit.
I found a few tomatoes with blossom end rot. I recommend adding an all purpose fertilizer at least twice per month and including some agricultural epsom salt with each fertilizer application. It really does correct this issue.
One other issue I had was birds. The plants were loaded with fruit that were very accessible. The birds were most aggressive at sunrise. Since these tomatoes were planted in small containers a brown paper bag easily fit over the plant and top of the container. I put it over the plants in the evening and removed the bag in the morning.
I saw other varieties online. I suggest searching the term "micro mini dwarf tomatoes". There are a lot of seed vendors now on Etsy with very competitive pricing and free shipping.
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