Micro Dwarf Tomatoes
With lots of light this bullfinch micro-dwarf tomato plant grew very dense making tomato harvests a bit of a challenge.
I first noticed micro-dwarf tomato plants being offered by online seed suppliers a few years ago and they seem to be gaining popularity. These are plants that have been bred to retain miniature characteristics and at the same time produce fruit that exhibit eye-catching properties. They look great in seed catalogs and who wouldn't want a flashy bonsai tree sized tomato plants that takes up less space than a pair of boots. These plants are typically produced organically by cross-pollinating similar small-sized tomato plants. The resulting seed is grown and tomatoes with the desired traits are harvested for seed. And the process repeats for several generations until you have a plant that consistently puts out seed that form new plants just like the parent. The end result might be a plant that is only 6 inches tall with yellow spotted purple fruit or something.
These micro-dwarf varieties have been bred to remain supper compact. I've seen some advertised as being no more than a few inches tall when fully mature. On the larger end are dwarf varieties what will reach a couple feet in height. I would define micro-dwarf as being a tomato plant that stays under a foot tall and can be grown successfully in a container with a few liters of soil. Something the size of a large coffee can. They would be quite happy in a small indoor hydroponic setup under LED growlights.
Growing these tomatoes is no different than growing large varieties. Like all tomatoes, they like sunlight and warmth. They are thirsty. And they appreciate a nutrient rich growing medium. Being small means they don't have an overly large root system. They will grow nicely in a self-watering container. Just about any container with adequate drainage will do though.
A single bullfinch micro-dwarf tomato holding its own in a container with jalapeno peppers.
A laura #5 doing just fine in a two liter container.
These plants are always determinate varieties so they always have a somewhat pre-determined size. They will only grow so large and put out a certain amount of fruit before dying off. You don't have to prune them or worry about suckers. The opposite is true for indeterminate tomato varieties which are tomato varieties that put out long vines and lots of fruit continuously until the end of the growing season.
Nice little harvest from three different plants. The yellow-green tomatoes were fat frogs.
In the past, before they were known as micro-dwarf tomatoes, I had grown tiny tomato plants with some success. Tiny Tom, or maybe it was Tiny Tim, comes to mind. And Flora Gold : yellow round cherry tomatoes on plants well under a foot tall. The one thing I remember about them is that they did not taste all that great. That's just my opinion and it's not necessarily one that is shared by other members of my family. But in general I was never all that impressed with them.
Some of the sites I've visited that sell micro-dwarf tomato seeds offer a dizzying array of plants with tomatoes of all shapes and colours. My most recent growing experience with micro-dwarfs consisted of fat frog, bullfinch and laura #5. The fat frogs were a green-yellow variety. The plants remained small and compact and the tomatoes were actually a decent size. The taste was fine. Better than how I remember flora gold which I believe these are derived from. The problem I always have with green tomato varieties is knowing exactly when they are ripe. The laura #5 tomatoes formed slightly grape shaped fruit that were small in size with a slightly streaked red and orange skin. To be honest they taste fine to me. The bullfinch tomatoes were globe shaped and more of a pink than red. I got the most out of these plants (actually I think it was just one) because I had it in a very sunny location. They didn't taste too bad either. Overall the micro-dwarfs all tasted better than I expected. The rest of the family didn't mind eating them either.
I grew these in a mix of smaller containers and larger boxes with other plants. One consistent trait I've noticed, and maybe it was just with the varieties I've grown, is density. Particularly the bullfinch tomatoes. They were grown in a very sunny spot and the vines branched often to form a very dense tight growth. The clusters of tomatoes were always buried deep within the plant and it want's always easy to get them out without breaking a branch or ripping some leaves. I think i would have been happier with a dwarf plant that was a bit more spread out. But it certainly lived up to its micro-dwarf name.