2022 Dwarf reports

[Moth1992]

I would love to start seing your reports on the dwarfs from 2022 to start thinking in next year. Would love to know about taste, productivity and deseases in your climate.

My season just started and most of my dwarfs are being fiddly and annoying. Too much summer fog.

All I can say is Tasmania chocolate is the only one that behaved. Super tasty. But not very productive in 4 gallons.

[Toomanymatoes]

My second season growing dwarf tomatoes. Most are not that productive for me - maybe 12 tomatoes at best for those that produce medium to large slicers. The smaller tomato varieties are more productive (e.g., Lemon Ice). Of the ones I grew this year, I would only recommend Fred's Tie Dye and Firebird Sweet for flavor. I did not like the flavor of Parfait at all. The others were average. I believe Mystic Lady was most productive, but produces smaller salad tomatoes. The productivity of Crimson Sockeye, Radinilee and Snakebite were pretty poor for me.

I cut down most of them in mid-August due to no more production and disease starting to set in. The remaining few I cut down last weekend.

Arctic Rose
Crimson Sockeye
Firebird Sweet
Fred's Tie Dye
Mystic Lady
Parfait
Pink Livija
Radinilee
Snakebite

Last year I grew 12 dwarf tomatoes. BrandyFred was the best tasting of those ones. Similar experience with productivity.

[GoDawgs]

This was my first year growing dwarfs and I grew seven of them:

Adelaide Festival - Was the slowest grower of the bunch, Didn't produce much and was the first one booted off the island.

EM-Champion - Wispy foliage and suffered in the heat. Put out a few nice tomatoes early and then refused to produce in the summer. Started producing again a little while ago but fruits were small and rather unsightly. I think wispys don't do well here.

Pink Passion - This was the best of them all. Decent production but less than standard sized tomatoes. Nice flavor. One of two dwarfs I will do again next year.

Rosella Crimson - This was another one that will join Pink Passion next year as a repeater. Tasty tomato.

Rosella Purple - Very little production.

Sleeping Lady - Production was sleeping too.

Sweet Scarlet - A very stocky plant but only one tomato all season.

It's like growing other tomatoes... it will be a search to find what works here and what doesn't. LKots of blossom drop this year; they don't seem to be very heat tolerant and might do better up north. Just a guess. However I can say they physically grew well in 7 gallon buckets which is a soil saver over the usual 15 gallon nursery pots I usually use for regular tomatoes.

These were part of a group of fourteen tomatoes grown down in the garden. That bunch will be moved up to the house next year where they will join the nine that have been grown there the past four years. They get a little shade later in the afternoon that helps a lot with the heat problem so we'll see how another group of dwarfs does there.

[wykvlvr]

Pink Passion also worked well here in Wyoming a couple of years ago. Good tasting and for our area good production. This year Utyonok has been my best performer. Winter hung on and on here then suddenly the next day we were in mid summer with record heat. NOTHING ripened or flowered during that time but the little Utyonok hung on to its green tomatoes and as soon as it cooled a bit started flowering and setting tomatoes before anyone else. And all those green tomatoes ripened. Decent size saladette, deep orange, and such a welcome change from store bought. Artic Rose supposedly an early tomato has finally set fruit but nothing is ripe..

[Moth1992]

Sounds like I should try pink passion.

[AKgardener]

I grew big brandy and new big dwarf 2 years ago plants grew very well up here but not very productive but loved the tomato flavor husband wants them both again ! Grew Tasmanian chocolate last year it grew great but I got all my flowers and tomatoes at the end of season it was to late never got to try it! I have serindipty and Tasmanian chocolate started for my indoor tomato project!!

[Salaam]

I've grown dwarfs for at least five years or so. A couple of things I have learned in my environment:

1. For support, I find that a small cage is best, following by letting them sprawl on the weed barrier. Staking and Florida Weave has not worked for me. Staking for obvious reasons, Florida Weave because the foliage and trusses are so dense that it as hard to get the strings into the body of the plant, strings damaged the plant, and too many perpendicular branches.

2. The dense foliage results in disease by late July and death by late August! This is another reason for letting them sprawl.

I've grown dwarfs in my fron yard because I didn't want to put tall indeterminates there. But I think I might not grow them anymore as this year, because of high rainfall, disease killed them very fast.

The most productive dwarf I ever had was an early tomato called Russian Saskatchewan, which I put in a container with a cage. Two plants must have produced more than a hundred tomatoes. But foliage was quite dense and once disease hit the plant died quite fast.

[habitat-gardener]

This is the second year I've grown a whole bed of dwarf tomato varieties. I love the way these plants look! But I'm wondering if they're worth growing in my garden. Last year, the one that produced the most had an unappealing flavor for me. This year, many of my tomato plants died early from (probably) root-knot nematodes exacerbated by some long, hot (100F+) heat waves and infrequent watering. The dwarf plants and determinates were affected a lot more than the indeterminates. So next year's plan is to focus on nematode-resistant hybrids. I might try some OPs that did ok this year in the beds where I did not see nematode damage, or I might just grow other things. I'm assuming that disease resistance is lacking in many dwarf varieties.

I started about 15 dwarf varieties from seed.
Dwarf Golden Heart was the most productive. It was surrounded by 2 Dwarf Pink Passion, 2 Dwarf Purple Heart, Lemon Ice, Purple Reign, and an Adelaide Festival that succumbed (without producing any tomatoes), so it probably has some disease resistance. Flavor is just ok.
Dwarf Saucy Mary produced only a few, all of which had vertical splits, so by the time they were ripe, they rotted!
Alma's Century Pink is the best-looking plant, but has so far produced nothing.
Kookaburra Cackle, Sherkhan, and Sweet Sue have produced nothing.
I've had 1-3 tomatoes each from Sweet Splash Electra, Sweet Sister Sunny, Orange Cream, Sweet Satsuma, and Coastal Pride Orange -- maybe enough to save seeds? Last year, Coastal Pride Orange produced more than a few and was the best-tasting dwarf.

[MissTee]

My past favourites Dwarf Scarlet Heart and New Big Dwarf (one of the parents of many of the DTP varieties) were hard to unseat this year. Still tops for taste with average to good production.

I tried a bunch of new DTP varieties along with previously grown varieties marked with * :

Adelaide Festival
Dwarf Blazing Beauty
Dwarf Emerald Giant
Dwarf Lemon Ice *
Dwarf Mary’s Cherry
Dwarf Pink Passion
Dwarf Scarlet Heart *
Dwarf Wild Fred - not true to type
Sleeping Lady
Sweet Scarlet Dwarf
Uluru Ochre
Whereokwhai
(And New Big Dwarf *)

New varieties that stood out for flavour and production were Sleeping Lady and Dwarf Mary’s Cherry (not a cherry). Both are salad sized. Bigger beefsteak-sized Dwarf Emerald Giant and Uluru Ochre were also tasty, but production wasn’t very high.

I can see the why Dwarf Pink Passion is well liked. It was early, and very productive throughout the season. Probably the most productive of them all. If sweet if your thing, this would be up your alley. I like more balanced and rich tasting tomatoes.

Dwarf Lemon Ice was also very productive. Second year growing it, and it has a nice fruity, but milder flavour which I don’t mind. It doesn’t get that musty taste I associate with a lot of yellow varieties.

As an aside, I grew some determinates alongside the DTP varieties. They were earlier, but also died out earlier. For an early red medium sized tomato, I preferred Saraev Vesennie Zamorozki (Saraev Spring Frosts) over Sophie’s Choice. Zamorozki was earlier and brighter tasting. Sophie’s Choice although said to be early, wasn’t, and was very seedy. Taste was pretty bland. For hearts, I preferred Grandee over EM Champion. Although it’s taste was milder, Grandee produced early and heavily over the season. EM Champion had a fuller, richer taste, but it was late and near death as the fruit finally ripened. Same with Sophie’s Choice — it was dying as fruits came about.

I found the varieties grown in 7 gallon fabric pots in part-shade less diseased and more productive than the ones grown in 5 gallon plastic containers in full sun. I used both Pro Mix Herb & Vegetable and Sunshine Raised Bed soilless mixes, and both had similar results.

I removed all of the Determinates at the end of August and the DTP in plastic containers are dead and depleted and need to be chucked. The DTP grown in fabric and part-shade still are producing, but will likely be taken out by frost in the next week.

[friedgreen51]

The best dwarf I have grown for taste and productivity is Dwarf Mr. Snow, a very tasty yellow tomato of medium size.

[AKgardener]

Has anybody tried rosella purple?? I seen some have grown it but what was the flavor like and would you grow it again my husband wants me to try it next year

[wykvlvr]

Has anybody tried rosella purple?? I seen some have grown it but what was the flavor like and would you grow it again my husband wants me to try it next year

it is mentioned just a few times in this thread... favorite-dwarf-tomato-varieties-t2128-20.html

[Moth1992]

So temperatures are cooling and i expect the season will be done for me in 3-4 weeks.

Not happy with the dwarves. Last year I had more tomatoes planting mortgage lifters in 1 gallon pots ( yes I had no idea what I was doing) than this year planting dwarves in 5 gallons. Ill try to find more productive varieties next year.

Has anybody tried rosella purple?? I seen some have grown it but what was the flavor like and would you grow it again my husband wants me to try it next year

For me its been nice flavour but terrible productivity. Like i think i had 1 or 2 small tomatoes so far so wont be planting again. But my summer has been very cool and humid.

[AKgardener]

Ok good to know still picking out what I want for next year have a few new varieties just no dwarfs this time outside

[Old chef]

Hello
I grew Dwarf Purple Reign last year. First dwarf ever. I was amazed at the production and taste and will grow it again this year with a few more including Dwarf Mr. Snow

Old Chef

[AKgardener]

@MissTee
I was wondering about the fabric pots !! Glad you mentioned it because I’ve been growing in black pots full sun !but I told my husband I needed to try fabric pots and less sun more shade this year!! Thank you I’ll definitely try it