Tag Archives: Dwarf Tomatoes

Tiny Tim Tomato – Not so Tiny!

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Tiny Tim Tomato are a perfect sized plant for smaller containers, window baskets, hanging baskets, and patio pots. The plant has a dwarfing habit and I planted mine in patio pots which are 11″ deep and 14″ diameter on the top. The plant stays smaller and so do the fruits, but this year, many of the Tiny Tim fruits reached almost the size of my Fox Cherry tomatoes. Tiny Tims are about the size of a regular marble or maybe one of those bigger marbles you played with as a kid. Remember those?

Pot Size: 11″ Deep and 14″ diameter on top of the pot (Drain holes in base)

I ended up putting the 3 patio pots I planted with Tiny Tim’s on high top chairs. We find the chairs someone uncomfortable for ourselves, but they were the perfect fit for our Tiny Tim pots! They branched out and I would drape the stems and branches over the back of the chairs and onto the adjacent table. The squirrels and chipmunks never jumped up there either which was really nice. I was sure they would try but they did not fortunately. The fruit stays on the hanging clusters well and didn’t drop off.

Clusters like grapes!

I was super impressed with the abundant clusters of fruit which formed on the plants this season. It’s been a hot dry season, but I watered the pots daily with a good soaking. The sweet-to-tart fruits are ready earlier in the season than my other tomatoes, and grew to the 1″ fruit size or bigger size this year, due to the weather pleasing these plants. It probably helped that they were set on high back chairs to allow for perfect drainage and air circulation below the plants and pots. No major issues were encountered. They were the perfect dining guests all summer and still are now.

Tiny Tim Tomato Plants

In this above photo, the patio umbrella is closed but I typically kept it open. During rain storms, I made sure it was open so the plants were somewhat protected. Another bonus of having these 3 pots situated on the high-back chairs is it was easy to reach the plant to harvest the tiny tomatoes and water daily. It is a great plant when you don’t have much room outdoors, or have room to spare on a table. The seed packet indicates it does better in pots than in gardens of the ground.

Fruit Ripened Beautifully

The fruiting clusters ripened beautifully and are still ripening many fruits right now as I type this on 8/26/2022. The flavor to me is more on the tart side than sweet. I find Fox Cherry tomato fruit to be much sweeter for example, but we still enjoyed these. They are the perfect appetizer size on small crackers with cheese, or mixed with other yummy summer goodness. One day, I tossed them with fresh avocado, shredded mozzarella cheese, fresh basil leaves, pasta, and crushed black pepper.

I also planted Tiny Tim tomato plants, which I started from seed as well, into long rectangular planters at a high rise balcony site (think typical large window box sizes). My client’s told me the fruit has thrived all season. The planter is a self-watering type but the plants are high above on a high rise with exposure to lots of the elements and with a dry year at that – and the plants did well. I’m happy I chose them this season to try. I have photos of the balcony plants, but I have to find them in my iphone, which is overloaded with photos at the moment!

Various Sizes

In this photo above, you can really see the sizes. I have grown these before and the fruit was much smaller, but again, our tropical heat probably helped them to grow larger. I used a typical potting mix with added slow release fertilizer. I don’t recall ever applying liquid fertilizer later – they have been doing just fine all along. These would be the perfect candidate for small children to grow in pots – they are adorable plants.

Sitting Upon the Patio Table

Tiny Tim Tomato are sown 3-9 weeks before your last frost and transplanted after frost, and these may just last until mid-September. We will see. Another side bar: They probably will hold up well to the stormy afternoon weather being predicted for today. They are compact and probably, hopefully, won’t topple over. I’ll be sure to harvest all the ripened bright red fruit today before the storms arrive.

Have a good weekend,

Cathy Testa
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Holding the Tiny Tims – They aren’t so tiny this year!

Storm Proof Tomatoes

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Is there such a thing as a storm proof tomato? I thought of this after several strong rainstorms here in my area of Connecticut. My dwarf plants and compact tomato plants did not get any damage from the winds.

Cathy T’s Deck 2021 – Tomatoes before storms, early in the season

I put tomato plants on a table this year. My thinking was squirrels would be less likely to jump up if they were a little higher. And I placed a couple pots on the deck floor (red ones shown above) as well. The strategy somewhat worked, along with the fact my cat roams this area, but something did damage my plants besides the rainstorms experienced earlier, because I would find tops bent. I think a squirrel got onto my roof and jumped down onto them.

Before storms and before damage from squirrel jumping onto them!

I placed three tomato plants towards the front of the table, two heirlooms and one dwarf in the center. Behind those big pots are two compact Tiny Tim tomato plants. They did not get any damage and are loaded with tons of green tomatoes.

A few Tiny Tim tomatoes ripening first week of August 2021

Tiny Tim Tomato plants are a perfect small container or patio pot size. They grow small grape-like fruit and are much smaller than typical cherry tomato fruit sizes. The plant grew perfectly, no blemishes on the foliage, and lots of green tomatoes forming, but due to our rainy season, it is taking a while for them to ripen. I am hopeful however, each bite counts.

Tiny Tim Plant

The seed packet indicates this variety will struggle if planted directly into the earth. It is perfect for small containers (mine pot is 14″ diameter and 11″ deep) and it grew perfectly. This one is great for window boxes or to put on a table as a centerpiece. Great with children too. I would have been eating these earlier in the season, but our weather reduced ripening quickly. Placing them behind the big pots helped to hide them from potential tomato robbers too.

Mandurang Moon Tomato

The other tomato plant which survived windy rainstorms was the Mandurang Moon Tomato, which is a dwarf, but certainly doesn’t look that way in the photos. It has grown quite tall, about 4.5 ft or so, but it did get toppled over by a squirrel jumping on it from my house roof top. I have to trim back some trees by my deck so they don’t have a way to get on the roof.

Color of Mandurang Moon Tomato Fruit

The color of these Mandurang Moon’s are a very pale yellow. The plants are disease resistant and the stem is very strong. The stem on dwarfs are thicker and this helped it from being bent by any windy rainstorms this season. Again, lots of fruit for a while now but not ripening very quickly due to our poor weather. Hopefully we still have a chance at some sunny weather to keep things warm for our tomato plants (technically it is time and temp, not necessarily sun to help them ripen).

Every bite counts

It’s been disappointing to not have many ripened fruit (yet), but every bite counts. Above is a photo of the Tiny Tim and Mandurang Moon fruit. Nice snackers.

Green Tomatoes

It is a little heartbreaking to see all these fruits on my plants stay green. I just noticed one on my Stoneridge turning this week. Maybe there is still hope. Above is either the Goldie tomato (heirloom with sweet golden flesh – usually!) or the Cherokee Purple – I can’t remember which when I took this photo.

A friend’s Cherokee Purple

I’ve been worried that this year’s bad weather will discourage my tomato plant buyers next year, but one person sent me this photo of her Cherokee Purple starting to ripen. She told me their plants are huge and she is pleased. That was good news because this year, I grew a lot of starter plants! I love doing so and plan to do so again next year, providing everyone will still be interested!

My Growing 2021

I’m not kidding when I say, I think I grew about 400 tomato plants this year! Crazy! But most of them sold and I think I tossed out about 30 (after offering them out for free to any non-profit like garden places). I just could not keep up with them, so I will have to cut back a bit next season, if I can.

Ancho Poblanos Peppers

This was the first year I attempted growing a mix of peppers – one of which is Ancho Poblanos. It is amazing the rich shiny deep black color which evolves from the prior stage of green color. I just placed a few on my grill one day while also cooking some chicken, and they were so delicious! I am excited about these and plan to grow more of these from seeds next season.

Grilled Ancho Poblanos 2021

I also like to grow hot pepper plants, which I put some of the Matchbox Peppers in the same pot with my Tiny Tims. And I grew Serranos for the first time this season in small pots. One small plant is loaded with the Serranos – all green right now. I have to figure out the best way to preserve them. Still wondering when they will turn red, but the plant is healthy.

Lots of Serranos on the plant – still green (8/6/21)
Stoneridge Tomatoes

My Stone Ridge tomato plant has lots of big fruit now too – about 2 are just starting to change color. I am not sure how the flavor will be as it seems all is behind schedule this season. The plant is extremely tall (over 6 ft) and still producing flowers. It can grow to 8 feet tall and is a big indeterminate plant.

Growing in Spring

So, this year’s lesson, the dwarf and compact plants survived the gusty rain storms, but the rain fall slowed down the ripening of our tomato fruit. Mother Nature never ceases to provide a new twist on the season’s challenges. She keeps us in check always!

Have a great weekend!

Cathy Testa
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The Rewards are Coming In

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Summer Sunrise dwarf tomato is a new plant I grew from seed this year. I have been anticipating the ripening of its fruit, and one fruit finally changed to its golden yellow color with a pink blush on the bottom. It is also one of my first dwarf plants I’ve grown. The anticipation was greater than usual because I wanted to see how these taste, but this comes later in the day today. I wait to share the first taste with my hubby, Steve.

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It is funny how a person will get so excited to try new fruits from plants one grows themselves, especially this year, because I had some plants (not the dwarfs though) that experienced problems like blossom-end rot (as noted in a prior blog post). However, my first two dwarf plants are doing fine and the fruits are ripening now. I have another dwarf variety which I will blog about later as well. The other is called Mandurang.

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Good things come to those who wait – and I did wait to see my first Summer Sunrise dwarf tomato fruit ripen. I expected the fruits on the plant to be a bit larger but so far they are small to medium sized. That is fine, the flavor will be just as good I am sure. I am saving this one for a taste test tonight with my tomato-lovin’ husband, Steve, as noted above. It is a fun ritual. He loves tomatoes.

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Also, last night, I made my first batch of fresh pesto. It is ironic. I have eaten fresh pesto before, after all, I married an Italian and they have made it at dinners many times in the summer, so I know how good it tastes, yet, I had never taken the time to make it myself – which is just silly, because it takes so little time. It is easy. And I usually have fresh basil to make it with in the summer months.

Genovese Basil

 

I grew Genovese Basil from seed this year (again, as I did the last couple years), and it is a keeper. I gathered up a bunch from my planter, and used a small batch recipe primarily because I have a small chopper device that only holds about 1.5 cups of ingredients. It worked fine and was just enough pesto for two people.

The Pesto Recipe

The recipe called for the following:

1 cup fresh basil leaves
3 gloves garlic, peeled (I used 4 gloves, and it was very garlic strong, but we love garlic)
3 tablespoons pine nuts (which I picked up at Whole Foods the day before, but friends have since told me they use walnuts as a substitute)
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan (a must have to put in the chopper but also some to top off your pasta)
Salt (I used sea salt) and black pepper to taste
1/3 cup olive oil
Your choice of pasta if you plan to mix it with pasta

Freshly Picked

When I picked the fresh Genovese Basil from my deck planters, I just guessed at the amount and then I removed the leaves from the stems and kind of pushed it into my measuring cup to the 1 cup mark. I’m not sure if you are supposed to push the leaves down into the cup but I just figured, the more basil, the better.

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I was sure to follow the 1/3 cup of the “extra virgin olive oil” measurement, as to not over do it with oil, and I drizzled it in thru the opening in the top cover of the chopper as I pulsed the mixture together in the mini chopper.

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The Genovese Basil is a perfect pesto basil, that is for sure. The leaves are a deep green and leaves are medium sized to large. I started the seeds in my greenhouse early in the year (about 2-4 weeks before frost) and then transplanted them into medium sized terracotta pots. I water them at least once a day if the soil is dry, which it usually is in this heat. I also sold a lot of Genovese Basil seed packets this year to people as well as starter plants I had grown, which I plan to do next season again.

The basil plants grew huge and are healthy. I have topped them off – meaning snipped off the tops, constantly as I harvest for meals for at least a month now, and never let it go to flower. It is still growing strong and staying green. You may sow basil seeds at monthly intervals too, before we get a fall frost, but so far, my two plants are plentiful.

As noted above, I have a mini chopper and not a large food processor, but did you know you can make pesto with a mortar and pestle? I read in the seed packet that the word “pesto” comes from pestle. Interesting.

After mixing it up in the food chopper, it is just a matter of tossing the pesto into warm drained cooked pasta and voila. Of course, topping it with more Parmesan cheese is needed. And the better quality the Parmesan, the better it all tastes.

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As they say, we learn something new every day, and I’m glad I learned how to make fresh pesto, as well as try new tomato varieties. Both the Summer Sunrise dwarf tomato plants and the Genovese Basil plants make excellent candidates for kitchen gardens in patio pots and container gardens due to their sizes and uses. In this case, big leaves for pesto from the basil, and controlled plant height of the dwarf tomato plant for snacking tomatoes. The dwarf plant stays to about 4 feet max and is perfect for a big pot. Both are keepers on my list.

Cathy Testa
860-977-9473
containercathy@gmail.com