I am going to try to grow Hahms Gelbe Topftomate, which is a yellow cherry. It gets 6" tall and can be grown in a 4" pot. I can plant maybe 4 in a window box type planter that I have. It is an RLR (Regular leaf, Rugose). It is supposed to have very good flavor and produce a number of fruit compared to its size. Remy carries seed for this. She also carries a few other dwarf/tree-type/ISI/semi-determinates and semi-indeterminate, which all is a bit confusing to me, but I am trying to sort them out.

Also, look out for some of the new dwarf tomatos from the Dwarf Tomato Project which may be released this year.

It is difficult to find a significant number of the dwarfs, patio, and hanging basket types on one seed site, and especially to find dwarfs that produce anything other than cherry size tomatoes.

Some of the better known varieties that Dawn has mentioned in the past include:

Dwarf Stone
Dwarf Champion
New Big Dwarf (kind of an oxymoron name)
Extreme Bush
Extreme Dwarf Bush

Some that I have also been reading about on Tatiana's database include:

Dwarf Chabarovsky - pink, RLR, 2-4 oz. salad type, fruit has peach fuzz; 70 DTM, 2-2.5', good production

Kootenai - red, RLR, 2-2.5 oz., 45-60 DTM, sweet/meaty/juicy, moderate to high yields (Sand Hill Preservation also has seeds)

Polish Dwarf - red, 78 DTM, 2-3 oz., 42" plant, excellent flavor (Remy has seed; Victory Seed)

Red Robin - red, cherry, (one of the late Chuck Wyatt's Top Sellers at Heirloom Tomatoes; also sold at Tomato Growers Supply), 65 DTM, 8-10" tall, performs like an indet. over long season

Russian Red - red, tree-type, 2" salad, 5' tall (Victory Seed; Glecklers)

Budai Torpe - red, 70 days, det., RLR, 2-3 oz. fruit, 18-24" plants, excellent yield, great taste (Tatiana)

There are many others suited to container growing including Bradley (pink, det., RL, medium size fruit, slicer/canner), Mountain Princess (red 3-6 oz slicer/canner; Sophie's Choice, and one that sounds entirely interesting to me - Grandpa's Cock's Plume (try to say that fast five times!) - a pink heart (I know they're not a good tomato for our heat, but I gotta try this if not this year, next), Red Rocket (red, det., RL, compact, bushy, 8-10 oz. fruit), and many others.

Dawn, that Tumbling Tiger and Red Stripe look so good! Do I have any willpower any more? Doubtful.....I'll probably be ordering those. Wonder where she gets those unusual hybrids?

Sorry to wander............

Susan

Susan,

New Big Dwarf is one of my personal favorites even though its name is such an oxymoron. Lots of tomatoes have names that make no sense....."Big White Pink Stripe", for example is neither big nor white nor pink, but is rather a medium peach-colored tomato with some faint striping, and "Delicious" was not at all delicious when we grew it here. I guess it is expecting too much to expect for the names of veggie varieties to actually relate to the fruit themselves.

I believe all the tomatoes I found at Swallowtail Garden Seeds that are new to the US market this year (Rambling Red Stripe, Pear Drop, Tumbling Tiger, Tumbling Tom Junior Yellow, and the Sweet 'N Neat seri) are from a subsidiary of Australian-based Terranova Seeds. The subsidary is called Vegetalis and it was formed for the purpose of developing vegetable varieties compact enough to grow in pots or small urban gardens and attractive enough to use as ornamentals. I don't know if Terranova/Vegetalis is marketing them directly to the wholesale customer themselves or if they've sold the rights to a seed wholesale producer/seller. Terranova used to have a line of Patio Vegetables and I think that line is now part of Vegetalis.

I first saw some of these varieties at Thompson and Morgan, probably last year, and I think this is the first year for all of them to be offered here in the USA, other than Tumbling Tom Red and Tumbling Tom Yellow which also are from Terranova, which have been offered here in the US at least a couple of years.

Vegetalis has some wonderful new varieties in the pipeline that are geared towards folks who grow in containers or in small, urban gardens where space is at a premium. Two new compact, bush-type squashes (one a winter squash and the other a zuke) offered either at Park Seed or at Thompson & Morgan this year (I know I saw them last night at one or the other last night while cruising the internet while watching Bedlam) are from Terranova/Vegetalis. They are "Balmoral" and "Buckingham". I haven't searched to see if they're offered anywhere else here in the USA yet. FYI--whenever I see a new veggie with a name that sounds like it came from the UK, it usually was bred by Terranova/Vegetalis, and often I see it first at Thompson and Morgan and then, a year or two later, in the USA.

And don't forget Red Robin's "cousins" Orange Pixie and Yellow Canary. I grew them mixed as a 'border' along one side of a raised bed of indeterminates in 2009 and they produced very well.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Vegetalis Brochure Showing Some of Their Products

Dawn, I looked at the other veggies at Swallowtail, and they offer quite a number of patio/container/dwarf vegetables other than tomatoes (VOTTs), including the Balmoral squash, which is like a distorted patty pan. Vegetalis offers a lot of new varieties that have yet to hit the market here in the good ole US of A. Another one I'd like to try is the Pinstripe Eggplant, or Aubergine as they call it overseas, but it is so new that it is only a glimmer in Mr. Eggplant's eye.

Another interesting thing about the Balmoral Squash is that it is supposed to produce fruits all up and down the branch, like Brussel Sprouts. Cute, huh?

Swallowtail is also offering a Vegetalis chili peppoer called Apache, that gets about 18" high. And, also their early fruiting Redskin sweet bell pepper, and Pumplin 'Windsor', a really cute little dwarf pumpkin, that can be used both as a decoration and for great pies (so they say).

Swallowtail is also offering seeds of Strawberry 'Temptation', supposedly a year-round producing plant, virtually runnerless.

So it seems that Swallowtail is one of the only companies, or it seems they are now, that is carrying seeds from Vegetalis. A few universities have been testing them, but I didn't find anyone in the states offering the seeds for sale. Several do in the UK. But, I just did a cursory search, nothing in depth.

Long story short, I think I will order a lot of my VOTTs from Swallowtail, because they are geared to seeds for container plants, and have a lot of varieties, whereas the other companies may carry one here or two there, but not as many seeds for sale in one place.

So, thanks for hooking me up, Dawn. I had always looked at Swallowtail's flower seeds, but never checked out the vegetables there. Doubt if I'll order the tomatoes. Maybe next year. I already have enough tomato seeds for now, I ordered from Gary Ibsen, Tomato Growers and Remy. So, I'm pretty much set on those. Anymore and that street allee of tomatoes seems more probable.

I attached the catalog for Vegetalis in case anyone wants to look at what is on the horizon in the form of patio veggies.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Vegetalis Products

Susan,

I'm always glad to "hook up" a gardener in search of a certain type of plant with whatever seed sources I can find. I suspect Swallowtail Gardens has a connection with someone at Terranova/Vegetalis that allows them to get their hands on the hottest new seeds first. It could be just that they are smaller than the big guys like Burpee or Park Seed and can obtain seeds in sufficient quantity for their customers a year before the wholesale seed producers are able to produce the huge quantities required for major retailers. Or, maybe Swallowtail Gardens trials the seeds for them and then gets to offer the seeds a year earlier. Who knows?

Thompson and Morgan often seems to have their "coming attractions", in terms of new veggie varieties for containers, in their UK catalogs first, so I often look at them online to see what might be coming to the USA in another year or two. : )

Another interesting company that does ship to the USA is Canada's Solana Seeds. (You may be wondering when I'll stop suggesting new places to look at seeds, and the answer is "never".) I haven't purchased anything from them "yet", but they have some compact varieties that look interesting, and also some multifloral type tomatoes.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Solana Seeds