When you say patio tomato, I assume you'll be growing in containers. I've grown 200-300 different varieties, mostly heirlooms, and many of those in containers. If you think outside the red box, you'll find many great choices that do well in containers and don't get over 4-5ft tall. If you're looking for short plants, there's some really good ones but of course production will be an issue. Here's some great choices: --Very small Determinate (sometimes just 18"), red oblate 6-8oz very firm fruits, 10-12oz possible, full bodied smooth, sweet taste, very early (55 days), likes damp soil. --from Isbell in 1915, a sweet, delicious pink tomato. The notable thing is that it gives large fruit, nearly a pound, on a true dwarf plant that grows only about 2 feet tall. Supposedly, it originated from a cross between Ponderosa, a large pink indeterminate, with Dwarf Champion, a dwarf small fruited pink. Red House Free Standing--Determinate Potato Leaf dwarf with rugose, crinkly foliage. Red 8.5oz. Flattened beefsteak in 5-7 clusters of 3-4 fruits. Very productive. Plant is 3ft tall, very bushy. Excellent flavor. --Beautiful deep orange fruits 2-3 oz. About golf ball size. Rich and sweet. Very nice salad tomato. Very productive. From France. 3-4ft tall. About 75 days. Lucky Leprechaun--Determinate. Good old-fashioned tomato flavor in a plant that will only grow 2 to 3 feet in height. Irish heirloom dates back to the early 1900s. Loaded with dozens of Ping-Pong ball sized, bright red fruit, bursting with the full tomato flavor that can only be found in old heirloom varieties! Their petite size makes it a natural for container growing. --55-60 DAYS--A great Dwarf to compact determinate plant with large harvests of lime green, 3 to 7 ounce fruits, golden-green inside. Complex taste that's tangy, rich & sweet all in one. Great for containers. --60-65 DAYS--Determinate plant, a super early variety. The plant produces a heavy crop of very good taste fruit for an early variety. With so many flower buds, I thought it was a Cherry tomato plant, however fruits were 2" to 3-1/2" size. Fruit load was so heavy I needed to stake & cage it. NOTE: THIS IS NOT A HYBRID FROM NORTH CAROLINA STATE'S MOUNTAIN CROPS RESEARCH STATION Series, BUT AN HEIRLOOM GROWN FOR YEARS IN THE MONONGAHELA NATIONAL FOREST REGION OF WEST VIRGINIA where local families have raised it for generations. --58-60 DAYS--Determinate/bush. Red 3-4" flattened oblate fruits. Deep-orange to red, acidic. Unusual fern-like foliage silvery-grey-green color. Does great grown in containers. --75 DAYS--Determinate. Rugose-leaved, compact growth. Seems very disease resistant - A super canner, out produces anything I have seen. Fruit larger & twice as much as Roma. Giant plum shaped to globe shaped. Expect 4 quarts of sauce per plant. NOTE: MINE CONTINUOUSLY TOPPLE THE CHEAP 3-RING HARDWARE STORE CAGES. --Deep-orange fruited, compact Indeterminate, about 3-4ft when grown in a container. This tomato has a history: when the 6th earl of Edgecombe died, his next surviving relative, a sheep farmer in New Zealand, brought this tomato back with him when he returned to claim the title of 7th earl of Edgecombe. Many ORANGE tomatoes can be too mild, however this is not the case with Earl of Edgecombe. It has a great flavor, rich, sweet & tangy all in one. It's meaty with fewer seeds than most. Orange globes are usually 6-10oz, often forming in clusters of 3 or 4, very uniform in size, blemish-free, very crack resistant. --40-45 DAYS!! (42 DAYS for me here in a 4 gallon container.) Similar in size to Stupice but even earlier! Quite possibly the best tasting of all the extra-early varieties. Potato leaf plant, about golf ball sized red fruits. While it's an Indeterminate, it's usually only 3-4ft for me. I put my extra seeds on ebay every spring, usually late February, March & April for all the above (except Lucky Leprechaun, I'm out.) Some are pictured on the link on MyPage. Hope this helps. Mark P.S. Have you checked out Garden Web's Tomato Forum?

I love this thread. :) Well, it's August, so right now I pretty much hate everything in the garden. It all looks ratty this time of year. One exception: the "fall garden" is in full glory right now! If you don't have a dedicated fall garden, it is something I highly recommend! When everything else is spent and starting to get crispy, fall bloomers are just getting started. Mine has Early Amethyst Beautyberry, Limelight Hydrangea, a few tall purple Zinnias, Mexican Bush Sage, Autumn Joy and Matrona Sedum, Homestead Purple Verbena, Karley Rose Pennisetum, Fothergilla Major Mt. Airy...and this year I tried some Blackie Sweet Potato vine around the edges. It is SO NICE to have something to look at right now that doesn't look like death eating a cracker! Anyway, to the original question: I have decided I have way too many daylilies (only 25 or so, but still too many for me). I am so sick of pulling out dead foilage, and it started this year before they had even bloomed. I'm going to reduce them by about half in the fall, keeping only my very favorites. I've also discovered they are a bad thing to have at the front of a border for the dead foilage reason, so several will have to be moved.

hostahillbilly, Wow its so lovely, I love the early June 11 colour and the mid July 12 looks like new verdigris on a bronze sculpture. Fantastic leaf texture. The boss sounds like a very conscientious woman, she has a really nice plant there. I don't know anything about shipping trans Atlantic, or even if the EU lets in plants, its probably best to wait until the Boss puts it out on the market. I can wait a few years am not quite 40 yet! Thanks for going to the trouble of getting the photos. Good luck with it. I love the description of Baby Bear on myhostas.be !

Even though many use the 6-8 week preplant period we are talking here about a compact dwarf plant that you might consider stretching out the period and potting-up so you can be harvesting fruits weeks earlier. You can set pots in for the night or otherwise protect them much easier than a taller growing plant. I have (for plant sales of this variety) planted 14 weeks early and ended with plants in 2 gallon pots that could easily be moved will no harmful effects to the plants. With this variety one could just keep the plants in that size pot and place them up on a stand to check for ripening fruit since the dense foliage causes most early fruits to not be readily visible from above the plants. I plant hundreds of tomato varieties, transplanting most to garden soil, but for Red Robin and a few other dwarf vartieties I just have never seen the need to take that final step, mainly b/c they look their best in a pot. Keep in mind that an 18" tall plant has a tendency to be shaded by any taller growing plant near to it.