House Tomatoes

The goal is micro dwarf tomatoes that grow and produce well inside at normal house temperatures and conditions with the only supplement being extra light. If they can work on a window sill that would be even better. This project is almost the total opposite of the tomatoes Joseph Lofthouse and others are working on.  My tomatoes must be self fertile as there will be no or very few insects to pollinate the flowers.  Tapping, buzzing or brushing your plants a couple of times a day will take the place of insects and wind.   They must be happy in the average house temperature and produce good tasting tomatoes that make people want to grow them for the flavor not just as a novelty.  At the same time they must also be capable of being grown in a pot outside if folks have room and want to do that.

Last winter I did grow outs of F2 crosses someone else had made and found a couple I really liked but sadly their offspring didn't have the flavor I was looking for.  Nor did I manage to make any of my crosses I want to do this year so I am left in a bit of a quandary.   I have a few options for this winter.  I have seeds that came from others that range from F2 - F5 that needs grown out.  I have more of the F3 and some F4 seeds I saved from my grow out last winter. I also have two micros that I would like to cross and see what happens.

My space is limited or I would do all the things...  I went through my seeds while trying to decide what I wanted to do and found one that sounds interesting it is F5 seeds from a 9 inch plant that had heart shaped purple with green stripes tomatoes.  The parent also happened to be a multiflora plant.  I am thinking there may be some good pollen parent material in those seeds as well as something to carry on.  The cross I want to make is aimed at eventually making brown or purple tomatoes on a micro so I think a good plan for this winter is grow out a lot of that F5 and 4 to 6 plants of each of the two varieties I want to cross.   That will give me lots of options with the fewest number of plants.

I love being in Tomato Forums as I get to hear about all kinds of varieties I would never hear of otherwise.  Recently someone posted asking about a tomato called Lucinda... Turns out there are two varieties with that name one simple red paste type tomato and the one that caught my attention.  This Lucinda is a green when ripe with green stripes and a tart/tangy flavor similar to its Green Zebra ancestor.  However it has carrot leaf foliage and is a determinate like its  Silvery Fir Tree ancestor.  I LOVE the flavor of Green Zebra but it is a hit or miss plant here.  Last year it was just starting to bloom when we got our first snow.  So the thought of a dwarf plant that I could bring inside to avoid our early snows is thrilling.   I had to go looking for seeds to this variety.

I found the seeds on Etsy but the shipping was more then a single packet of seeds so I looked around the store and picked up a couple of other varieties that sounded interesting.  Moonlight Mile is an indeterminate green striped purple tomato with variegated foliage.  It will be pretty out side but eh not something I want to bring into my little micros.   The other one however is a small determinate plant, has bright lime green/chartreuse foliage,  and produced purple with green stripe tomatoes.  It is also considered both productive and tasty.  Hmmm these are features I would like in my micros...

So my plans changed a bit I will add Lucinda and Cherokee Tiger Black to my grow list for summer.   Along with Big Hill they will be my large plant crosses to start new micro lines.  

Normal procedure when crossing a micro dwarf to a large plant is to use the micro dwarf as the parent with the large plant as the pollen donor. It is done this way because you can use the seedling to tell if the cross was successful.  Crossed plants will be full size, uncrossed plants will be micro seedlings.  This lets you know quickly if your cross took or needs to be repeated.  This is how I will do the crosses to Big Hill.   HOWEVER Lucinda and Cherokee Tiger Black  both have recessive foliage types.  This means any crossed seedlings will have normal foliage.  So in their case I can use them as the parent and micro dwarfs as the pollen donors.   The bigger flower size and sturdier stems will make crosses easier to do.  AND of course there will be more flowers to work with since their size allows them to make more tomatoes.    

On the micro dwarf side I am thinking of using Rosy Finch.  While I was not impressed with it flavor it makes larger oval shaped cherry tomatoes and for its size is fairly productive.   It has the growth style I like i.e. upright and sturdy very similar to a normal dwarf but they stop at only 12 to 14 inches tall.  The color of the tomatoes is also a good choice as it allows me to really increase my color choices in the F2 and further generations.    
Another variety I am thinking of using is Pygmy, again a small upright tree like build but one of my 9 inch tall plants gave me over 70 nice sized cherry tomatoes.  I will use my saved seed from that plant to grow out my selection for crossing.  

I've had success growing both Micro Tom and Orange Hat tomatoes in a south-facing window here in Michigan, no supplementary light. Both varieties stay well under a foot in height - when I grew four Orange Hat plants under artificial/LED lights, the plants capped out at five inches of height (including tomatoes). I don't remember how tall they got with the weaker/natural light, but they were a few inches taller at most.

Attached is a picture of the first time I grew Orange Hats hydroponically on a closet shelf - I accidentally over-fertilized them and caused a bit of plant/leaf damage that I had to cut back, but it should give you an idea as to the height and size of the tomatoes.

I have not grown Orange Hat yet but I did grow Micro Tom.  I had 5 of them under a 24 inch seed starting light each in about a half gallon pot.  They did quite well.  There was a lot of things I liked about them but taste was not one of them.   Sadly taste is something many of the micro dwarfs available commercially lack.  And until recently the varieties available in the US were either red or yellow.  Last year Bunny Hop seeds introduced a green, a blue and a purple variety that grow like a micro dwarf if in a small 1 gallon or so pot.   And I think there are a few multiflora varieties that are getting fairly closely to release but many are still making crosses looking for features they want in the micro dwarfs.

This is the 9 to 10 inch tall plant that gave me over 70 tomatoes....  it is a variety called Pygmy or PIgmy I have seen both spellings used in listings.

10 inch pygmy by spindledreams, on Flickr