I grew Tumbling Tom, Totem, Red Robin and Sophie's Choice indoors last winter. I used soiless mix and (mostly) Shutz Plus houseplant food. They all started out in gallon pots. I ended up putting the Totem into two gallon pots. I should have done the same thing for Sophie, but she was prolific nontheless.

My plants were in a south-facing window, but as someone attested on the linked thread, it is possible to get fruit with "grow" lights. I do a lot of indoor gardening in the winter with regular CFC lights. The cheap ones that put out the slightly red tinged rays are great for setting off the fruiting cycle. I presume they mimic the quality of autumn light.

If I were you, I would start your first plant in the place where it will live until it croaks or stops being attractive, and start a replacement outside in two or three months, so you'll have a plant at its prime during the winter. I didn't get my windowsill garden started until October last year, but I plan to have plants ready to move indoors at moments notice this fall.
As a back up plan, I'm savng some micro-mini-dwarf seeds for when the "must seed something" urge strikes in November and December. I debated between Micro-Tom, Minibel and Mohammed, which Tatiana describes as:

Early, very compact det. plant, 6-12" tall, regular rugose leaves, small bright red cherries with good flavor, grows well in small 3" pots and suitable for growing under lights indoors.

I tried to link to her page, but I can't. I imagine you could find it with a search on Tatiana + minibel.

good luck, and have fun.

jan who dreams of putting tomato plants in every home!

That is super helpful! It's good to know that the compact fluorescent lights are effective-- we have some flowers trying to grow under one in my office, due to lack of other options.

Totally agree about trying to put a tomato plant everywhere-- it kills me to see a tomatoless patch of sunny ground. . . or fluorescent tube lights with nothing growing under them.

Were you using something along the lines of Miracle grow potting soil?

Don't rule out LEDs as an option. I grow my seedlings under LEDs and will swear by them. Higher capital costs, but much lower operating costs (and that's where the real expense is).

i'm pretty sure I was using the soiless mix, since I didn't have any bugs. I had to water often, which I didn't mind.

I didn't fertilize everytime because of what's already in the mix, but I liked that the NPK ratio in the Schultz. I had assumed it would have been geared toward developing greenery, not fruit, but it was higher in P than K.
It was higher in P than K.

jan

Ahhh the soiless mix is its own thing-- I gotcha. Sorry. Is it made by Miracle Grow?

grrr....will we ever get an edit feature?

On the bright side, now we're totally clear on the fact that it was higher in P than K. . . :-P

You could do it with the right growing lights. But it would be terribly inefficient from a "green" perspective and also money. Remember to power that light for several months in the winter there some Coal power plant or something burning fossil fuel, and also the $. Those would be some awfully expensive tomatoes after paying up the electricity bill.

For many years I grew Red Robin's in a sunny bay window without any artificial lighting whatsoever. And they only need an 8" pot! The plant will get about 14 x 16 inches that's it. With plenty of large cherry size tomatoes. The last two years I grew an indeterminant, Momotaro, with lots of pruning, in that same window with good results one winter and not so good the other. I tried the determinant New Big Dwarf last year and it didn't do very well. So with my experience growing the dwarf plants is easier with better results than the big guys. Note: these plants all never were outside ever. Fully started and grown on indoors only.

Momotaro shown below:

Karenrei, I don't think I can afford the startup right now, and the size of my apartment makes using a real grow light improbable, but I have been following the discussions with interest, and hope to try them someday.

Lazyhat, it will be 4 18-watt bulbs running for about 20 hours a day. The window has some natural sunlight, but not enough. Perhaps my use of 80 watts per hour is offset by my tomatoes not having to be shipped from far away?

Bigdaddyj, that is lovely! What an awesome window!! I think I will take your and Jan's recommendation and order some dwarf seeds.

Jessica, search a thread called "urban tomatoes" in the small space gardening and you will find the list of Tatiana's small tomatoes.

She offers more mini's than anybody else. i don't know if the old link is still good, but she is findable.

If you have some natural light, I would think you would get fruit with one or two 125 w. equivalent CFCs. I like what i call clamp on pot lights...bulbs in silver hats that reflect back lots of lights.

Robins hit puberty very early, so you will know if it's enough within a few weeks. Don't forget to shake the blossoms!

jan

I grew some tomatoes this winter too. It's an hybrid with red robin and micro tom that I made just for that.

{{gwi:1331543}}

Ooh. Got any extras to trade or sell?

Interesting mix golbar. How big did it grow to bein what size pot?

My Red Robins remained compact 10-12 inch cuties with dense foliage, but I gave away mostof the plants I started. I saw one of them later and it was tall and lanky to the point of needing to be staked....probably because it was only getting indirect light.

How was the taste? One of the things all the indoor cherries i grew had in common was that they tasted much better if left to ripen on the plant before picking.

I wish I had tried some crosses with Sophie's Choice while all the littles were in bloom. That is the one I would pick in the "If I could only grow one indoor variety..." category.

jan

Quote:jessicavanderhoff - "Ooh. Got any extras to trade or sell?"

I don't know if the hybrids are any better than normal red robin. I didn't do a real comparison of the two, but they seemed to be about the same height, and possibly the same quantity and size of fruits as the red robin. The main difference I noticed is that the fruits grow on top of the leaves, similarly to micro tom. You can see that in my picture, especially with the plant on the right. The shape of the leaves and tomato is also mix of the two, but I

As for the taste, I thought they were very good, but I'm no expert.

In any cases, I got extra seeds if you want to try them. I got F1 and F2, and also normal red robin and micro tom of course.

cool. Let me know if I have anything you'd like to trade for.