I'm still trialing the dwarfs.

Last year I grew these in containers, which I think is not as good as in ground:

Czeck Bush (determinate, compact) - did not do well grown in straw bale

Maralinga (dwarf) - sturdy, lots of blooms 5/27 - I didn't see alot of fruit

Sleeping Lady (dwarf) - compact, disease resistant.

Tanunda Red (dwarf) - no notes?

Fred's Tie Dye - this produced more than the others

Walter (det) grown in pots - produced

Whippersnapper Cherry (Det) super early, very productive

snow fairy (det) - early, cold tolerant

Sub-Artic Plenty (det) early cold tolerant

Hope that helps.

I have grown several varieties from The Dwarf Project, beginning a year or so after the very first ones were released. Their performance has been spotty. Wild Fred has done pretty well for me, and so have a few others, but not consistently. Dwarf Mr. Snow did not produce much. I'll have to look back at previous posts and try to find the ones I've grown in more recent years. They usually grow really well and produce pretty good yields, but when it rains, they get foliar diseases like mad and then the plants decline pretty quickly. I don't have the patience to deal with plants that cannot handle having a little rain fall on their foliage. Still, I keep trying because the concept of having plants whose size is easier to manage is appealing, and because it is hard to find dwarf plants that produce large fruit like varieties from The Dwarf Project do. Oddly, the do a lot better for me in very hot, very dry years with drip irrigation than they do in cooler, wetter years. I think they might be great in a high tunnel where rain never touches their foliage. In my garden they seem especially prone to gray mold, even when no other non-dwarf plants have it. It drives me crazy. One day they are fine and loaded with fruit, and the next day they are sick, and shortly thereafter they are dead. This is why I don't grow many of them and don't grow them more often.

I came back to add that I have about 5 or 6 of the tomato varieties from The Dwarf Project on my 2017 Grow List. I am planning to put them in large containers and grow them away from the fenced garden, possibly in the back yard between the house and the garage. Maybe away from the other tomato plants and with better air flow they will stay healthier.

So, based on notes from previous years, these are the tomatoes from The Dwarf Tomato Project that I've grown so far:

Rosella Purple

Dwarf Mr. Snow

Tasmanian Chocolate

Summertime Green

Sarandipity

Dwarf Purple Heart

Chocolate Lightning

Dwarf Wild Fred

I might have forgotten some, but not many. Of these, my favorite has been Dwarf Wild Fred although Tasmanian Chocolate has been above average too in production and flavor. So was Purple Heart, though not as productive.

So, for 2017, I'm growing these:

BrandyFred Dwarf (Dwarf Wild Fred x Brandywine)

Dwarf Sweet Sue (Golden Dwarf Champion x Green Giant)

Fred's Tie Dye (Dwarf Wild Fred x Berkeley Pink Tie Dye)

Maralinga Dwarf (Cherokee Purple x Wilpena)

Summertime Gold Dwarf (Golden Dwarf Champion x Green Giant)

That just addresses dwarfs produced from the multi-nation breeding program known as The Tomato Dwarf Project. For other dwarf vareities that I've grown, some were okay but most were not. I do love New Pink Dwarf and grew it for many years. It produced equally well in large containers or in the ground for me. Other dwarf varieties I've tried, like the Czech Bush that Amy mentioned above, were dismal failures, producing poorly and being a general waste of space. Whippersnapper is highly productive but the tomatoes are nothing special and, in order to earn a regular spot in my growing tomatoes, the fruit have to be special or extra special.

Among the extra-small, if not necessarily labeled as dwarf varieties, Bush Early Girl is one of the most productive tomato varieties I've ever grown. It literally had so many tomatoes on it that the foliage disappeared----buried underneath tons of tomatoes per plant. Martino's Roma is an excellent dwarf type paste tomato. I don't think it is listed as a dwarf, and probably is describe as a compact determinate, but it is the smallest paste tomato plant I've ever grown and in my head I classify it as a dwarf.

Three tomato varieties I like because they stay insanely small are Red Robin, Orange Pixie and Yellow Canary. They are very small plants that produce abundantly. You can grow them in pots as small as 4", although they yield better if grown in at least 1 gallon sized pots. Some people grow them indoors in winter for fresh winter tomatoes, but I haven't found a way yet to keep the cats and dogs from knocking the plants off tables, shelves or window sills, so I don't even bother.

I liked Martino's Roma, also. I grew it in a 5 gallon bucket the first year. It survived till fall and lived in the greenhouse briefly.

I meant to get Red Robin this year, how did I miss that?

Whippersnapper will flower and make fruit in the solo cup. It's ordinary tasting, but better than store bought. When you're always behind like me, that can be important.

I was sad about the Czech bush. I have Czech blood and wanted to grow it. But it just plain died in the straw bale.

I need to see if I can find a source for Red Robin and EG bush...I'm sure ther is other sruff I "need"

Ha ha ha! I'm trying not to do too many cherries this year, but I did have a few things from swallow tail I was looking at...

Well, keep on looking. I don't want to stop enabling anyone. I just don't want to be blamed for doing it. I'm not an enabler. I am a facilitator. That's it! I am facilitating. It is too cold to do anything else. I can sit her on the computer and find stuff I want to buy at SGS without even trying. Many things. So many seeds, so little time and space.

I just walked down to the mailbox in very cold weather, freezing all the way, and I must have gone down there too early. There was nothing in the mail box. Shouldn't there be at least one garden catalog in there? I'm still waiting for several that I usually get in early January.

Thank you both very much for the feedback! You have given me some additional ones to try. I'm especially intrigued by the one crossed with Brandywine.