Well guys, we've reached the end of our tomato guides and we're ending on a sweet note. While we chose to share our list alphabetically this part ended up with an unintentional theme of small fruited tomatoes. Here you'll find an abundance of tomatoes that can be grown in small spaces, are prolific producers, and are bursting with sweetness.
Green Zebra on the left. Indigo Rose on the top right. We can't remember the others LoL!
If you missed the first four parts and are interested in discovering new tomato varieties, be sure to check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of our Popular Tomato Guide.
Sun Gold
Matures: 55 – 65 days
Fruit Size: 1 oz.
Plant Type: Indeterminate
Genetic Type: Hybrid
Like hitting the jackpot, the Sun Gold tomato is bursting with sweet flavour. This perfect little snacker can satiate your sweet cravings. Mix into salsas along with more acidic flavours to create a robust flavour pallet or toss with fruit for a rich summer salad. While the sweetness is ready a week before ripening, picking when the hue has reached a deep orange will give you the richest taste.
Sweet Million
Matures: 60-62 days
Fruit Size: 1”
Plant Type: Indeterminate
Genetic Type: Hybrid
Trick your kids into eating healthy snacks by offering them one of these candy-like fruits. The Sweet Million is a brilliant combination of sweet and tangy, making these tomatoes an excellent choice for munching and adding to salads. As their name suggests, they bear an abundance of fruit. As an added bonus, not only are these fruits are crack resistant they are mature quickly meaning you'll get your tomato-y goodness early in the season.
Sweet 100
Matures: 68-70 days
Fruit Size: ½" to 1”
Plant Type: Indeterminate
Genetic Type: Hybrid
The Sweet 100 is a humble name for the abundance of fruit that this plant can produce; one to two plants can provide all season long, offering long vines filled with clusters. This cherry tomato is admired for it's candy-like sweetness in addition to its sheer volume of fruit. While an obvious favourite for snacking, this tomato also bodes well in salads, cooking, and canning. One downside is cracking which can be avoided by even watering throughout the season.
Sweet Treats
Matures: 70 days
Fruit Size: ¾ to 1 oz.
Plant Type: Indeterminate
Genetic Type: Hybrid
If gardening makes you hungry, you may want to consider planting this tomato in your garden. The Sweet Treats tomato is one that often doesn't see the kitchen because they're so tasty you'll want to eat them straight off the vine. The gourmet flavor of this tomato make them versatile for eating both fresh and cooked. Additionally, these small pink fruits are both disease and crack resistant.
Tiny Tim
Matures: 45–60
Fruit Size: ¾” to 1”
Plant Type: Determinate
Genetic Type: Heirloom
You don't have to have an acreage, a greenhouse or even a yard to grow tomatoes. All you need is a windowsill. The Tiny Tim was specifically bred to grow in small containers and thrives in inside houses, and even office spaces. Despite it's small size, this tiny fruit packs a lot of sweet flavour. The skin is thicker than other small flavours, which makes for that famous pop when you bite into one.
Tumbler
Matures: 55 days
Fruit Size: 1.5”
Plant Type: Determinate
Genetic Type: Hybrid
While most people associate hanging baskets with over-flowing flowers, vining tomatoes are actually an excellent choice for this apparatus. The Tumbler, while slightly larger than cherry tomatoes, are still vigorous producers with a sweet, refreshing flavour. What's more is that this variety bears fruit early in the season which means you'll be snacking sooner. So if you're looking to save some ground space, don't rule out gardening above your head!
Tumbling Tom Yellow
Matures: 63 – 70 days
Fruit Size: 1" to 2”
Plant Type: compact determinate
Genetic Type: Hybrid
If your torn between decorative gardening and edible garden, why not combine the two? The Tumbling Tom Yellow adds a burst of sunshine to tall planters and hanging baskets. Best of all, your eye candy also equals real candy as each drop of yellow is bursting with the classic cherry tomato sweetness. Add this flavourful tomato to salads, salads, and salsas or just eat them straight off the vine.
Harvesting
After choosing your varieties, planting, and warding off pests and diseases the time to harvest arrives! Best practice is usually to let the tomatoes fully ripen while on the plant, although that is not always possible. In this state, they will be the most fresh and flavorful.
In warm climates, with extended growing seasons you can probably just wait for ripening to occur without intervention and your harvest will be spread out over a long period of time; you will have plenty of opportunity to harvest and use your crop.
Colder climates can be a bit of a challenge. Often, only the first tomatoes to be pollinated will ripen on the plant before frost hits and leaves with a bunch of half grown green tomatoes. There are a few things that can be done to prevent this though.
Choosing determinate tomatoes with shorter growing seasons is a good option. If you like varieties that are indeterminate you can pinch off all the growing tips of your tomato plants to encourage them to flower earlier in the year.
Additionally, you can limit the number of sets (clusters of fruit) that each plant has so that the energy will go into fully developing existing fruit rather than producing more. In cold climates, 3-4 sets is usually ideal. The longer the growing season the more sets will have time to fully develop and ripen.
Even with using these tactics, you may still end up with some green tomatoes. What should you do with those green tomatoes? Our favorite option is to get a bunch of shallow cardboard boxes and spread the tomatoes out in a single layer. If you put down a few sheets of newspaper over these you can put a second layer over the first, if you like.
Another popular option is to pull the tomato plant up by the root and hang them upside down. Using this method will allow the remaining nutrients in the roots to trickle down into the fruits as they continue to ripen on the vine.
Then, put the boxes in a cool, dry place and they will slowly ripen. Make sure your storage area isn't too cold though because refrigerator-like conditions will tend to diminish the flavor and make the fruits mushy. You can speed the ripening process up by adding a green banana or two to each box. The bananas will release ethylene gas which will accelerate the ripening process.
Make sure to check on your stored tomatoes every day or two. If you have more than one layer per box, don't forget to check under the newspaper. If you forget to check, when you finally do you may be surprised to find rotten, overripe tomatoes on the bottom even if the ones on the top layer are still green.
Now is also a good time to can or dehydrate your crop. Even when taking all these measures, if you are a tomato lover, there is a good chance you will end up with more fresh tomatoes then you can use!
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Oh this is great you guys. I will have to read the others to select all the tomatoes I'd like to taste (all of them... it is my favorite of all favorite food!).
Thanks for putting it together in such an easy read. Amee, wow you created all the graphics for each strand too? I don't know enough about illustrator or photoshop and company... it would take me for ever. Nice work!
I planted some seeds the other d ay, I have no idea what kind of tomato they were from. The only thing I know is that they came from tomoatoes my dad had grown last year, and that he had gotten the seeds from Pascal Poot the guy who grows 400 different types with his no water technique!
I don't remember if I had told yo about him before, but there's the link to his shop... or just google his name. What he is doing is quite incredible!
ok, Thanks again!
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Thanks! We are glad you enjoyed the read. Yes, these tomato illustrations were a labour of love. I spent around 40 hours illustrating these 31 tomatoes and then even more time designed informational posters about them. Visitors to the greenhouse actually requested copies of the posters because they enjoyed them so much which is quite the compliment. The greenhouse owner ended up putting a 0df on the website for people to download.
I just looked into Pascal Poot and, you're right, he really is doing amazing work. His tomatoes definitely look superior in their nutrient value. We're book marking his site and we will be ordering seeds when the house is complete and we are back to gardening again.
You'll have to let us know how your tomatoes grow this season. As always, so nice to hear from you! -Aimee
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Oh my 40 hours!! I knew it looked like a lot of work... the people have to know these things take time sometimes, a little reminder you know, to put things into perceptive! Impressive work if you ask me.
This is excellent news that people are requesting copies, it must make you feel very proud. I believe for Pascal Poot, you will need someone to speak French to order the seeds, not sure though last time I checked the next pages after the welcoming page, found in different languages, the rest is in French, but that should be easy to find up north right?
If it's a problem feel free to contact me and somehow we can work it out over the phone or some sort of talking device. I will let all of steemit know about it for sure but you guys and @sagescrub are on top of the list!
Cheers
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Thanks for the heads up and the offer! My sister-in-law speaks French but if we run into any trouble I will definitely contact you. :D
-Aimee
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Yep no worries, it would be my pleasure!
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Another great post! I wonder what your next series will be?
I am thinking about building a small greenhouse. It is time to get some plants going. Gardening is a lot of work/responsibility, but it pays well.
Later, Guys
P.S. Your work is a great reference, to be returned to, instead of a one time read.
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Thank you!
As of now I don't have any plans for another mini series like this tomato one. On going I have the cold climate permaculture plants. I am also going to be doing a lot of posts on our home build this summer.
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I hope this question isn't too far afield for you. I live in Texas. We're about as far south as Orlando, but we usually have a few frosts every winter. I've noticed that after a light frost, the tomatoes seem to say "OMG. I've got to reproduce!" We have plants with no leaves and brown stems that nonetheless bloom and fruit. This was an unusually cold winter for us, several days below freezing all day (woooo, I know). But I have a friend who has been getting Sweet Millions all winter long. Anything like that happen up your way?
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That's interesting I suppose the tomato plants are near death and they try to reproduce as fast as they can?
I have not had anything like that happen to me. Usually our light frost are shortly followed by heavy frost so I am think the tomatoes just don't have time tondo anything like that. I will keep my eyes open for late blossoms now though.
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I've grown Tiny Tim's before. They're very tasty and you can just pop one in your mouth.
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One year Aimee and I were living in an apartment with no balcony and I grew a Tiny Tim in a pot on the window sill and hand pollinated the flowers with a paint brush. Still managed to get a few hand fulls of tomatoes that year.
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Awesome! My TT seedlings that I started last month are looking good - can't wait to taste them!
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I grew Sun Gold last year - good yields and very sweet.
A definte to grow again this year.
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Interesting you are the second person to mention that the sun golds are extremely sweet. I think we will have to try this one.
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Very few made it to the kitchen - I kept on eating them as I picked them.
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Very early, the Sun Gold is great, its berries are the sweetest I have ever tasted.
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Thanks for your feedback I will have to remember that.
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@canadianrenegade aka Serra Angel, the battlefield calls for the warrior!
Link to IBT Stage One
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Congratulations! This post has been added to our growing directory of Steemit "how to" posts for the Homesteading/Survival/Foraging/Prepper communities. If you haven't done so already, you can claim your badge along with the code to add to your posts to let the world know you have chosen to help others Survive, Thrive and be Prepared! Click here to get the code
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Hmm..nyummmiiii....thank for sharing this, sure I will go trough all the part next time my friend @canadianrenegade. and thank you for stopping by at my post
in 2007 I worked for IFRC to support Canadian Red Cross housing project on Nias island Indonesia, so when I read your name, it rings a bell of my past
Regards
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i love tomato very much...
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Me too! :)
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tomato is very usefull for health..
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I like this tomato..i appreciate this tomato gardening...
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amazing sir... different type of gardening guide.👍
visit my blog if you are free sir ☺
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