For anything caterpillar-ish, Bt spray is your best bet. I do like to put a couple of cherry tomatoes or some nicotiana away from my main tomato area, so I can move a few tomato hornworms over there... they can sure strip foliage, but they turn into such neat moths that hover over blossoms like tiny hummingbirds.

Those Dwarf Tomato Project Plants I am growing look fabulous. I love how nice and sturdy the seedlings get.

I plan to plant them all this weekend if weather premits. I did get a head start today because I planted two Dwarf Beauty King. I just could not resist planting them out.

I did not grow Beauty King last season so we will se how I like it. I mostly liked the Dwarf Project plants I grew last year and some varieties are going to repeat this year.

One I had last season and not again is Chocolate Lightning. I had two plants and they just did not set tomatoes. The very few ones I had cracked something fierce.

I did get one perfect tomato and the taste was increadible. But not worth the effort for one tomato!!

Newyorkrita said: One I had last season and not again is Chocolate Lightning. I had two plants and they just did not set tomatoes. The very few ones I had cracked something fierce.

Did your Chocolate Lightenings plants bloom late? I've got two plants and both are seemingly very, very slow on setting buds whereas everyone else is blooming and setting.

TomatoNut95 said: Did your Chocolate Lightenings plants bloom late? I've got two plants and both are seemingly very, very slow on setting buds whereas everyone else is blooming and setting.

Yes, bloomed very late and did not set many blooms.

Really pretty tomato with outstanding taste.

Newyorkrita said: Yes, bloomed very late and did not set many blooms.

Really pretty tomato with outstanding taste.

Ah. Thanks for letting me know, I was questioning what was possibly wrong with my plants but I guess it's just a late type. I keep a written record of varieties I grow, so I can go ahead and write that info on it's page.
By outstanding would you say it was sweet, regular or unique in its own way?

My experiences so far. Dwarf Beauty King is putting out some nice fruit, the flavor is amazing but darn the skin is tough. Artic Rose has a few green fruits but it is slow going and hardly seems worth it for so few fruits. Summer Sweet Gold blooms constantly but I have yet to see any fruit. They are all growing in the same location/conditions.

ardesia said: My experiences so far. Dwarf Beauty King is putting out some nice fruit, the flavor is amazing but darn the skin is tough. Artic Rose has a few green fruits but it is slow going and hardly seems worth it for so few fruits. Summer Sweet Gold blooms constantly but I have yet to see any fruit. They are all growing in the same location/conditions.

Interesting.

I will have my own judgement of Dwarf Beauty King because I am also growing it this season.

I knew I wanted to get my dwarf project tomato plants in ground by this weekend so I am very pleased that I was able to get them planted today.

I have 8 varieties and I had 3 plants of eacjh. So I planted a lot of tomato plants today. Fortunatly they are small so it was not too difficult to get done.

Stocky and sturdy plants. I love the growth habit of the dward project plants. I just hope these stay short like they are supposed to because last season they ended up way taller than they should have been.

I now have a double row of 7 so 14 plants at the end of my backyard tomato bed. Then I have 6 more in my sideyard and the rest in back of some Chefs Choice Red Indeterminate plants.

Anyway each one looked really good as a planted. I have them all watered so they should settle in well as it is not too hot out today.

Newyorkrita said: I planted my Dwarf Projects plants late this year so they are tiny seedlings as of now. I do hope they grow fast and are big enough to plant out by end of May. End of May would be very late for me to plant tomatoes but a lot of people on Long Island plant around Memorial Day.

It is 3 weeks from now and seedlings outside in cellpacks can do a lot of growing in 3 weeks.

I have 8 varieties I have started.
Adelaide Festival
Metalica
Andy's Forty
Speckled Heeart
Stony Brook Heart
Beauty King
Choemato
Ohuru Ochure

If anyone does see a theme here it is stripes and swirls. I do love stunning and unusual tomatoes.

It simply surprises neighbors that had never seen tomatoes that look like that before. And they taste soooooo good.

So these were my varieties again . Now done [lanting 3 plants of each. I hope to be overrun in striking tasty tomatoes this season. I just love how beautiful many of the dwarf project tomatoes are.

I agree and I had one bout of insects on one plant but I isolated it and sprayed all the plants with neem, just one time, and I have not had another bug or any other issues. Due to a glitch on my husband's part our irrigation did not run for a week while we were out of town. The plants were crispy when we returned but they quickly rebounded and look great. They are very strong plants.

@dave I'm sorry to say I found a small Hannah's Prize fruit infected with BER. Only one bad one so far but I'll keep my eyes open for more. I had a very bad feeling I was going to encounter that issue again.

BER is just something that happens to my early fruits, not every year and not always every plant, but often. They seem to grow out of it a week or two later.

I'm picking more and more BER ruined Hannah's Prizes. Hannah isn't a good producer it seems and all the fruit is slowly rotting. I'm worried. I may end up having to report a crop failure to Victory. Figures that when my dream job finally happens something goes wrong. That's just the way my life goes.

Tomorow start on mulching with the bagged hardwood mulch the 14 Dwarf Tomato Project plants that I have in my big backyard tomato bed. The plants really are small. Don't even look like they grew any since I got them planted out in ground.

Newyorkrita said: Tomorow start on mulching with the bagged hardwood mulch the 14 Dwarf Tomato Project plants that I have in my big backyard tomato bed. The plants really are small. Don't even look like they grew any since I got them planted out in ground.

Poor weather? Low fertilize? Maybe they'll perk up!

TomatoNut95 said: Poor weather? Low fertilize? Maybe they'll perk up!

They look good. Nice and green and healthy. Just that they are small.

I did mulch them all this afternoon. All 14 of them bacj there in the big tomato bed.. And before mulching put Sprinkled Tomato Tone atound each plant.

There really weren't any weeds around them but I pulled out the very gew that were there. Now with the mulch they should stay weed free,

Newyorkrita said: They look good. Nice and green and healthy. Just that they are small.

I did mulch them all this afternoon. All 14 of them bacj there in the big tomato bed.. And before mulching put Sprinkled Tomato Tone atound each plant.

There really weren't any weeds around them but I pulled out the very gew that were there. Now with the mulch they should stay weed free,

I'm sure they'll perk up. After all, you are the Tomato Queen! 👑

@dave, @ardesia and I were wondering why it is said you don't prune determinate or dwarf type plants?

In my opinion they simply don't need pruning. They are small and ideally you keep the whole plant intact.

Somebody (sorry don't recall who) showed a photo of dwarf plants in the ground with those spiral stakes instead of cages... be interesting to see how that works out, with our without pruning!