Our motto is that everyone should be able to grow their own tomato plants at home. Even if you do not have a greenhouse or even a garden, you can still grow tomatoes yourself. Growing tomatoesin pots is fine and they will grow well on a balcony or terrace. It is important that you choose the right tomato varieties and that you are prepared to water the plants every day in sunny weather.

Standard tomato varieties can easily grow 2 meters high.That’s not very practical for growing in pots in a small garden or on a balcony. Fortunately, there are lots of varieties that remain nicely compact. When selecting the right variety, I would make sure that the plant does not grow higher than 65 cm.

Most compact varieties are dwarf shrub tomatoand shrub tomato types. In shrub varieties the top of the plant grows out after the first, second or third cluster, and this also applies to the side shoots. Because of this, there is no need to remove the side shoots in these types. They need little care.

There are also dwarf vine tomatoes. As with other vine varieties, the top does not grow out and continues to grow. The difference between regular vine tomatoes and dwarf vine tomatoes is the very short distance between the leaves of the dwarf vines. This gives you a compact, sturdy plant, ideal for growing in pots.

Below I describe several varieties, but you can find many more varieties on the internet.

These can be quite bushy plants, with a height and width from 40 to 80 cm. These varieties don’t need their side shoots removed. They do need stakes to stop them falling over. When the tomatoes are heavy (some varieties produce small beef tomatoes) it is wise to bind the heavy clusters to a stake. The tomatoes ripen very early on the bush varieties. In my own case, I’ve often picked the first crop before I can harvest the first tomatoes of the normal strains of tomatoes. A couple of well-known bush tomato varieties are: Whippersnapper, Bajaja and Garden Pearl.

The harvest is very even throughout the season. While the dwarf and bush tomato varieties produce an explosion of tomatoes and then far fewer, the dwarf vine varieties produce a number of ripe tomatoes every week. Although these are early, they are often later than the dwarf and bush tomato varieties. In a number of varieties, the suckers must be removed. These varieties often taste very good. Our 3 tomatoes: Farmzy® Sweet King, Farmzy® Sweet Princess and Farmzy® Little Red Tree are dwarf vine varieties.

When tomato plants grow in the ground, their roots can spread widely in the soil in search of moisture and nutrition. Potted plants can’t do this so much. So the quality of the soil and nutrients in the pot is important for good growth.

For potted tomatoes, I make a mixture of 50% compost and 50% potting soil. The potting soil can buffer a lot of moisture and the compost contains nutrients. Iadd organic tomato fertilizer for extra nutrition. The advantage of organic fertilizer is that it releases gradually and this means you do not have to feed the plants until halfway through the season. Do you want to know which organic fertilizer I use? Read the article: “Good soil and fertilizer yield the tastiest tomatoes”.

For a 1.5 liter pot I mix half a handful (25 grams) of organic tomato fertilizer through the potting soil.

For a 5 liter pot I mix 1 handful (50 grams) organic tomato fertilizer. And for a 10 liter pot I would mix 2 hands (100 grams) of organic tomato fertilizer through the potting soil.

Halfway through the season, around the beginning of July, I spray organic tomato food onto the potting soil. If you do that whenever you water, some of this food will sink into the soil and become available to the plant. And if you follow all the above tips, growing tomato plants will be fun and you can harvest and eat lots and lots of delicious juicy tomatoes. 😊