Micro Dwart Tomatoes in a Harvest XL

With regard to height they are doing fine, about 11 inches at the tallest so they are pretty short. I don't expect more than maybe another inch or two in height growth. They are spreading outwards a bit more than I anticipated. I think one plant would be fine in a Harvest (elite or regular) and height would be fine. I just planted two more but this time I put them in an available Farm 12 XL. I'm going to try two more plants in a couple weeks but those will go into a Bounty.

The AG blog and guides tell you to do that. When I tried it, the tomatoes just stretched up towards the lights and grew even taller.

When I leave the tomatoes alone, they form a thick canopy that hides the tomatoes. The plants stop growing taller, at least for a time, and you can take the tops off if they start reaching up. If you keep the lights low for as long as possible, the plants won't reach for more light.

This Veranda Red tomato (dwarf determinate) is at day 152, and has been left alone. It only added that tall stem after I raised the lights about a week ago. I left most of the stem because of the blooms, but pinched out the growing tip to stop the upward growth. I cleared out twisted interior leaves to improve air circulation about a week ago. Earlier today I harvested about 10 tomatoes.

Side and front views, lights at 13" above deck.  

My tomatoes grow slowly, set fruit slowly, and take forever to ripen. After the plants get going, they will produce maybe a dozen full-sized ripe tomatoes per week. The plant in the photo has probably produced about 30 tomatoes since It was started, all in recent weeks. (I haven't tracked my cherry tomato production closely in the past. I just put the ripe ones in front of my husband and they're gone in a flash.)

I think that much better production can be achieved, and I have high hopes for the VR in the photo. It has been moved around a lot and has a checkered past. I started it upstairs, then finally found a happy home for it downstairs. I may have pruned it at the beginning, too. When I added CalMag+ and KoolBloom in small quantities, it produced extra-large tomatoes.

Sher has grown a lot of VRs, and was much more successful with hers, planted a week earlier than mine. See Sher's VR Tomatoes. She had her first edible VR tomato in about 10 weeks.