A very cute tomato Cheerful gnome has fruits of an unusual, elongated, pepper-like shape. The variety is undersized, high-yielding. The description of a miniature plant by gardeners speaks of its decorative merits. Bright red fruits hang on twigs, resembling the caps of fairytale heroes. Compact bushes are suitable for growing as a curb plant, for flower beds, balconies, loggias, window sills.
Important! Early transplanting of seedlings into open ground is beneficial for hardened plants. They take root quickly, evaporate less moisture through the leaf plate and begin to intensively grow the root system.
general characteristics
The cheerful gnome is an early ripe tomato with a long fruiting period. The variety belongs to determinant, it is considered undersized or medium-sized.
The bush reaches 40-90 cm in height, has a strong stocky stem and small potato-type leaves.
Fruit
The tomato fruits of this variety have an oblong shape and a funny depressed tip, really resembling the cap of a fairy gnome.
In length, the fruits reach 8-12 cm, by weight - from 90 to 150 g. Their color is bright red, glossy. The taste is sweet, with a slight sourness.
The fruits have a firm but thin skin and thick walls. They have practically no juice and very few seeds.
The variety is versatile. It is eaten fresh, used for salads, canned, ketchup and dried snacks are prepared.
Advantages and disadvantages
The advantages of the variety include:
- versatile and tasty fruits;
- external decorativeness and quirkiness of form;
- good productivity;
- ease of growing;
- resistance to cold weather and pests.
There is only one drawback: due to the small amount of seeds, it is difficult to collect them on your own.
Bush photo
Fruits, small, similar in shape to icicles:
- The color is bright red when ripe.
- Fruit weight 70-90g.
- Fruit length up to 12 cm.
- The pulp is dense, very tasty.
- The skin is smooth and shiny.
- Stores well and tolerates transportation.
- Do not crack.
- Universal application - used for fresh consumption and preparation of preserves, for sauces and ketchups.
Landing
Tomatoes can grow in a variety of conditions
The cheerful gnome is grown from seedlings, usually in greenhouses. Closer to the south, you can plant seedlings in open ground using temporary shelters. In addition, many gardeners successfully grow this variety in flower pots.
Early ripe tomato varieties can be successfully grown in a seedling culture. They are sown to a permanent place when the soil on the site warms up above +10 degrees. Depending on the region, this can be the end of April - mid-May. Due to early maturity, the fruits will have time to ripen in August.
Sowing
Before sowing, the seeds are treated with a manganese solution and a growth stimulator. For future seedlings, loose light soil is selected, which is also disinfected (by calcining in the oven). Sowing begins in late March or early April.
The seeds are deepened into the fertilized soil by 1 cm, and then moistened with a spray bottle. Cover the tray tightly with polyethylene and place in a warm place (at a temperature of 24-25 ° C).
Seedling care
The first shoots appear in 4-6 days. At this time, you need to remove the film and water the seedlings for the first time. We lower the temperature to 16 ° С and place the tray on the windowsill (if necessary, we light it up with a lamp).
When 2 true leaves appear on the seedlings, it can be dived into separate containers. Two weeks before planting in the ground, we begin the hardening process, taking the seedlings outside (we start at 20 minutes and finish at 7-8 hours).
A selection of reviews from amateur gardeners
Galina from the Moscow region. confirms: tomato Cheerful gnome is really undemanding to growing conditions. The summer resident cultivated it in open beds and received a yield 2 times higher than the one declared by the breeders - 3 kg per bush. She praised tomatoes for their sweet taste and fleshy texture. But there were not enough seeds inside the tomatoes.
Svetlana from the Moscow region has similar results. The plant turned out to be higher than the declared one - 0.7 m. The weight of one fruit is on average 75 g. Of the positive characteristics, the woman named the juiciness and the absence of voids in the fruits. The summer resident grew the variety both in a greenhouse and in an open ground. The results were the same. Due to the cool, rainy summer, her tomatoes sang longer. Similar facts are cited in reviews by other users of gardening forums. Tomato reacts sensitively to weather stresses and postpones full ripening. Among the people, it is more likely to be referred to as mid-season.
Owner of a summer residence in the Moscow region. In the greenhouse, Ilya received determinant standard bushes with a height of about 1 m. This did not affect the yield and the peculiarities of the development of the culture.
The tomato is quite good in terms of the amount of fruit and their taste. It has few drawbacks, but it has an important advantage - zoning in cool regions.
Pests and diseases
Most of the tomatoes, including the variety of tomato Vesely Gnome, are susceptible to some fungal and viral diseases - Alternaria, late blight, mosaic.
To avoid most diseases, vegetable growers process the soil and seeds of plants with special solutions for disinfection before planting, and preventive treatments during the entire growing season.
For prophylactic treatments, phytosporin is used and three times the treatment of plants with copper-containing preparations - Bordeaux liquid or copper oxychloride.
The main obstacle for the development of plant diseases is the conditions of keeping - moderate watering, a sufficient amount of nutrients in the soil and timely feeding with microelements.
The most dangerous pests of tomatoes include slugs, whiteflies, spider mites, Colorado potato beetles, and wireworms. However, most summer residents do not welcome chemical treatments, even with a significant number of pests - they use spraying with broths of wormwood, pepper, dandelion, mustard, and slugs and Colorado beetles are destroyed mechanically.
Tomato care
After planting seedlings in the ground, caring for tomatoes will be completely standard: weed weeds, loosen the soil around the bushes so that the root system receives nutrients, oxygen and moisture.
It is important to water it in the evening so that moisture is better absorbed and does not evaporate from the sun's rays. It is better to use warm water for watering.
You can feed the bushes with organic and mineral fertilizers. At first, it is better to use organic matter, during flowering, you can feed it with nitrogen-containing substances, and after the formation of ovaries, potassium and phosphorus compounds are used.
Why is the variety good?
Funny gnome - the tomatoes are compact and surprisingly elegant according to the description of summer residents. The curbs of these sturdy little shrubs make the garden surprisingly attractive.
In addition to attractiveness, other advantages are noted:
- The early ripening period is 100-110 days after the first shoots appear.
- Compact bushes that do not require shaping and pruning of stepchildren.
- Excellent taste of fleshy fruits.
- Productivity - up to 3 kg per bush.
- Tomato does not require large planting areas - plants can be planted at a distance of 30 cm in a row.
- Universal use of fruits - suitable for salads, preservation and even drying.
The disadvantage is that, despite the resistance to temporary cold snaps, at lower temperatures, the ripening period is much later.
Advantages and disadvantages
Pros:
- productivity;
- early maturity;
- marketable condition;
- simplicity of agricultural technology;
- excellent taste.
Minuses:
- the need for feeding;
- with frosts, lengthening the ripening period;
- susceptibility to disease.
This variety has many advantages.
The main ones include the following:
- versatility in use;
- unique commercial and taste qualities;
- high yield level: from 1 sq. about 7 kg of selected tomatoes are harvested;
- resistance to most diseases.
This species has no disadvantages.
Growing features
For a guaranteed tomato harvest, you need to have healthy seedlings, and to be sure of its quality, it is better to grow it yourself.
It is advisable to prepare the land for sowing tomatoes for seedlings in the fall - tomatoes prefer loose and light soil. Usually, summer residents use a mixture of garden or turf soil with compost and ash. If the soil on the site is clayey, peat or sand is added to it.
The earth is disinfected by roasting in the oven or freezing outside.
Sowing begins two months before planting seedlings in the ground - in the first decade of April. The soil in the boxes is moistened, seeds are sown in rows, at a distance of 15-20 mm, they are covered with earth (5-6 mm) from above, and slightly compacted.
The box with the seedlings is covered with foil or placed in a plastic bag, while it is necessary to leave holes so that the box is not tightly closed. Within a few days, in a warm place (24 - 25 degrees), the seeds will hatch and appear on the surface.
The moment of germination cannot be missed, because if you keep the seedlings in warm and dark, they will stretch out and will be unusable. The boxes are placed in the brightest place in the room, if there is not enough natural light, artificial lighting is used.
After hardening the plants, the temperature is raised to 22-24 degrees, and when several true leaves appear, they dive into cups or boxes of larger volume. In the following days, the plants are moderately watered, fed with fertilizer for seedlings.
Rules for planting and growing a dwarf series
The cultivation technique of growing varieties of tomatoes of the "Gnome" series is almost no different from the cultivation of ordinary tomatoes.
Tomatoes can be grown using the seedless method only in the southern regions. In regions with a harsher climate, it is recommended to grow tomatoes in greenhouses or greenhouses, otherwise the fruits will not have time to ripen. When planting, it is important to consider the recommended planting pattern. Each variety has its own planting rates.
Interesting! Residents of the central and northern regions need to start sowing seeds for seedlings no later than early to mid-February.
It is necessary to plant seeds for seedlings 2-2.5 months before the proposed transplantation of plants into the ground. At the initial stage of growth, it is important to provide the tomatoes with timely watering, good lighting and fertilizing with complex fertilizers. In the phase of well-formed 2-3 leaves, the seedlings should be dived.
If you are going to grow Gnome tomatoes in pots, the containers must be prepared in advance, 1.5-2 weeks before transplanting. A drainage layer of 1.5-2 cm is required. The soil must be fertile and loose - this is the main condition for obtaining a bountiful harvest.
Despite the fact that almost all tomatoes of the Dwarf series are cold-resistant, before taking containers with plants outside or before transplanting them into the ground, tomatoes must be hardened. For this, the container or boxes with seedlings are taken out into the street for an hour and a half. The "walk" time should be increased gradually. Tomatoes can be replanted after 7-10 days.
Most dwarf tomatoes do not need a garter, because they have rather thick and strong stems. But some varieties are distinguished by high yield and fruit size. In this case, to help the plant during the fruiting period, it is worth tying them to a support.
All varieties included in the "Gnome" series are distinguished by the absence of the formation of a large number of stepchildren. Therefore, tomatoes do not need pinching. The exception is those plants, the bushes of which must be formed into 2-3 stems during the period of active growth.
All tomatoes of the "Gnome" series are hygrophilous. But at the same time, do not forget that an excess of moisture can be the cause of diseases. To prevent this from happening, the lower leaves of undersized bushes must be removed.
Interesting! When the air temperature drops, the "Shadow Boxing" tomato reacts by changing the color of the foliage - as soon as the plant "gets cold", the leaves turn purple. But as soon as the sun's rays warm the tomatoes, the foliage will turn dark green again.
After transplanting, provide the "Gnomes" with the simplest conditions: watering, weeding, loosening and feeding. Compliance with these simple rules is the key to a bountiful future harvest.
Description and characteristics of tomato varieties Cheerful gnome, reviews, photos
Medium early, determinant, undersized variety of tomato for open ground.
A bush with a height of 0.4-0.5 meters, which does not require pinching. Tying the plant to a support is desirable. The leaf is of the usual tomato type.
The main qualities of the fruit
Fruits - elongated with a spout (sometimes depressed), smooth, dense, red at the stage of ripeness, weighing about 80 grams, not prone to cracking, good taste. These tomatoes are perfect for both fresh consumption and canning.
The variety is very productive!
