What indoor growing conditions? In a greenhouse/sunroom type set-up, many varieties are possible depending on where you live - which is which zone - and the need to heat and/or cool it.

Otherwise your success with any variety will all depend on the conditions you provide. Indoor growing in other than a greenhouse type set-up can be a very expensive proposition given the special lighting equipment needed.

2' tall will limit your varieties quite a bit. Super Bush is one that comes to mind but it, like most of the shorter plants are determinate-type varieties so don't live once they are done cropping. And if you want to save the seeds then it will have to be a open-pollinated variety too. Clear Pink Early comes to mind but it will be approx. 4 feet tall. Then there is New Big Dwarf. It fits your size criteria and is well-stabilized.

Dave

It's not finished yet but here is the indoor grow box I've been working on... It has a light hood that has three 25 watt daylight CFLs, and two 24 watt HO T5 daylight bulbs....

It has heated beds with digital control, and will eventually have an electronics cooling fan added at the back (65-120 CFM) on a timer... The heated beds and plants are all in a drawer that pulls out for access...

I also plan to build a couple doors with windows in them that are covered with one way window film so that I can see in, but the light on the inside will be reflected back in to the plants...

Might put a little waterfall in a bowl in there to add humidity...

The room is heated and cooled.. In the winter it probably never drops below 50-60 degrees at that spot... come to think about it, it would probably be at least 60 degrees or more in the grow box as during the winter I use an oil filled heater that I keep in that same area (probably about a foot from the box) to supplement heat in the room, as that is the coldest room in the house during winter...

I'm in the mountains of Northern California at 4200' elevation.. I 'think' I'm at zone 4-5

Below are a couple pictures of the grow box as currently is...

http://www.r8rphan.com/garden/pix/growbox/growbox006.jpg

http://www.r8rphan.com/garden/pix/growbox/growbox007.jpg

http://www.r8rphan.com/garden/pix/growbox/growbox008.jpg

This post was edited by ongodsmountain on Wed, May 8, 13 at 21:59

the interior dimensions from the top of the plants to the bottom of the light hood at max height is 24"H x 30"D x 30"W

light hood with three 25w daylight CFLs and two 24w daylight T5 HO fluorescent bulbs...

plant drawer

2' tall will limit your varieties quite a bit. Super Bush is one that comes to mind but it, like most of the shorter plants are determinate-type varieties so don't live once they are done cropping. And if you want to save the seeds then it will have to be a open-pollinated variety too. Clear Pink Early comes to mind but it will be approx. 4 feet tall. Then there is New Big Dwarf. It fits your size criteria and is well-stabilized.

Is the big dwarf determinate also? Is it open pollinated?

Can the Clear Pink early be cut back and forced to stay shorter?

Looks like a great set-up for germinating seeds. But for growing on? Not so much, sorry.

Plants have very different needs than young seedlings. Different amounts and type of light, different color spectrum required for blooming and fruit set, much cooler air temps are required, fans for air circulation, etc. not to mention room to grow - headspace.

Can you cut the plants back and forced them to stay shorter? No, not unless you want to lose all that production.

See link to all the info on New Big Dwarf below.

Your 2' is your primary problem if I understand what you want to do. Yours is a very unusual approach to growing tomatoes, something none of us here do. So you might have better luck getting the most helpful info over on the Growing Under Lights forum here. You might also want to explore the possibilities of Hydroponics. But again 2' is just too limiting even for hydro.

So a variety that fits all your criteria is going to be difficult to find. There are dwarf plants but even most of them go to 3' and most "dwarf" type plants are hybrids. NBD is a stabilized indeterminate hybrid - you can save the seed from it.

Raise you headspace to 4' and/or forget seed saving and more options open up.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Tatiana's Tomatobase - NBD

Red Robin is a non-hybrid, dwarf cherry tomato that will come under your height restriction. I've grown them to maturity indoors in the winter as a little project because our youngest kiddo loves cherry tomatoes. They're prolific for their compact size and produced just about as many tomatoes indoors as they did when I grew them outside. Not a Roma type, though. I started them under ordinary shop lights and moved them to a south window when they started forming fruit. They were fun for the kids, but I won't be doing it again.

In general, I have to agree with the previous posters that your setup and expectations are rather unusual.

Okay, thanks for the recommends... This is just the beginning, and I plan to expand over the coming years... So, perhaps, I have to think about the 'next' box for tomatoes... For now, I am indeed germinating in it... and I imagine there are other veggies the box 'can' be used for...

And I have been planning on looking into hydroponics and aquaponics in the not too distant future....

And thanks for the suggestion on the cherry's.. I will look into them.... But it sounds like I will need a taller setup for the tomatoes regardless..

Advice on lighting is so all over the map... I was originally planning on using the CFLs with red and blue T5 LED tubes, but several over in the growing under lights forum said I should just use the T5 HOs as the LEDs were expensive and over hyped...

The plan is to be more self sustaining.... Supplies are a ways away, and I'm tired of buying 'enough for a while' and then throwing half of it out....

This post was edited by ongodsmountain on Thu, May 9, 13 at 2:04

but several over in the growing under lights forum said I should just use the T5 HOs as the LEDs were expensive and over hyped..

They are talking about what lights you can use for germination, not growing on. As I already mentioned, the color of the light spectrum needed changes for blooming and fruiting plants as the plant grows and matures. T5s are perfect for germination and for growing green plants but if you want the plant to bloom and fruit they will need full color spectrum light.

Dave

dave, how did you make your quote italic?

ongodsmountain, I'm not digdirt, but he's a busy man solving everyone's problems, so I will butt in and answer you.

If you have Firefox, you can use the free BBCodeXtra add-on to italicize, underline, make things bold, and cross things out.

BBCodeXtra can be downloaded here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/bbcodextra/

BBCodeXtra can also make urls clickable and post images (though I haven't done the latter in so long I don't remember how).

On this site (with BBCodeXtra installed), highlight the relevant text, right-click, and a box will open. Choose xhtmlXtra. Another box will open; click on whatever you want to do.

If it shows up correctly in Preview, that's what you'll see in your final post. If it doesn't show up correctly in Preview, you'll need to go back and figure out what you did wrong.
===

In the absence of BBCodeXtra, you can italicize the old-fashioned way by putting before what you want to italicize and after [but don't space after the ]. You can also use and for italics.

Underlining is and . Or and .

Bolding is and . Or and .

You can practice at the Test forum (linked at the bottom of the main page), and you'll find other html tags in some of the posts there.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/test/

A whole new world awaits you!