Cherry Tomatoes are easier to grow in a hydroponic system. With that said, a wide variety of tomatoes are vining crops, meaning they like to sprawl out and take up a alot of space. We don’t have that luxury in hydroponics, which is why bush varieties of tomatoes are ideal for hydroponics.

I chose Red Robin seeds for cherry tomatoes because the bushes tend to stay compact, allowing you to plant them closer together while still getting amazing results. This trial does involve self-pollination, so make sure you have an electric toothbrush on hand for when it’s time to pollinate those tomato flowers.

With all that said, let’s start growing some cherry tomatoes in our hydroponic systems!

Nutrients: When starting your cherry tomato plants, start with a Veg A & B nutrient. Dry or liquid nutrients will work, just make sure you’re dosing according to the product label. If you’re measuring pH and EC, keep the pH between 5.5 and 6.3 and the EC between 2.0 and 3.5 mS/cm as the plant grows. Once the plant starts to flower/fruit, you want to keep EC above 2.5-4.0 mS/cm. If you’re growing leafy greens in the same system as your cherry tomatoes, lower the EC to 2.0 to accommodate everyone. When you start seeing buds like in photo one, you’ll switch over to a bloom A + B nutrient mix. 

Pollination: Because pollination doesn’t occur naturally indoors, we need to pollinate our cherry tomato plants manually. Once the flowers start to open, as in photo 2, gently touch the flower with an electric toothbrush. This will cause the pollen inside the flower to release (it’s actually quite cool). You want to do this every 1-2 days until the flowers start to fruit. You can see one just starting to fruit in photo 2.