Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
Welcome to the English archive of the "TOMAT-POMIDOR.COM International Tomato Growers Club" — the largest Ru-language tomato forum, founded in 2010.
For years, our gardeners have been cultivating and discussing some of the most resilient and rare heirloom varieties in the world. We are carefully translating the best forum threads to English and distilling them into pure, useful facts.
Authentic photos, real yields, and honest reviews from actual growers.
🍅 Quick take: Mama Alla is an indeterminate, mid-season Russian heart tomato introduced and named by Canadian collector and TOMATObase founder Tatiana Kouchnareva in honor of her mother. Growing on a slender vine, it produces plump, rounded reddish-pink hearts that resemble apples as they ripen, delivering above-average yields and a pleasant, mildly sweet, balanced flavor … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Mendigorria is an indeterminate Spanish heirloom slicer (originating from the town of Mendigorría in Navarre, Spain) that produces large, meaty, firm red beefsteaks with a distinctive matte, almost frosted skin sheen. Grown in USDA Zone 4, it showed excellent fruit quality, zero cracking, and a classic, well-balanced tomato flavor. Full summary ↓ … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Mom’s is an indeterminate, mid-season heirloom bicolor tomato with a narrow, space-saving vine habit and medium-sized yellow fruits marbled with red in the center. Grown in a USDA Zone 4 greenhouse, it produced moderate yields with flesh that deepens to orange-red when fully ripe and a flavor that develops from mild and … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Menryka is an indeterminate, mid-season variety (stabilized from a commercial hybrid in 2005 by German collector Reinhard Kraft) that produces 1.8 oz (50 g) plump reddish-pink plums with a sharp pointed tip, setting about 8 fruits per truss. Tested in USDA Zone 4, it offers a balanced sweet-tart flavor ideal for whole-fruit … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Moneymaker is a classic indeterminate, mid-season English heirloom (introduced by F. Stonor of Southampton around 1913) known for heavy trusses of uniform, medium-sized red tomatoes. Growers praise its hybrid-like reliability, strong disease and weather resistance, and balanced sweet-tangy flavor that works equally well for fresh slicing and whole-fruit pickling. Full summary ↓ … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Mortgage Lifter Yellow (frequently sold in Eastern Europe as the red-and-yellow Mortgage Lifter Bicolor / Pesta Strain) is an indeterminate, mid-to-late season heirloom beefsteak reaching 4-6 ft (1.2-1.8 m) with large, meaty, flattened-round fruits and very few seeds. While growers praise its rich, juicy, sweet flavor, experiences with yield vary wildly depending … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Matina is a classic early-season, indeterminate German potato-leaf heirloom that produces round, 1.8-2.8 oz (50-80 g) bright red saladette tomatoes. Ranked in the top 10 out of 3,500 varieties in the University of Göttingen outdoor trials for home gardeners, it is prized by growers in USDA Zones 4-7 for its balanced sweet-tart … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Mexico is a classic indeterminate, mid-to-late season heirloom beefsteak producing massive, meaty pink slicers up to 1.5 lbs (700 g). Growers across USDA Zones 3-5 rave about its rich, sweet, old-fashioned flavor, ability to set fruit in summer heat, and impressive size, noting only that the heavy trusses need extra support so … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Marizol Magic is an indeterminate, mid-season fuzzy peach-type tomato (associated with New Jersey breeder Joe Bratka’s Marizol line) that produces 1.5-3.5 oz (40-100 g) yellow-orange fruits with a pink blush. Growers love its uncanny resemblance to real apricots, heavy yields, and sweet, fruity dessert flavor when ripened on the vine, though fruits … Read more
📖 Editor’s Highlight: A personal childhood memoir from forum member Oksana Evgenievna, recounting summer vacations spent in her grandmother’s ancestral Ukrainian village in 1990, just before the fall of the USSR. From sleeping atop massive masonry hearths and harvesting sour cherries high in the canopy to village trees dedicated to wild white storks, this is … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Marizol Korney is a potato-leaf, mid-season dark slicer bred by Joe Bratka (New Jersey, USA) and named after heirloom collector Mark Korney. Vines bear generous clusters of 3.5-7 oz (100-200 g) round, slightly flattened dusky pink-purple fruits with deep burgundy flesh. Northern gardeners strongly urge planting it outdoors in open ground rather … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Matt’s Black (Chernyy Metta) is an indeterminate, mid-season dark cocktail cherry originating from the United States (USA). The vigorous vines easily climb to 6.5 ft (2 m), setting generous trusses of round, ~1 oz (25-35 g) large cherries that ripen into a deep, glossy burgundy-brown. Growers highlight its exceptional table quality: thin-skinned, … Read more