Quick Summary of Hippie Zebra
- 🌍 Origin: A stunning Green-When-Ripe (GWR) bi-color variety. Highly popularized in Eastern Europe through collector V. Popenko’s catalogs.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall), usually reaching 1.5–1.8 m (5–6 ft). It performs well in both greenhouses and open ground, showing excellent resistance to blossom drop during heatwaves or cold snaps. Note: There is a known split in the seed-saving community regarding the foliage. Both Regular Leaf (RL) and Potato Leaf (PL) strains are currently circulating, and both produce the correct fruit!
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Beautiful flat-round fruits. The exterior is green with vivid red, pink, and purple stripes. The interior is a striking green with a bright pink/red starburst core. Average weight is around 100–250 g (3.5–9 oz), though some catalogs claim they can reach up to 400 g (14 oz).
- 👅 Flavor: Excellent and complex. Growers note a dominant sweetness followed by a pleasant, clear tang/acidity. The flesh is both meaty and juicy with subtle fruity notes. Often compared to Green Copia, but slightly smaller.
- ⏳ Maturity: Mid-season.
Hippie Zebra (Хипповая зебра) – a new variety from V. Popenko’s catalog with a funny name 😄. A tall, fairly productive variety with beautiful green striped fruits up to 200 grams / 7 oz (I didn’t get the “up to 400g” claimed by Popenko 🤷♀️). On the cut, it has a pink core, I love such “highlights” 🥰. The taste is very good, balanced with a nice tang. It is similar to the Green Copia variety, only the fruits are smaller and there is less red color inside.
I’ll add some photos.
I liked the variety, the seeds were from Popenko.
Description from his catalog: Indeterminate. The fruits are flat-round, with red, green, and purple stripes, superb taste, weighing up to 400 g (14 oz). The bushes look absolutely stunning!
My impressions of the variety:
I grew it outdoors in open ground, the bush height was 1.6 m (5.2 ft), yield was below average. The taste of the tomatoes is very pleasant; at first, you feel the sweetness, and then there is a clear tang. There is an elusive aftertaste (but not spicy). I rated the taste 5-. The tomato is beautiful on the cut: green with red rays.
Girls, can you tell me what kind of leaf it should have? Mine came out with Potato Leaves (PL)…
Elena said:
Girls, can you tell me what kind of leaf it should have? Mine came out with Potato Leaves (PL)…
Len, you puzzled me. Since I don’t remember, it was most likely a regular leaf (RL). We can ask Lena Danko, she also grew it in 2016, and she most likely remembers which one it was.
I found it in Kushnareva’s database (Tatiana’s TOMATObase) and a friend answered me on social media – it’s a potato leaf (PL). So mine is correct, it seems.
The Hippie Zebra variety turned out very productive in the greenhouse, mid-season ripening, 1.8 meters (6 ft) tall. The fruits were medium-sized, flat-round, green with red stripes. Very tasty, sweet, juicy with fruity notes.
I grew it in 2016 in a film greenhouse. It was up to 1.5 m (5 ft) tall, potato leaf (PL). Productive (for me, it was 4 trusses of 4 tomatoes weighing 100-250 g / 3.5-9 oz). It didn’t drop its blossoms during hot days or cold days. It didn’t get sick. The texture is meaty and juicy at the same time. I won’t say anything about the taste, because my soil was poor. Very beautiful!
I will be growing this variety for the first time. So far, all 5 seedlings have a regular leaf (RL). I couldn’t have mixed them up; I only have a couple with potato leaves this year, and they are far from this one on my list 😉. At first, it even seemed to me that it was a determinate (bush) type. It is the smallest of all my plants. I checked my notes from 2015 when I grew Green Copia, and its leaf was also regular. I will compare them 😉.
My Hippie Zebra 😄 had a regular leaf (RL), seeds from Popenko.
Svetlana said:
Hippie Zebra (Hippie Zebra) – a new variety from V. Popenko’s catalog…
Is this one already ripe?
Anzhela said:
Is this one already ripe?
Yes! And very tasty.
Planted 1 bush this year, the leaf was regular (RL), multi-fruit trusses, there were 3 trusses in total. The fruits are beautiful and tasty!
