📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Banzai
- 🌍 Origin: A Russian variety sold commercially by companies like Gavrish, though some growers have been saving their own family strains of this tomato since the 1990s.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: The commercial packet lists it as a 5 ft (1.5 m) plant, but growers consistently report it behaves as a vigorous determinate or semi-determinate. It naturally tops itself out (terminates) at around 2.5–4 ft (80–120 cm) outdoors. It is incredibly productive, setting fruit clusters after almost every single leaf with zero blossom drop. It features a great disease resistance package (TMV, Leaf Mold, and Fusarium).
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Oblate, pink tomatoes with somewhat thick skin. While the official average weight is 5.6 oz (160 g), real-world harvests yield everything from 1.7 to 10.5 oz (50 to 300 g) on the same plant. Massive trusses holding 11-15 fruits are common.
- 👅 Flavor & Utility: Despite having thick skin (which usually makes a tomato perfect for canning), growers report eating them all fresh right out of the garden because they are so incredibly sweet, meaty, and perfectly juicy.
Description from the seed packet:
“Mid-early (100-105 days from germination to fruiting) mid-tall 5 ft (1.5 m) variety, recommended for high tunnels and open ground. Prune to 2-3 stems. Fruits are oblate, weighing 5.6 oz (160 g), pink. Perfect for salads. Plant spacing 16×24 inches (40×60 cm). Resistant to Tobacco Mosaic Virus, Leaf Mold (Cladosporium), and Fusarium. Demanding on soil moisture, needs regular watering. Yield per plant is 6.6 lbs (3.0 kg).”
Photo credit: borchanochka
Svetochka 🙏 I should add that the name on mine is kind of a placeholder, because my mom actually saved these seeds way back in the 90s.
Grew it outdoors. It acts as a determinate, but a tall one—it reached about 3.3–4 ft (1-1.2 m) and then terminated (topped itself out). It set fruit clusters after every single leaf! The trusses held 11-15 fruits each, with weights ranging from 1.7 to 10.5 oz (50 to 300 g). Absolutely no blossom drop.
The tomatoes are thick-skinned, but they never made it into the canning jars because they turned out so sweet 😋. Meaty, but definitely not dry. Here are a few more photos.
Excellent variety. Productive, tasty, and beautiful. It grew without any fuss or drama. My seeds were from the commercial company “Gavrish”. Thank God it grew true to type (not an off-type). The tomatoes truly have a wonderful flavor. Height was about 31 inches (80 cm) outdoors in open ground.
