Danko Tomato Review: Siberian Heirloom

Determinate, large-fruited, red, heart-shaped, and tasty. Like many Siberian Garden varieties, the bush looks frail and droopy (classic wispy foliage). But in a good tomato summer outdoors in the open ground, you can pull a really solid harvest from it.

One of my favorite varieties. In the greenhouse, Danko grows up to 6 ft (1.8 m) tall. This year, my friend’s plant reached the very roof of her greenhouse, and the fruits were huge all the way up the vine. Very few seeds. Meaty and sweet.

Galina! 🎩 Here are my (your) Danko hearts from this year. Yes, in the greenhouse they went all the way to the roof. They ripened later than Bull’s Heart, but I did sow them later for obvious reasons (we had a brutally cold winter here 😉). The yield was slightly above average for me, but honestly, I don’t remember the exact taste – t got mixed into the peak harvest season when a ton of different things were ripening every day 😉 I will definitely grow it again.

I’ll add a picture of Danko sliced! Here is what it looks like: Meaty, tasty, a great slicer tomato. The skin is thin, so the fruits don’t store for a long time. But generally, they don’t need to – you just eat them fast!)))

Mid-season, grows to about 24-32 inches (60-80 cm) outdoors. The trusses are huge, but it can’t always set fruit on all the blossoms, or it will just set tiny runts at the very ends of the cluster. It’s better to prune off those last blossoms on the truss right away.

A very worthy variety, the yield is significantly higher than many of its short-statured siblings… 👍 For those who love heart-shaped tomatoes but don’t have the setup to grow tall indeterminate vines, this is a godsend. 🤫

A specific trait of this variety is the somewhat frail, wispy foliage that is typical of all the oxhearts I know, so you really need to provide good lighting to get strong seedlings. 📝 Also, it loves to throw out suckers, so you need to stay on top of pinching them about once a week to get a good result. And the result can be spectacular! 😲 Staking is absolutely required, because with proper care, the sheer number and weight of the fruits will pleasantly surprise you. 😉

The very first blossoms are often fused megablooms. IMHO, it’s better to pinch them off so the young, unestablished plant doesn’t waste its energy growing catfaced, ugly fruits. Besides, it’s a mid-season variety, so you should be planting something else for your ultra-early tomatoes anyway. 🙂 Honestly, I’ve never seen an “ultra-early” oxheart tomato in my life. They probably just don’t exist.

The only real downside is that under stress or improper care, it can produce a lot of misshapen fruits. Not necessarily on all plants, maybe just on one or two… there’s always one oddball 😁 For this reason alone, on a 10-point scale, I’d give it a 9 instead of a 10. I highly recommend this variety 🎩

We’ve slowly started bringing jars of tomato juice up from the garage. There’s no need to ration it, because we can so much that every year we have leftover jars that get mixed up anyway. But every new summer season gives me the opportunity to grow one of my absolute favorite, trouble-free varieties regardless of the weather: Danko. My whole tomato operation rests on it, it’s my lifesaver.

I grow all sorts of fancy, rare varieties, but planting 30 bushes of Danko gives me total peace of mind for my winter pantry: juices, ketchups, and thick tomato paste for future lecho and adjika.

I grow Danko outdoors in the open ground. Since this tomato isn’t choked by dense foliage, I plant them pretty tight, about every 10 inches (25 cm). Danko grows and fruits in absolutely any kind of summer. Other varieties might struggle, take forever to get going, get sick, or just push out all leaves and no fruit (throwing out 2-3 tomatoes and then just growing a giant mop of foliage). But Danko just pumps out its big hearts tirelessly! And you don’t have to babysit it with endless fertilizer and spraying. The harvest is always heavy.

For me, this tomato behaves like an early-mid season; everything vine-ripens outdoors before late blight even hits. I prune them to a double leader (two stems). The height of the bush is no more than 28 inches (70 cm). I never get fewer than 30 tomatoes per plant. Whether on the bottom or top trusses, the tomatoes stay large and don’t shrink in size.

I recommend this variety to everyone. The seeds are easily available in regular stores. So for those backyard gardeners who don’t know the addresses of private seed collectors, or don’t know how to order online (which is 99% of folks in our village), or older folks, or those without greenhouses – try growing Danko. You’ll get a heavy crop of tasty, juicy tomatoes outdoors and you’ll always be stocked up on juice and homemade ketchup. 👍

Last year I grew 2 plants in the greenhouse for the first time. They reached a height of 28-32 inches (70-80 cm), very productive. The tomatoes are large, very tasty, and sweet. Very few seeds.

Good afternoon. Could you tell me, is this the same Danko strain, or a different variety? Has anyone compared them? I want Danko, but I could only find this packet 🤷‍♀️

For some reason, my Danko turned out a bit small this year, although the taste is very good. My seeds were from Siberian Garden (SibSad).

Katya said:
Good afternoon. Could you tell me, is this the same Danko strain, or a different variety? Has anyone compared them? I want Danko, but I could only find this packet 🤷‍♀️

Usually, Siberian Garden just calls theirs plain “Danko”. But visually, they look similar.

In the conditions of our abnormally hot summer, and inside a polycarbonate greenhouse, it set a ton of beautiful fruits. But I planted it on the sunny side, and that was a MISTAKE! All the fruits got sunscald and had hard white cores inside. Apparently, it didn’t like the hot polycarbonate environment. I need to repeat it outdoors, or at least plant it on the shady side of the greenhouse.

ALIANNA said:
For some reason, my Danko turned out a bit small this year, although the taste is very good. My seeds were from Siberian Garden (SibSad).

How small are we talking? What were they weighing in at? And did the shape match the standard?

A very productive variety!

I really wanted to grow this variety. In 2018, I bought a packet of seeds at a local store, and unlike my other varieties, I dedicated 5 whole spots in the garden to it. By June, I suspected something was wrong – among the determinates, these stood out with crazy, aggressive growth. But I still held out hope. That hope melted away when the fruit actually set… Surprise! Instead of large red hearts, I ended up with 5 bonus Yellow De Barao plants! This is why I hate buying commercial seed packets in stores! Danko remains a dream for now!

Nadezhda 69 said:
Surprise! Instead of large red hearts, I ended up with 5 bonus Yellow De Barao plants!

Infuriating! I’d be so mad at the seed company! 😠 I’d send them that picture along with a nastygram!

Try buying Danko from Siberian Garden. I’ve never gotten an off-type from them.

I have seeds from Siberian Garden, bought in 2012. I planted them outdoors in 2015 under row cover (spunbond). I really liked them, they ranged from 6 to 12 oz (180 to 350 g). I’m kicking myself for not saving more seeds. I’ll definitely repeat it this year.

Last year, in 2018, I grew the Siberian Garden strain. I can’t say whether I liked it or not, but it’s probably not fair to judge based on just one year. Generally speaking, here is what grew: Mid-season. Fruits were roughly 4 to 7 oz (120 to 200 g). Red little hearts. They kept pretty well on the counter. The taste wasn’t sweet, but very tomatoey with a tang. The bush was between 2 and 4 feet (60-120 cm) tall. It bloomed profusely with sprawling branches, but set very little fruit. Whether this was the true Danko or not, I don’t know… since people above are describing tall plants hitting the greenhouse roof. Will I grow it again? Not sure… 🤷‍♀️

When I was looking for tomato reviews (outside of this forum), I really liked the sound of Danko. I couldn’t find seeds anywhere in the city, but in the spring I stumbled across them in a tiny little shop! But they were expired, 50% off (Pantry of Siberia series by ST Agros). I planted two bushes, they grew normally, and I moved them into the poly greenhouse. The harvest totally surprised me!!!! The plant was short, 20-24 inches (50-60 cm), but it had so, so many blossoms. There were megablooms, and not all fruits ended up heart-shaped. I will absolutely repeat it, but outdoors this time.

Marina Dachnik said:
I couldn’t find seeds anywhere in the city, but in the spring I stumbled across them in a tiny little shop! But they were expired, 50% off.

You know, when I walk into a seed shop, the discount seed rack with expired seeds is the very first place I go to! 😁 Expired dates don’t just not hurt tomatoes (IMHO), they actually help them!!! (Well, in my experience anyway).

As for Danko… it did an amazing job this year! Heart-shaped, productive, tasty, early determinates… they were about 28 inches (70 cm) tall in the greenhouse. A coworker of mine plants them every single year and will probably plant them forever!!! She refuses to try anything new…)))

My Danko grew almost like an indeterminate. It was in the poly greenhouse on the edge bed. Grew all the way to the roof, and the tomatoes were massive, over 1 lb (500+ g). Tastes a lot like Pink Honey (Rozovyi Med), very productive, bloomed and set fruit right up until the first frost.

Danko! My darling, my workhorse! Provides a stable backbone for my pantry in any season. Last summer, due to my husband’s business trip, we didn’t plant out seedlings until late May. We covered them with row cover, but they still got hit by a cold snap. I think the cherry trees were blooming. When we finally managed to drive to the village two weeks later, I gasped when I saw my tomatoes. The poor things had frozen, we had to rip some varieties out by the roots. The Dankos stood in neat rows, looking totally naked, stripped of their leaves, with only one or two tiny little leaves barely clinging to the very top of the stems.

Of course, we went to the market and bought some sturdy, stocky seedlings to replace the dead ones. But just two weeks later, you couldn’t even distinguish my Danko plants from the rest! And it yielded generously, ripened the whole crop, and gave it all back to the people who love and respect this tomato. There are plenty of new, interesting, worthy, beautiful, productive, and flashy varieties out there now. But Danko is for those who can’t or don’t know how to access all that abundance, and are just looking for a reliable, worthy variety in a regular seed kiosk, hoping for a good harvest. Oh, and saving your own seeds is a must!!!

I grew Danko from Siberian Garden outdoors. They turned out as tall determinates, not super productive, and definitely not early. But the taste… 😋 meaty, yet still juicy, not bland at all like many hearts can be. I will definitely grow it again this year.

I grow Danko too. One time I planted it right next to EM-Champion. I was shocked by the resemblance. I’m 100% convinced it’s the exact same variety. I save their seeds separately, but I consider them to be the same tomato.

Mine were from Siberian Garden. Loved them SOOO much! Despite a late sowing on April 10-15, and the complete lack of a real summer, it set fruit perfectly and ripened outdoors in the open ground. An absolute workhorse! When I was tying them up, I had to call my daughter for backup – I couldn’t hold the bush up by myself, it was so heavy with those chubby little hearts. It was sitting in my fourth garden bed, which means it didn’t get leggy as a seedling, since that bed gets planted out absolutely last. It’s earned a permanent spot in my garden forever.

Danko is a total workhorse! A reliable variety that won’t let you down. Very productive, tasty, large hearts great for fresh eating and canning – I liked it a lot. I grew it a long time ago, and this year (2019 season) I repeated it.

The seeds were from an old company “Demetra-Siberia” (they might not even exist anymore). It doesn’t say what year they were packed, but it says “Expiration date: October 2012”. Yet they germinated, grew, and yielded fantastic! Packet description: Danko variety. Mid-early, determinate. Height up to 22 inches (55 cm) (mine were around 28 inches / 70 cm outdoors), very productive, red kidney/heart shaped fruits, 7-9 oz (200-250 g).

I grew Danko outdoors, only covering it with row cover for the first two weeks. It reached about 5 ft (1.5 m) outdoors. I prune it to a double leader (2 stems). The bush was completely draped in hearts, it set absolutely everything. The flesh is indeed meaty, but not dry or mealy, and not bland. It has sweetness, a slight tang, and a complex/spicy flavor profile.