Quick Take: Lucille Tillson is an indeterminate, mid-season pink oxheart/elongated plum that can produce massive, meaty fruits up to 17.6 oz (500 g). Most growers praise it as a sweet, old-fashioned tasting workhorse that yields heavily. However, it can be a bit fickle depending on the weather and is noticeably prone to blossom end rot (BER) and splitting in certain climates.
Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 3-7 Experience)
Indeterminate, mid-season slicer variety. Grew it in 2017 and repeated it in 2018. Fruits are pink, elongated hearts, weighing 7-10.5 oz (200-300 g). In 2017 they were delicious, sweet, spicy, and meaty. In 2018 they had a good balanced flavor with nice sweetness. The flesh is pink with a crimson streak running through the center. Good yield in the greenhouse. Regular leaf, not too dense foliage.
846.jpg.6a5b8b3e985ee1b19bf6caeae66074ce.jpg)
Lena, how tall did the vine get?
My absolute favorite! Thanks Lena for sending me Lucille!
On 1/30/2019 at 20:43, Sofochkamai said:
Lena, how tall did the vine get?
Sveta, it pushed about 6.5 ft (2 m) by the end of the season.
Outstanding flavor. Great fruit quality. Solid yield. What more could a grower ask for? 😃 Sincere thanks to whoever originally shared this one… 🥰
Growing Lucille Tillson this year. Really loved this tomato! Sets beautifully, fruits are large, pink, and tasty with a bright old-fashioned tomato flavor and a nice hint of sweetness (I was a big fan!). On the same vine, the fruits are shaped both like elongated barrels and typical hearts (just like in Lena’s first photo, very meaty with hardly any seeds). I read somewhere that this tomato is an absolute workhorse that pumps out fruit in any conditions. I can confirm that. Even with this summer’s wild weather, it didn’t let me down. It’s still setting fruit right now, hit the greenhouse roof and started creeping horizontally. Definitely on my grow list for next year!
Grew 2 vines of Lucille Tillson in 2019: one in the greenhouse, one outdoors in open ground. Planted them specifically to test which conditions it prefers. Seeds were from Lena Danko. Overall, based on the first year, I can say this variety isn’t a great fit for our conditions. Maybe it just needs a few seasons to adapt (though Abattista was also from Lena and turned out super productive and tasty).
Outdoors, Lucille stayed smallish with a low yield, and the taste was totally mediocre. In the greenhouse, it shot up to nearly 10 ft (3 meters) and set a decent number of trusses with average-sized fruits around 5-5.6 oz (140-160 g). Nothing special taste-wise in our climate. The first few were pretty bland, and the rest were just ordinary, though they had that sugary texture when you break them open. The shape was fairly consistent: an elongated barrel/plum with a pointed tip.
It suffered heavily from BER both in the greenhouse and outdoors. Started showing BER around the third or fourth truss in the greenhouse, and right from the second truss outside. Responded really slowly to calcium foliar sprays. It handles cold weather extremely well, though. Fruits that set right under the roof in September during freezing nights still managed to ripen up with a normal taste. Actually, the tomatoes got noticeably sweeter and tastier in the cool weather, but still nothing to write home about.
Lucille Tillson was probably my biggest disappointment of 2019 (along with Orange Pear). I really wanted to love it. It’s not even about the yield, it’s about the flavor. My Curry variety was also a low yielder but tasted incredible, whereas Lucille was just meh. It would easily get lost on a sliced tomato platter next to other varieties.
Hello, I read your review and now I’m completely torn 😕 This has been at the top of my wish list with such hyped-up reviews. Hearing that my dream tomato can perform like that is a bummer. I also grow in open ground, nobody really uses greenhouses around here. Our summers get brutally hot, over 104 F (40 C) in the shade, so we do minimal pruning to prevent sunscald. But I’ve had plenty of collector greenhouse varieties completely outperform dedicated outdoor varieties in both taste and yield before. Now I’m second-guessing if I should even order Lucille. How will she do here in the Caucasus outside? I’ve read in a few places that she can be a pretty fickle girl 😎
Leila, you’ll only know if it suits your specific climate by planting it. I absolutely love LT for both flavor and yield, easily one of my top favorites. I’m putting in about 10 vines next year 🙂
On 10/29/2019 at 18:04, 777 said:
Leila, you’ll only know if it suits your specific climate by planting it.
Yeah, you’re right. Everything comes down to trial and error. It’s better to just grow it and see how it performs rather than regretting it and drooling over everyone else’s photos for the hundredth time.
Lucille Tillson. I really wanted to grow this variety, but last year both plants ended up being an off-type (or maybe a segregation). They threw slightly striped plums with pointed tips, weighing around 5.3 oz (150 g).
This year, I used seeds from a different source (shoutout to Lyudasik 🙏), and everything worked perfectly! 🤩 Both vines were in the greenhouse, pruned to 2 stems, highly productive, and fruited for a long time. I totally fell in love with this variety. The fruits are massive (up to 14 oz / 400 g), heart-oval barrels. Some have light ribbing. They are pink, dense, and super tasty! 👍 😋 The only downside is there are hardly any seeds in them 😫
Loved this variety. Good yield, tasty, beautiful fruits that are juicy and sweet. Prone to splitting, though. Maybe that’s just in my conditions?
Fruits are elongated hearts, dark pink, weighing in at 7-17.6 oz (200-500 g). Super meaty and incredibly tasty 😋
Here is my Lucy 😁
- Plant & Growth: Indeterminate regular leaf vine. Vigorous grower that easily pushes 6.5-10 ft (2-3 meters) by the end of the season. Can be grown successfully outdoors or in a greenhouse.
- Yield: Known by most as an absolute workhorse that produces heavy crops, often fruiting well into the cool days of autumn. Highly adaptable to different summer conditions for most growers.
- Taste & Appearance: Classic old-fashioned pink tomato. Fruits are large, elongated hearts or barrel shapes running 7-17.6 oz (200-500 g). Very meaty with few seeds. The flavor is a well-balanced, bright, and sweet profile with a dense, sugary texture on the break. Features a distinctive crimson core (“streak”) inside.
- Vulnerabilities: Some growers reported heavy struggles with blossom end rot (BER), noting it responds slowly to calcium sprays. It also showed a tendency to crack in certain climates, and one grower reported bland taste in extreme hot/dry conditions. Off-types (crossed seeds) are somewhat common in circulation.
- Who Reviewed It: Growers from short-season Northern climates (Zones 3-4) to scorching hot Southern regions (Zone 7). The vast majority loved it, though there were reports of it being fickle under heavy stress.
Have you grown Lucille Tillson? We’d love to hear your experience! Did it struggle with BER in your garden, or was it a non-stop workhorse? Drop your thoughts, yield notes, and photos in the comments below!
