🍅 Quick take: Pink Lemon (Reinhard Kraft strain) is a mid-season, semi-compact indeterminate bicolor producing 8-10 oz (220-280 g) oblate beefsteaks. The golden-yellow skin develops a soft pink blush at the blossom end, revealing a dense interior marbled with a red central starburst. Growers praise its ability to hold high sugar levels even when grown on lean sandy soils or counter-ripened indoors, though it is frequently confused with an unrelated yellow multiflora sold under the same name in the US. Skip to the strain identity debate ↓ | Full summary ↓
Growers’ Notes and Field Trials (USDA Zones 4-5)
Indeterminate, mid-season salad bicolor. Fruits are oblate, orange-yellow, developing a gentle pink blush on the skin as they fully ripen. Inside they show a vibrant red center core. Very aromatic, dense, and meaty.Outstanding flavor with plenty of sweetness. What really impressed me was that it held on to that lovely sweet flavor even in fruits that were picked early and counter-ripened indoors off the vine. Seeds came from a trading partner on the Prihoz gardening forum, originally sourced from Reinhard Kraft in Germany. Definitely a repeater for me.
Did some research online and realized there are two completely different varieties circulating under this name: one is an elongated plum/paste type, and then there is this true beefsteak.
Edited January 17, 2016 by ElenaN
I would like to add that although the vine is indeterminate (continuous vine growth), it stays fairly polite in height. Inside my greenhouse, it stopped around 4.5 ft (1.4 m).Average fruit weight ran 8.5 oz (240 g), pulling about 5.3 lbs (2.4 kg) per vine. Fruity, sweet flavor. In fact, this was the very first bicolor in my patch that was genuinely sweet; many other bicolors turned out completely bland in my sandy soil.
Grew this variety for a second consecutive season. Flavor stayed purely sweet; personally, I missed having a little more acid kick to balance it out. The fruits themselves are stunning and top-tier quality. Ran it in the greenhouse.
Grew mine in the greenhouse, topped out at 5 ft (1.5 m), no taller. Oblate, dense, handsome tomatoes. Indeterminate, mid-season.Flavor did not impress me at all: pretty insipid, lacking both sweetness and acid punch.
The Two “Pink Lemons”: German Bicolor Beefsteak vs. US Citrus Strain
I have a completely different Pink Lemon in my garden. I purchased mine from an American seed house over at TomatoFest.Here is my harvest photo:
Inna C. said:
I have a completely different Pink Lemon. I purchased mine from an American seed house…
Most likely what you have there is Citrus Garden (Tsitrusovyi Sad). The pointed lemon fruit shape, color, and massive branched multiflora cluster match it to a tee, and there isn’t a hint of pink on it. Even the vendor catalog describes that one as pure yellow-orange.
Full Summary: Habit, Flavor Dynamics, and Strain Disambiguation
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Semi-compact indeterminate vine reaching 4.5-5 ft (1.4-1.5 m) under greenhouse glass. Easily managed, polite grower that does not create an unruly jungle.
- 🍅 Fruit & Interior Flesh: Oblate, medium-large beefsteaks averaging 8.5 oz (240 g). Warm yellow-orange exterior with a delicate rose-pink blossom-end wash; interior features dense, low-acid yellow meat marbled with a pinkish-red starburst.
- 👅 Flavor Profile: Predominantly sweet and fruity with low acidity. Noted for performing exceptionally well on sandy soils where other bicolors frequently turn watery and bland. Maintains sweetness when harvested early and ripened indoors off the vine.
- 📈 Yield: Moderate and steady, averaging 5.3 lbs (2.4 kg) per plant in cooler northern regions.
- ⚠️ Variety Confusion: Two distinct tomatoes share this name:
- Reinhard Kraft Strain (Reviewed Here): The European oblate bicolor beefsteak with pink marbling.
- TomatoFest / US Strain: A pointed, pure yellow-orange multiflora or plum (often identical to or confused with Citrus Garden / Lemon Plum).
- 🌎 Reviewed By: Cold-region growers in Moscow Region (Zone 4), Kostroma (Zone 4), Saratov (Zone 5), and the Urals (Zone 3).
🍅 Grown Pink Lemon? Did you get the German bicolor beefsteak or the pointed yellow multiflora? Drop a comment below!
👨🌾 Editor’s Note: Untangling the “Pink Lemon” Seed Trade
The name Pink Lemon represents one of the classic homonym traps in the heirloom tomato world:
1. The German Beefsteak: Preserved and circulated across Europe by German master collector Reinhard Kraft (Neukirchen, Germany). This is a true oblate bicolor slicer with sweet, low-acid yellow flesh and a red interior blush.
2. The American TomatoFest Strain: Gary Ibsen’s California catalog distributed a small, pointed, pure yellow-orange fruit described as lemon-shaped. In post-Soviet seed circles, this phenotype is virtually indistinguishable from Tsitrusovyi Sad (Citrus Garden) or Chudo Sveta (Wonder of the World), featuring massive multiflora trusses bearing dozens of small lemon-like fruits.
The name Pink Lemon represents one of the classic homonym traps in the heirloom tomato world:
1. The German Beefsteak: Preserved and circulated across Europe by German master collector Reinhard Kraft (Neukirchen, Germany). This is a true oblate bicolor slicer with sweet, low-acid yellow flesh and a red interior blush.
2. The American TomatoFest Strain: Gary Ibsen’s California catalog distributed a small, pointed, pure yellow-orange fruit described as lemon-shaped. In post-Soviet seed circles, this phenotype is virtually indistinguishable from Tsitrusovyi Sad (Citrus Garden) or Chudo Sveta (Wonder of the World), featuring massive multiflora trusses bearing dozens of small lemon-like fruits.
