Anna German Tomato Review

I was tying up my tomatoes in the greenhouse today and was very surprised—Anna German is absolutely covered in bushy suckers. What is this? A characteristic of the variety or something else?

For those who have grown it or are growing it now, how does it behave for you?

P.S. This is exactly why we need a general variety index, I could have addressed this question directly.

Sveta, I’m curious too. I want Anna German, but I didn’t manage to get the seeds this year. Grow it, and then show and tell us how she performs!

Lyudmila, so far she has only surprised me with her “excessive shagginess” (heavy vegetative growth).

I didn’t notice any excessive shagginess on mine, but I prune it ruthlessly and lead it to a single main stem, because its trusses are simply enormous.
Here is mine from last year with its first truss:

Yulya, thank you. I usually prune to 1 stem too, it’s just this year I decided to try 2 stems on some tomatoes.

Mine has excessive shagginess too! 😂😂😂

ElenaO said:
Mine has excessive shagginess too! 😂😂😂

And what do you do? Do you prune it ruthlessly?

Svet, I prune it, but my bush isn’t very tall yet. There were a lot of suckers, I pinched them all off.

Anna German has started setting little fruits:

Anna German turned out like this:

Girls (and boys), tell us more about A.G. Does she have other qualities besides excessive shagginess? 😲

Taste, height, weight, how is it for canning, etc.?

elsa30 said:
Taste, height, weight, how is it for canning, etc.?

Bumping this question, maybe someone can finally describe the variety.

IriNa said:
Bumping this question, maybe someone can finally describe the variety.

Irish, Anna German didn’t turn out very well for me, because I almost ruined the first batch of sown seeds (from Feb 23), and the second batch (from Mar 7) germinated quite late on Mar 21. Because of that, the tomato started fruiting late, and for some reason, it set the first truss very high up on the plant. It didn’t drop blossoms, it literally set the truss high up! It didn’t show any “excessive shagginess” for me, didn’t push out many suckers, but it grew very tall, over 2 meters (6.5 ft). The trusses were fan-shaped, but there weren’t many fruits in them—about 10-12 small ones, around 50g (1.7 oz) each.

My tomatoes turned out a bit bland, but they store incredibly well, and the taste even seemed to improve during storage. It would have continued fruiting until now, but I had to pull it due to the frosts. I will definitely repeat it, but not next year, simply because new (to me) varieties have pushed out almost everything from this year’s list, and the seed trades keep coming in… 🙂

IriNa said:
Bumping this question, maybe someone can finally describe the variety.

The Anna German variety has been in my collection for a very long time, since the Soviet era… I love it and keep it safe! They always form beautiful, gorgeous bushes with large, multiflora (fan-shaped) trusses. The plants are indeed tall, sturdy, and quite productive. They don’t particularly suffer from suckers (if you remove them on time). 🙂
The taste of the ripe fruits isn’t overly sweet, but it is a pleasant, delicate flavor.
The fruits can hang on the trusses for a long time without dropping off 👍 And in the autumn, in the apartment, they remind you of summer for a long time with their bright yellow “little lemons”…

Anna German – planted it for the first time, Allochka, thanks for the seeds 🌺. Pruned to a single stem. Really liked it – beautiful color, shape, taste 😋, and it can hang on the vine waiting for more to ripen. The trusses are multiflora, but slightly smaller than Tarasenko Hybrid 2. These 2 varieties are identical in shape and weight – a perfect pair for canning jars 👍

Girls, explain it to a dummy, are the Anna German variety and the Wonder of the World (Chudo Sveta) variety the exact same thing?

Tomato said:
Girls, explain it to a dummy, are the Anna German variety and the Wonder of the World (Chudo Sveta) variety the exact same thing?

Galya, you took the words right out of my mouth, they look incredibly similar from the outside.

Tomato said:
Girls, explain it to a dummy, are the Anna German variety and the Wonder of the World variety the exact same thing?

The “Anna German” variety is “ANNA GERMAN”. “Wonder of the World” (Lemon-Liana) is a completely different variety! There is a resemblance, yes…

Tomato said:
Girls, explain it to a dummy, are the Anna German variety and the Wonder of the World variety the exact same thing?

I found this description online 😂:

Anna German (“Wonder of the World”) – A mid-early tomato variety with yellow fruits. A single truss holds up to 40 fruits weighing 40-50g. Indeterminate plant up to 2m tall. Very productive, resistant to major diseases. Excellent taste. A folk selection variety.

So which one should I plant next year? I need to pick one of the two.

Anna German and Wonder of the World are different varieties.

Svetlan, they even invented a 3rd name for these two: Tarasenko Hybrid 2 Yellow. 😳

Here is Anna German:

I grew Wonder of the World this season, but I can’t find the photo right now.
The fruit shape is completely different!

Semechka said:
Here is Anna German… I grew Wonder of the World… Fruit shape is different!

Svetik, I agree—they are different, and the taste is different too! Wonder of the World was just absolutely bland for me… Terible for pickling, terrible for marinating, let alone eating it fresh… But Anna German was great pickled, decent for fresh eating, and the ones that sat indoors for a while became even tastier!

And for me, Wonder of the World was very tasty this year. Strangely, they were larger than in previous years. Grown from my own saved seeds. I would walk into the greenhouse, pick them, and eat them on the spot. My favorite way of eating tomatoes. 😉

“Anna German is a late-ripening variety. The plant is tall, with complex inflorescences. The first inflorescence forms above the 11-13th leaf, subsequent ones every 3-5 leaves. Fruits are egg-shaped, slightly ribbed, weighing 50-60g, sometimes up to 90g (1.7-3 oz).

Color of unripe fruits: green with a dark green spot near the stem.

Ripe fruits are yellow, with a good taste. They look very beautiful in canning jars alongside red tomatoes. A single truss holds up to 40 fruits.”

— “Dachnaya” Newspaper, Oct 21, 2005. L. Fedoriv, agronomist.

Yaroslavna said:
The Anna German variety has been in my collection for a very long time, since the Soviet era…

Do you grow it in a greenhouse or in open ground?

Natasha, what a beauty she is. 👍

Ninulik0980 said:
Do you grow it in a greenhouse or in open ground?

I grew Anna German in the greenhouse, on the edge. Her trusses are quite large, fan-shaped—they take up a decent amount of space… You have to keep that in mind when spacing out the neighboring bushes. This year I plan to grow her outdoors, I’ll see how she likes it out there.

tomatinka said:
Natasha, what a beauty she is. 👍

Verochka 🌺 I love this variety! You could say it’s an old-timer in my collection; it all started with these old Soviet varieties.

Natash, as a rule, most of today’s “novelties” are just twins of these true heirloom varieties. How do we filter through all this abundance to pick the real ones? 😵

tomatinka said:
How do we filter through all this abundance to pick the real ones?

How to pick? Register on our forum, plant the seeds, and conduct tests in your own conditions. And then share your results with all the tomato lovers, exactly like Vera does. 😘🌺

tomatinka said:
How do we filter through all this abundance to pick the real ones?

👍 Only by trial and… error.

How about this gorgeous commercial description I found:

Tall bushes, up to 2.5m (8 ft). Mid-season variety, ripening in 110-120 days. Fruits are meaty, very tasty, yellow, round, large, weighing up to 300g (10.5 oz), for salad use. Highly productive, yields up to 30kg (66 lbs) of fruit per bush.

What won’t they write just to sell seeds!

So we figured out that Anna German and Wonder of the World are different varieties, but are Anna German and “Citrus Garden” different too? 😳

Both are mid-late season, have multiflora trusses, fruit size 50-90g (1.7-3 oz), yellow, shaped like little lemons—they have so much in common.

Last year I grew Citrus Garden, really liked them, but they turned out a bit large for standard (1-1.5 liter) jars, although they are great pickled 👍 For some reason I thought Anna German would be smaller. I planted it this year and am puzzled by its appearance—it looks exactly like Citrus Garden.

A wonderful, highly productive tomato variety. In the greenhouse, the bush reached up to 2 meters (6.5 ft), mid-season ripening. Fruits are medium-sized, oval-shaped with a little beak, yellow in color. Juicy, with thick walls.

Lyolikovna said:
So we figured out that Anna German and Wonder of the World are different varieties, but are Anna German and “Citrus Garden” different too? 😳
Last year I grew Citrus Garden… thought Anna German would be smaller…

This is Citrus Garden.

This is Anna German.

The “lemons” on Anna German are a bit longer.

Elena, thank you 🌺, I’ve already had the chance to see for myself that Anna German is indeed smaller and perfectly suited for jars 👍 We’ve even tried them canned in their “own juice” already 😉

Grew it outdoors. A very productive variety with huge trusses. Produces an enormous amount of fruit. But the last ones get quite small, perhaps you need to feed it heavily or prune/limit the trusses. I pruned it to 2 stems but didn’t limit the clusters. In terms of taste, it is a bit bland for me. Mainly goes into canning. A perfect companion for Tarasenko Hybrid 2 and various “beaked/nippled” varieties, like Syzran Pipochka or Topklipsa.

This year my last two Anna German fruits are just sitting in storage. They are fully ripe, but I’m not cutting them. Just waiting to see how long they’ll last without losing their visual appeal.