Watermelon (Arbuznyi) Russian Dark Tomato Review

I grew it in the greenhouse, height over 2 meters (6.5+ ft), and it is still setting fruit now. There are a lot of tomatoes, and the weight depends on how many set on the truss, mostly 150-300 grams (5-10.5 oz). The yield is not bad at all, and I really liked the taste. It seemed like there were plenty of fruits on the vines, but we never had any extras sitting around in the harvest basket! One fruit on the truss grew looking quite unique.

Beautiful little watermelons! 👍

I grew Arbuznyi in 2012. I got two completely different off-types from the same seed packet: dark ones with stripes, and flat red ones (I called them “plates”). Both were tasty. They are not fully ripe in the photos yet.

I liked Arbuznyi because it didn’t get tomato leaf mold (Cladosporium). It fruited heavily. I thought the blossoms that stalled during the extreme heat would just drop off, but they caught up and set perfectly once the temperatures normalized. The bushes are beautiful, with wispy, lacy foliage. And not too tall—mine grew to about human height in the greenhouse. Even though the fruits aren’t giants, I really liked the variety.

The bushes were quite short, didn’t even reach 1.6 m (5.2 ft). Very productive, tasty, not too large—tomatoes were around 150g (5 oz).

I also really loved Arbuznyi!
Very tasty and sweet.
Seeds were from Marina, Sochi.

Arbuznyi from Gavrish seeds.
Liked it. Productive, tasty, and beautiful.
Grew in open ground (outdoors).

Arbuznyi from Gavrish, also liked it, but the very first fruits were incredibly misshapen and ugly (I obviously missed pinching off the fused megablossoms).

Arbuznyi from Gavrish. An original flavor, but it cracked so badly that I initially decided never to plant it again. HOWEVER, the taste eventually won me over. I will definitely plant it again, and even more than before—just on the other side of the greenhouse where it’s a bit less sunny.

My Arbuznyi is from A. Kulik (a well-known breeder).

Productive, beautiful little tomatoes, very good taste.

Did everyone here have Arbuznyi from the Gavrish seed company?

I didn’t see any striping at all. It was just a regular pink tomato. It did ripen first, though I had to pick it already soft off the vine. Absolutely zero shelf life…

Was it an off-type?

Katrinka said:
Arbuznyi from Gavrish.
Liked it. Productive, tasty, beautiful.
Grew in open ground (outdoors).

Could you tell me how tall it grew outdoors, and how vigorous the plant was? Please!

Planted in 2015, Gavrish seeds. Height 1.5-1.6 m (5 ft), brick-red with green stripes. Pruned to two main stems — yielded 15 fruits. Probably due to the extreme heat, they only started plumping up in August. Not very productive, late season, tasty, cute. I am holding off on growing it again for now.

Ninulik0980 said:
Could you tell me how tall it grew outdoors, and how vigorous the plant was? Please!

Mine wasn’t incredibly vigorous, and it topped out just a little over 1 meter (3.3 ft) tall. I keep dreaming of growing it again to refresh my memory—it was in my plans for this year, but I postponed it to make room for new varieties.

Katrinka said:
Mine wasn’t incredibly vigorous, and it topped out just a little over 1 meter (3.3 ft) tall.

Thank you, Ekaterina, that helps a lot.

Liked the variety—tasty, heavy yielder. Grew in a polycarbonate greenhouse, quite crowded, but it still produced a great harvest.

Seeds were from ElenaN (who got them from Kulik).

It’s good in almost every way, but it has absolutely zero shelf life; it just turns completely soft. The taste isn’t the most outstanding either, just ordinary. I planted it once and don’t want to repeat it.

It is actually on my favorites list specifically for its taste, and also for its size and color! 😉 But I grew it from Gusev’s seeds. I did not like the version from Gavrish at all.
I don’t remember how well it stores—we ate them way too fast.

I also planted “Arbuznyi” from Gavrish, but unfortunately, I got an off-type (crossed seeds). I grew who knows what kind of tomatoes. They looked like this:

NataP said:
I also planted “Arbuznyi” from Gavrish, but unfortunately, I got an off-type (crossed seeds). I grew who knows what kind of tomatoes.

Natasha, do you happen to have the batch number from the seed packet? Just so we can track down which specific batch is the off-type. I have batch 21747, valid until 2016 I think… I’m planning to plant it…

Ellis_Cu said:
I have batch 21747, valid until 2016 I think… I’m planning to plant it…

I grew this exact batch and got an “Arbuznyi” that was completely not Arbuznyi. The only good thing was that it was pink, ripened earlier than anything else, and was sweet.

I liked Arbuznyi. Grown in a polycarbonate greenhouse, it was productive, early, and had good flavor. Compared to Chernomor (Black Sea Man), it wins easily (at least in my garden). Seeds were from Gavrish.

I planted Gavrish seeds this year — off-type once again.
This company’s quality has completely tanked. They just pour whatever seeds they have on hand into the packets. This is my third off-type from them this season.

The tomatoes themselves are decent, juicy, and moderately sweet, weighing 50-150g (1.7-5 oz). But alas, I have no idea what variety they actually slipped me 🙁

This year I planted Arbuznyi from reliable, verified seeds, not from Gavrish. I grew the real, true Arbuznyi!

I planted it this year too, let’s see what grows. The weather here is absolutely crazy: first we had extreme heat, then after May 9th it got freezing cold, yesterday morning it was snowing, and this morning everything was covered in frost. I expect the heatwave will return soon. Under these chaotic conditions, my Arbuznyi will have to survive. I’ll report back later on what grew.

I also grew Arbuznyi from Tomatinka’s seeds, and I really liked it. It’s on my grow list again for 2019. It is very tasty and sweet. The plant grew to about 1 meter (3.3 ft) tall, but it didn’t turn out to be very productive for me. We’ll see what grows from my own saved seeds!