Quick Summary of Bella
- 🌿 Plant Habit: INDETERMINATE (Tall/Vining). The plant is slender and relatively compact for an indeterminate, typically reaching around 1.5 m (5 ft) in a greenhouse. The foliage is sparse and wispy, not overly dense.
- 🌍 Origin: A stunning striped heirloom variety, popular among Russian collectors for its striking appearance.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Beautiful elongated plum-hearts, often with a distinct beak (nipple) at the blossom end. The skin is a bright, vibrant red adorned with brilliant gold stripes. The interior is very meaty and marbled (bicolor). Weight ranges from 80g to 230g (2.8-8 oz).
- 👅 Flavor: Ranges from ordinary to pleasantly sweet. While it may not win top flavor awards against the absolute best heirlooms, it has a nice sweetness and is not dry or hollow inside, making it excellent for processing.
- ⏳ Maturity & Yield: Mid-season. Grower Warning: The primary drawbacks of this variety are its below-average yield and high susceptibility to Blossom End Rot (BER). However, many growers gladly repeat it simply because the fruits are visually spectacular and look amazing whole-canned in jars.
I ordered seeds from Lena Danko. Here is her description:
Slender bush, Height 1.5m (5 ft), foliage is not dense. The fruits are very beautiful elongated plum-hearts with a beak. Sometimes heart-shaped fruits appear on the bush. The coloring is an unusually bright red with gold stripes. Very meaty, sweet. Weight from 120g to 230g (4-8 oz). Mostly they were large.
For me, it turned out to be a low-yielding tomato with an ordinary taste, though with a touch of sweetness. However, it’s hard for me to write about taste this year. Previously, I would have written that it is very tasty. But this season I had a lot of tomatoes that were much tastier. It looks very similar to Streak Lightning (Полоса молнии), but larger. It didn’t particularly impress me, but my neighbor simply fell in love with it and asked for seeds.
A short, slender bush in the greenhouse. It was approximately 1.5m (5 ft) tall. Fruits from 80-200g (2.8-7 oz). The yield is below average, and it is highly susceptible to BER (blossom end rot). The taste is mediocre, but if you are growing it for the beauty of the fruit, then yes, it is beautiful.
I liked the variety, it’s beautiful, the fruits had some sweetness, they were not dry and not hollow. The yield was below average.
Edited December 27, 2018 by Tomatanya
I grew this beautiful variety this year. It grew outdoors in open ground. The yield really wasn’t great, but what a handsome guy! The taste is good. I will probably repeat it for its beauty. And I liked it in jars (for canning).
Mine grows in this shape. Looks like Striped Heart (Полосатое сердце). But only on the outside. Striped Heart is just red inside. But this handsome guy is a bicolor inside.
