Belmonte Tomato Reviews

A brief overview of the variety.

This variety was bred in Italy. Indeterminate, large-fruited beefsteak, mid-season. I grow it in the greenhouse. The height easily exceeds 2 meters (6.5 feet). Right up to the greenhouse roof, it’s absolutely loaded with large fruit clusters. The leaves are large, regular leaf type. I prune it to two main stems. I sow the seeds for transplants in early March, and plant them out in the soil (greenhouse) around April 20th.

My impressions of this variety are purely positive. It became a permanent resident in my garden the moment it got to me. Valentina shared the seeds with me. Thank you, my dear, for such a wonderful variety!!! 👍 🍅 Ever since I got them, I’ve grown them annually.

The fruits are huge… reaching up to a kilogram (2.2 lbs). The photo on the scale shows an average-sized fruit. The fruits on the upper trusses don’t get smaller, swelling up to 500-600 grams (1.1-1.3 lbs). It’s juicy and highly disease-resistant. Exceptionally good for juices and sauces. And honestly, just devouring one of these beauties fresh is a pure joy… if you can actually finish it, that is…. 😄

I grew the Belmonte variety back in 2013. The fruits were large and pink, but the taste was mediocre.

Now, someone has sent me Belmonte seeds with a completely different description — red fruits, tall indeterminate vines hitting 2 meters (6.5 ft), mid-early (70 days), very good taste with a nice sweetness.

I checked Tatiana’s TOMATObase — and sure enough, the fruits are supposed to be red.

So my question to everyone who has grown this variety (and I know many have) — who got red fruits, and how did they taste in that case?

Quote by Elena:
Now, someone has sent me Belmonte seeds with a description — red fruits, tall 2m, mid-early 70 days, very sweet… Checked Tatiana’s base — fruits should be red… Who got red fruits and how did they taste? 🎩

I grew Belmonte from Galina Esme’s seeds. They grew outdoors under low hoops with row cover, and the height was about 1.5 meters (5 feet). Mid-early variety, the photo is from June 24th. The taste seemed ordinary to me, a classic tomato flavor with a slight sweetness. The color was red. The photo isn’t great, a bit blurry, but I couldn’t find any others.

Quote by Elena:
Checked Tatiana’s base — and sure enough, the fruits are supposed to be red:
http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Belmonte

I took a quick look too. Tatiana doesn’t have a photo up there, and from other sources, they vary in both shape and color. Besides red, it’s also listed as: slightly shapeless pink with yellow shoulders (Belgium).

I scrolled through the internet like a true tomato detective.

Fruit shapes:

• Flat-round (beefsteak)
• Heart-shaped (in Switzerland, they sell a pink heart-shaped Belmonte)

Fruit colors:

• Light pink
• Dark pink
• Pinkish-red
• Red
• The color of a fading rose

To my eye, Valentina’s tomatoes look red with an orangey-carrot tint.

Totally off-topic: “And sure enough” … sounded like the final and absolute authority on this variety, which comes across a bit like pushing an opinion. Let’s not put Tatiana in an awkward spot; she is one of us, a fellow tomato geek, and she can make mistakes too (just look at the ‘Bull’s Eye’ variety entry).

No, mine aren’t red with a carrot tint at all. It’s more like a deep, saturated raspberry-magenta. It’s just the camera distorting the color.

In V. Popenko’s catalog, the photo looks completely different. The description there says: Pear-shaped fruits, ribbed. Which Belmonte is the real one? 🤔

Are Oxheart Belmonte and Belmonte the same variety?

Quote by Galina:
In V. Popenko’s catalog, the photo looks completely different. The description there says: Pear-shaped fruits, ribbed. Which Belmonte is the real one? 🤔

Nowadays, people make up and assign so many random names to tomatoes! And it doesn’t matter that search engines exist… you can always double-check what the real fruit looks like. Here is a photo right from our own forum! And the real Belmonte looks exactly like this:

On Lena-Tomatych’s website, she has this Oxheart Belmonte from ESASEM:
“A mid-season pink indeterminate tomato variety for greenhouse and open garden cultivation. Fruits are flat-round (beefsteak), weighing up to 800 grams (1.7 lbs), with a sweet taste.”

It looks just like mine! Both in color, shape, and taste description. Here are some huge ones from my photos… little piglets 😄

Quote by Valentina:
It looks just like mine!

Valentina, absolutely stunning! 👍👍👍 I can’t wait to plant them myself. 😉

Plant it, Elena, you won’t regret it! I grow them every single year. Huge and delicious! Just be aware the plants are incredibly vigorous! But on the flip side, they never get sick! You’ll be making tons of juices and pastes 🍅

Girls, can it be grown outdoors under row cover? Has anyone tried it, or does the bush get too tall? I have the seeds, the tomato looks beautiful, but the height makes me hesitate.

Quote by Svetlana:
Girls, can it be grown outdoors under row cover? Has anyone tried it, or does the bush get too tall?

Svetlana, I haven’t grown this specific variety, but I plant a lot of indeterminates outdoors under a canopy. Canopy height is 1 meter (3.3 feet). When I transplant them to their final spot, I bury them super deep, almost up to the first flower cluster. I leave a maximum of 3 trusses on the main stem, plus a lower sucker with one truss. If the plant gets too out of control (excessive vegetative growth), I prune it down to leave just two trusses and two suckers (with 1 truss each).

Thank you, Elena! I am actually planning to test out some indeterminate varieties outdoors this year. I purposely picked shorter ones, but I’ll sow this one too. It’s just too gorgeous and meaty to skip!

Quote by Valentina:
Exceptionall good for juices and sauces. And honestly, just devouring one of these beauties fresh is a pure joy… if you can actually finish it, that is…. 😄

And why “if you can finish it”? Is it just because they are so huge?

So much has already been said about the Belmonte variety, but I decided to add my two cents to the discussion. I’m growing it for the first time. I planted it in the greenhouse right by the entrance, so it gets plenty of space and light.

The bush is tall and incredibly vigorous. It shot off into three stems before I could prune the suckers in time, but it still turned out very neat because I tied the spot where the stems diverged tightly with twine, almost like a broom. I don’t just tie my tomato plants to the top of the greenhouse; I also reinforce them with bamboo stakes for rigidity.

I didn’t thin out the fruit clusters. It set over twenty tomatoes from top to bottom, varying in size—lots of large ones, and absolutely no tiny ones. The tomatoes are flat-round (beefsteaks), ribbed near the stem.

At first, they scared me with yellow shoulders, but as they ripened, that faded. Note that I did feed them with a potassium fertilizer (potash) to fix it. The trusses were so heavy I had to tie them up multiple times. At full maturity, the tomatoes colored up to a bright raspberry-pink. Beauties, and incredibly aromatic!

The flesh is juicy, and the taste is exceptionally good, with a nice sweetness. For those who love making juice and canning tomato paste — it’s an absolute treasure!