📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Vifleemskiy Ogon (Bethlehem’s Fire)
- 🌍 Origin: A stunning heirloom variety highly popular among Russian and Ukrainian collectors. The name translates to “Bethlehem’s Fire” (often circulated globally under this exact translation).
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). An incredibly vigorous plant that performs exceptionally well in greenhouses, though it can also be grown outdoors. It handles cold and temperature swings beautifully without dropping blossoms.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Gorgeous bicolor beefsteaks (yellow/orange with red marbling inside and out). Fruits are oblate, very large, and meaty. Typically weighing between 1.3-1.7 lbs (600-800 g).
- 👅 Flavor: Wonderfully sweet, luscious flavor with virtually zero acidity. A perfect choice for those who love mild, dessert-like tomatoes.
- ⏳ Maturity & Yield: Mid-season (often leaning towards mid-early, which is rare for large bicolors). It is praised for its heavy yields and ability to set massive fruits all the way up the vine.
Grew it outdoors. The height didn’t quite reach 3.3 feet (1 m). The fruits are large, but the blossom set was a bit light, so I didn’t get a huge amount of them.
The fruit shape in the photo is irregular, but that’s just because it was the very first one to ripen, so I snapped a pic. Normally, they have a classic oblate shape. I’d rate the flavor a solid 4 to 4+ (out of 5). The advertised weight is 1.7 lbs (800 g), but mine probably only maxed out at around 1.3 lbs (600 g).
My Bethlehem’s Fire was a bit paler in color. The seeds were from A.I. Kulik [Editor’s note: Aleksey Kulik is a well-known Ukrainian heirloom seed collector].
It’s an indeterminate, large-fruited beefsteak variety. Maturity-wise, it was mid-season, actually closer to mid-early, which is extremely valuable for a bicolor. The yield is high, and it set large fruits all the way to the top of the vine. It didn’t drop blossoms and kept setting fruit even in the bitter cold of January June! The variety completely delighted me with its flavor, too.
I’ll follow up on my Bethlehem’s Fire right after Tatiana, who gave me the seeds at the February 2015 St. Petersburg growers’ meet-up (huge thanks to her!).
I had two plants in the greenhouse. One did okay, but the second one was absolutely loaded with tomatoes! It turned out to be one of the absolute best varieties for setting fruit during a cold summer. The plant grew to 6.5 feet (2 m) tall, pruned to a single leader. The fruits ripen gradually and start early. My personal size record so far is 1.5 lbs (674 g), and it was set thanks to this exact variety.
My Bethlehem’s Fire was also one of the early ones (seeds from Tatiana). Despite the fact that it lived in partial shade, it set fruit really well. Grew it in the greenhouse, reaching a height of about 5.5 feet (1.7 m). Taste-wise, it is completely sweet, with zero acidity. 😋
Bethlehem’s Fire — seeds from Nadezhda in Volgograd. It grew in quite a bit of shade, which might be why it wasn’t super productive for me.
A slice view.
Tall bush, average foliage density. Quite productive, produces large fruits, and very sweet.
Productive, delicious, and beautiful. I’d love to give it a permanent spot in my garden and grow it every year, but for now, I’m just trying to figure out where I’ll even be growing tomatoes next.
