Quick Summary of Chernyi Slon (Black Elephant)
- 🌍 Origin: A well-known Russian commercial heirloom. The name translates to “Black Elephant”. It is distributed by several seed companies in Russia (like TomAgros and Gisok).
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Mostly described as a tall determinate or semi-determinate that eventually tops itself (stops growing upward). Height ranges from 1m to 1.6m (3.3-5.2 ft). A key identifying feature of the true strain is its dark, wide potato leaves. It often produces “megablooms” (fused blossoms) on the first truss.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Medium to large ribbed beefsteaks. Typical weight is around 300-400 g (10.5-14 oz). The color is dark brownish-red.
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: Highly controversial among growers! Some describe it as the absolute best, sweetest dark tomato with a rich “quintessential tomato flavor”. Others found it terribly sour with an unpleasant aftertaste. This massive difference is likely due to either 1) receiving crossed/mislabeled seeds (a common issue), or 2) differences in soil and sunlight.
- ⏳ Maturity & Health: Mid-season. A few growers report that it can be susceptible to Late Blight, especially if grown outdoors near peppers.
Chernyi Slon (Black Elephant) – sour muck, just like Pink Elephant, which we grew before. It grows in a greenhouse, the yield is average, the tomatoes are not big in size, about 300-400 grams (10.5-14 oz) each.
Marishka, which company’s seeds did you have?
Quote from Meri:
Marishka, which company’s seeds did you have?
The seeds were from someone on the forum.
But I liked Black Elephant. 😳 Among my dark varieties, it was the largest outdoors in open ground. 😲
I think my seeds were from Lyubushka. Thanks to her.
Tomatoes weighing 300-400 grams (10.5-14 oz) are small? 😲 😲 😲 For me, they are large, and anything over 300-400 is a giant. 🍅
Quote from Galina P.:
Tomatoes weighing 300-400 grams are small? For me, they are large…
Galya, that was UP TO 300-400, the bulk of them were smaller.
Quote from tomatinka:
But I liked Black Elephant. Among my dark varieties, it was the largest outdoors in open ground.
Vera, I liked it too. Only my seeds were from Gisok. Tasty. Only the yield didn’t impress me. But maybe my care was inadequate, which it probably was, I confess. 😳
I planted the Black Elephant variety for the first time last season. I really liked it! It was the tastiest (we were taste-testing ‘Arbuznyi’, ‘Brown Sugar’, and this one). But it ripened fully on the bush, we didn’t pick it green to ripen indoors. Seeds were from TomAgroS. In the photo is one bush, I led it in two stems.
I love this variety! I make sure to plant it every year. It grows up to 1.5 m (5 ft) in the greenhouse, very productive. Resistant to any weather cataclysms, healthy. I also like the taste, although I usually prefer sweet tomatoes, and BE has a tang, but its taste is unusual, I can’t even describe it. Juicy and meaty in a salad, exactly what you need.
This year, a random seedling ended up outdoors, grew unattended, wasn’t tied up, and wasn’t pruned. It grew about 5 liters of tomatoes, but they didn’t have time to ripen, and the ones that did ripen were eaten by mice.
The first photo is exactly half a basin of BE from outdoors, and the basin is 10 liters.
And these are in the greenhouse:
On the first truss, the fruits from megablooms were gnarly; from the second truss onwards they were excellent 👍, I don’t remember the taste. 🙄
I really like it. A beefsteak tomato from TomAgros. The taste is excellent, the color is beautiful. The bush in the glass greenhouse was 1.5-1.6m (5-5.2 ft). Potato leaf. Among the dark tomatoes, it is one of my top three favorites.
And I didn’t like it. I had two bushes. The bush was short, less than a meter (3.3 ft) in the greenhouse; there were many fruits, but they were small and sour. Maybe the weather didn’t suit it, I don’t know. Seeds were from Lyubushka.
Black Elephant short and sour?! It was a mislabeled seed (a cross/imposter), definitely!!!!!
I planted “Black Elephant” from Gisok this year (2015), it didn’t turn out very productive – I blame myself, because I planted them too close together and I don’t have enough experience. It sat in the greenhouse, tall, starting from 1.60 m (5.2 ft). It was the TASTIEST tomato, the sweetest (even compared to Striped Chocolate and various pink oxhearts). For next year, my husband basically ordered me to plant it, and I’m not resisting, in a word – a favorite. 😍 I will also plant it from my own saved seeds, maybe I’ll gradually acclimatize it…
Quote from Marishka:
Chernyi Slon – sour muck
I’ll go back to the first message. Not exactly sour, but with a disgusting sour aftertaste. I planted it three years ago, and I still cringe when I remember it. One of the few black tomatoes that I will never plant again.
And it constantly gets crushed during transportation, although it is not fragile in itself.
I planted Black Elephant from Tomagros in 2017.
It was the tastiest of the black tomatoes over my last two years of growing tomatoes, and I tested about ten varieties.
The bush is quite sturdy, the leaf is wide potato-style, dark. In a cluster, up to 12 flowers (for me), the clusters are large, sprawling. It tops itself. There are megablooms.
I found my notes on the taste: “A rich quintessence of tomato flavor.”
It survived transportation calmly. Kept in storage normally for a dark tomato.
I don’t remember how many times I planted Black Elephant. Maybe 2. Seeds were from Yaroslavna, 2012. I grew it for the first time in 2013. Always outdoors in open ground. This year a fruit grew to 314g (11 oz).
Black Elephant was the first to catch Late Blight today. And then it spread… onto ‘Zinulya’. A pepper was growing nearby… /I need to find my notes/. My mom’s peppers are all infected, I don’t know with what yet, I need to go out there, take pictures. Find my notes. Almost all the peppers got hit by some crap. I will go to Astero with this question. I need to drive around to many plots and take pictures where these pepper varieties were planted.
