Quick Summary of Black Mountain Pink
- 🌍 Origin: A massive old heirloom tomato originating from Kentucky, USA. Highly prized by Russian collectors who often translate the name to “Chernogorskiy” or “Pink from Black Mountain”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, vigorous, and tall. Growers note that it can be a bit slow to start in the spring (“takes a while to get going”), but once established, it builds a powerful bush. Pruning to 2 or 3 stems is recommended.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Stunning, very large, slightly ribbed, oblate pink/raspberry beefsteaks. Weight easily reaches over 1 lb (500 g).
- ⚠️ Agronomic Tip: Because the fruits are so massive, the plant is a heavy feeder. If it lacks potassium during heatwaves, the fruits can develop hard white internal fibers (“tough cores”) or yellow shoulders, and the flavor may turn bland. Make sure to feed it well!
- 👅 Flavor Profile: When well-fed and sun-ripened, the taste is outstanding—very sweet, juicy, and beautiful to look at. Often considered one of the best-tasting tomatoes of the season by those who grow it.
The tastiest tomato of 2014.
Yield is above average, but it took a long time to get going.
Round fruit with slight ribbing.
I pruned it to two stems, and it set a total of 11 clusters on those two stems.
Indeterminate.
Svetlana, how many stems should I prune it to if growing outdoors in open ground?
Quote from Dzhina:
Svetlana, how many stems should I prune it to if growing outdoors in open ground?
Evgenia, how many stems do you usually do? I don’t know much about open ground growing.
Quote from Semechka:
Evgenia, how many stems do you usually do? I don’t know much about open ground growing.
Usually three.
Quote from Semechka:
The tastiest tomato of 2014.
Yield is above average, but it took a long time to get going.
Round fruit with slight ribbing.
I pruned it to two stems, and it set a total of 11 clusters on those two stems.
Indeterminate.
👍 👍 👍
What a beauty! Svetlana, is your greenhouse heated? 11 clusters—when did you pull them out? I usually max out around September 1st, then leaf mold (cladosporiosis) takes over. If it’s a late variety, is there any point in me “wanting” it? Because I’m already getting “sick” with the desire to buy it.
Quote from Tatyana Kemerovo:
What a beauty! Svetlana, is your greenhouse heated? 11 clusters—when did you pull them out? I usually max out around September 1st, then leaf mold (cladosporiosis) takes over. If it’s a late variety, is there any point in me “wanting” it? Because I’m already getting “sick” with the desire to buy it.
Tanya, it’s definitely not early, it’s mid-season in terms of ripening. I pulled the last one out when I was cleaning the greenhouse at the end of September.
In the spring, the greenhouse had hotbeds (bio-heating from compost), and I turned on a fan heater during hard frosts.
Quote from Dzhina:
Usually three.
Give it a try, but this tomato is very responsive to potassium.
Quote from Semechka:
Tanya, it’s definitely not early, it’s mid-season in terms of ripening. I pulled the last one out when I was cleaning the greenhouse at the end of September.
In the spring, the greenhouse had hotbeds (bio-heating from compost), and I turned on a fan heater during hard frosts.
Svetlana, thanks! Sorry for being persistent. And when did you plant them in the greenhouse? Our weather conditions are similar.
Quote from Tatyana Kemerovo:
Svetlana, thanks! Sorry for being persistent. And when did you plant them in the greenhouse? Our weather conditions are similar.
It’s totally fine, don’t apologize.
All tomatoes went into the greenhouse on April 25th and 26th.
It set fruit well, but they are a bit small. It takes a long time to ripen, although the lower ripe ones I have already picked. For our zone, it is more suitable for greenhouses. It poured rain for a week here, so the tomatoes cracked a little bit.
Vika, you are very right – this is a greenhouse tomato.
Your yield turned out super, but how about the taste?
Quote from Semechka:
Vika, you are very right – this is a greenhouse tomato.
Your yield turned out super, but how about the taste?
Thanks, Svetlana, for the seeds. 🌹 The taste is good, it just lacked a little sun to be excellent… I will grow it again next season, I’ll sow it for seedlings a little earlier than usual.
2015 season:
Sliced:
Seeds from Kulik. Grew it for the first time. The bush is tall, powerful. It stalled at first, but in the end showed a pretty good yield. The fruits are large, oblate, ribbed. One of the tastiest tomatoes of this year.
I planted this variety in 2015 from A. Kulik, and in 2014 – from T. Kushnareva.
From Kulik, the variety turned out to be mid-season, productive, but the fruits were completely ordinary in taste.
From Kushnareva, the variety was mid-late, the yield was average, but the tomatoes had a very good taste, with sweetness.
From Kulik:
From T. Kushnareva:
Really liked this little tomato. Both taste, and yield, and plant health. Powerful, didn’t demand attention, such an independent boy. I will add another photo.
Tomatoes over eggplants with mayo and garlic. The green shreds are also some kind of tomato, a green-fruited one, I don’t remember the variety.
No Svetlana, this won’t do! I just recently finalized my planting list, and here you are ruining all my plans 😂
Really liked the variety. In the greenhouse, it grew vigorously and was about 6.5 ft (2 meters) tall. The yield is excellent. The fruits are very tasty and sweet.
In my opinion, this variety is the gold standard of tomato beauty! Grew in open ground, the yield was average. In terms of shape, color, and juiciness, it really reminded me of the Yusupovskiy variety.
This is simply my favorite!!! The little tomatoes are uniform, large, sweet, and didn’t get sick with anything.
I liked the variety. In the polycarbonate greenhouse, it showed a very good yield. The fruits are all large. During the heatwave, it tasted a bit bland—it had some internal white fibers and yellow shoulders. But then again, the fruits were over a pound (half a kilo) each! It needs potassium! Later, the taste improved to a solid 5 out of 5.
Yes, I forgot to mention the white fibers—I had a little bit of that with this variety and with African Vining. Before this, I didn’t even know such a phenomenon existed. It seems to be a characteristic trait of the variety!
Grew it in 2018. It stretched out very badly during the seedling stage compared to other varieties. Planted in the greenhouse on May 25th. Took a long time to get going, set its first fruits at the end of July. I didn’t notice any special yield. I picked them green. By the time they ripened, there were already many other tomatoes. And it kind of got lost in the background. I must say that I didn’t feed it with anything. Maybe that was the mistake.
For many years, our family has been growing a tomato called Chernogorskiy (Montenegrin / Black Mountain). The bush is very powerful. Fruits from 1.1 lbs (500 grams) and up. It sets fruit right up to the frosts, the bush is tall, probably about 6.5 ft (2 meters). The color of the fruit is raspberry-pink. I wonder if it’s the exact same variety or different ones? This is a photo of the same bush.
