Buratino Tomato Review

I got this variety back in 2013 from a collector in Riga. Grew it outdoors in open ground. Reached about 1.3m (4.2 ft) tall. I pruned it to 2 stems. Maturity is mid-early (depending on when you start your seeds). The plant habit is definitely on the “wimpy” side (wispy foliage).

It sets 4-5 tomatoes per truss. Average weight is 100-120g (3.5-4 oz). My biggest one was 170g (6 oz). It takes a little while to plump up the fruit. Once picked, they can store for about 3 weeks. The texture is buttery. The flavor is sweet with just a light touch of acidity.

Oh, what a beauty!

Here is my Buratino… Alenka kindly gifted me the seeds, huge thanks to her! 👋👋👋
I grew 2 plants right at the entrance of my greenhouse… and every time I walked in, these cheerful little Pinocchios greeted me 😄. The plants really do have wispy, sparse foliage, but they pumped out several full trusses of these gorgeous beauties 👍. All the fruits ripened on the vine, and then they sat out looking pretty on my porch for a long time… 🙂

Natasha, Alena, is Buratino very similar to Zolotaya Kanareyka (Golden Canary), or am I getting them mixed up?

irina58 wrote:
Natasha, Alena, is Buratino very similar to Zolotaya Kanareyka (Golden Canary), or am I getting them mixed up?

Irina, some of the girls here did a comparison a while back and came to the conclusion that they are two different varieties. Canary is an indeterminate and has much smaller fruits, I think.

Alena Andreeva wrote:
It sets 4-5 tomatoes per truss. Average weight is 100-120g (3.5-4 oz). My biggest one was 170g (6 oz).

irina58 wrote:
Natasha, Alena, is Buratino very similar to Zolotaya Kanareyka (Golden Canary), or am I getting them mixed up?

Canary has a complex multiflora truss, there are way more fruits on it than just 4-5, and they are smaller—mine averaged around 50-60g (2 oz) 🙂

And flavor-wise, Canary definitely loses to Buratino ;)! I’d gladly eat Buratino fresh in salads, whereas Golden Canary is better suited for canning. 🍅

Wait, so Buratino is wimpy even as a seedling? I thought mine was sick, it looks so incredibly droopy. 😭

I bought some tomatoes at the Novorossiysk market sold under the “Buratino” brand name. Some had a pretty long, blunt nose (couldn’t find any seeds in those), and others had a shorter nose like in the photos here—I managed to save seeds from those. Maybe there are boy and girl tomatoes 😄. The fruits were 100-200g (3.5-7 oz), quite tasty, with dense, meaty flesh. The seller said they aren’t very high-yielding, but he grows them because they are exotic and taste great 😎

Svet, that is definitely not Buratino 🤷‍♀️.

Svetlyachok-plus wrote:
Svet, that is definitely not Buratino 🤷‍♀️.

Svetik, then what is it, what should I call it? The name fits perfectly, the other ones in the batch had even bigger noses 😄. Oksana (Tenike) suggested it matches the description for Donskoy Kazachiy 🤷‍♀️.

Here is a photo of Donskoy Kazachiy from Angelina’s catalog. I think they look similar 🙂

My Buratino plant grew to 1m (the height of my cover) and started climbing over the two neighboring plants. Not compact at all. The foliage is very droopy, but at least it doesn’t shade the fruits. Very few seeds, and the tomatoes stay firm even in extreme heat. I didn’t prune it. Right now, the last few fruits are still hanging on, though they are pretty small now. It’s such a beauty, my family couldn’t wait until they could finally taste them. Good yield, and the flavor is a solid 4 out of 5. Seeds were from the Urals, from Tomatinka.

Growing it again—the yield is even better this time around… a very tasty and gorgeous tomato.

Just a heads up, there is also an “official” Buratino variety.
Originator: Crimean Experimental Breeding Station, North Caucasus Research Institute of Horticulture and Viticulture.
This Buratino is included in the State Register of the Russian Federation for outdoor growing. Recommended for home gardens and small farms. Mid-season. The plant is determinate, semi-spreading, with medium foliage. The fruit is cylindrical, smooth. Unripe color is light green, ripe is RED. Weighs 81-89g. Good for canning.
(Just putting this here so people know there’s a commercial red determinate variety with the same name!)

Buratino was delicious and beautiful, but low-yielding and had barely any seeds. The plant itself looks like you just want to “hug it and cry” (so miserable), I barely nursed it along 😭

I also grew Buratino this season. As a seedling, it looked like the most pathetic and “sickly” thing ever. In the greenhouse, it grew to 1.3 meters (4.2 ft). Pruned it to 3 stems. The bush is incredibly wimpy, sparse, wispy foliage, and the leaves just hang down sadly 🤦‍♀️.
But despite looking like that, it was one of the very first to start producing. It reliably set fruit, without dropping a single blossom on any truss all the way into autumn. Trusses had 4-5 fruits on average. Weight ranged from 100 to 130 grams (3.5-4.5 oz). These very cute orange fruits turned out to be extraordinarily tasty—with buttery flesh, juicy and sweet. Absolutely loved this variety.

Grew two plants in the greenhouse, 2 stems each. They behaved like true indeterminates—I had to bend the leaders under the roof, and they produced all the way to the end of the season. The plants are elegant, with droopy leaves, which is actually great because they barely shade their neighbors in the greenhouse. Good yield, and I will definitely keep growing it for its beauty and flavor 😘. Weights got up to 200g (7 oz) for me.

Regrew this handsome guy again 🙂

First year I grew it in the greenhouse (hit 1.5m / 5 ft). Second year I put it outdoors in open ground. It was shorter outside, but actually gave a better yield. The fruits are quite meaty, not dry at all, and very tasty. But honestly, I’m a sucker for pretty much all orange varieties.