Quick Summary of Carbon (Uglerod)
- 🌍 Origin: A world-famous heirloom variety, widely known and grown by Russian tomato collectors under the translated name “Uglerod” (Carbon).
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall), but growers note it behaves very adaptably. Outdoors in open ground, it often acts semi-determinate, stopping around 1 m (3.3 ft). In greenhouses, it easily reaches 1.5 – 1.8 m (5 – 6 ft). Regular leaf.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, beautiful oblate beefsteaks weighing 200-300+ g (7-10.5+ oz). The color is a rich dark maroon/burgundy/chocolate, often with dark green shoulders. Some growers report a brick-red hue depending on soil and climate.
- 👅 Flavor: Universally praised. It is frequently voted as one of the best-tasting dark/black tomatoes, featuring a perfectly balanced, rich, sweet, and meaty profile.
- ⏳ Maturity & Yield: Mid-season. Known for producing high yields and demonstrating impressive resilience, often surviving cold snaps and showing good resistance to late blight.
Carbon is an indet., height 1 meter (3.3 ft), very productive, quite resistant to late blight. One of the tastiest among the black ones 👍
Angelina, please tell me, I don’t understand, is it an indet. or det.? Can indets really be 1 m (3.3 ft) tall? Or did you stop its growth yourself by pinching off the growing point (topping it)?
This is the shortest indet. I’ve ever had. It grows fast up to a meter, then stops growing and only sets fruit; in my garden it lasts until October.
Angelina said:
This is the shortest indet. I’ve ever had. It grows fast up to a meter, then stops growing and only sets fruit; in my garden it lasts until October.
Wow! That’s great!!! 👍 👍 👍
I grew Carbon in the greenhouse… led it in 2 stems… without restricting its growth. The bush is strong, with great potential… height in the greenhouse is about 1.6 m (5.2 ft). All fruits are large, oblate shape, juicy, the flesh is dense, very pleasant taste… Stays in my collection.
Here is the Carbon I had (tasty, but unproductive, seeds were from V. Popenko)
Elena, the main thing is it’s tasty and beautiful. And from your own seeds, it will be more productive. Give it a chance. 😋
Vera! I agree that next year it will be more productive, locally adapted tomatoes show themselves better 👍!
And I was indeed very surprised by its taste 😋 – very few dark-fruited tomatoes in the open ground have pleased me with their taste!
Carbon from Popenko 😋 😋 😋 👍 🙌
My Carbon grew outdoors and in the greenhouse. Outdoors it was short, burned badly in the sun; if I only grew it there, I wouldn’t have even looked its way. But in the greenhouse it grew tall, powerful, productive, and for me, the tastiest of the black ones this year. We picked the last ones after frosts down to -6°C (21°F), which killed the cucumbers in the greenhouse, but Carbon stood alive.
This is the second stem, the whole bush didn’t fit, it grew in the corner and there were about 4-5 stems.
[photo of outdoor Carbon]
I took a picture of some small and uneven one, I guess it just fell to hand. Mostly they were all very even.
On the bushes, the color is brighter, but the greenhouse is covered with a shade net, so they turned out pale.
Yes, mine grew no less than 1.8 meters (6 ft). Could it be that this is not Carbon?
Nadezhda, judging by the photo, the yield of Carbon outdoors wasn’t bad either? (if you don’t compare it with the greenhouse result) 🤔
Yees, the variety is yummy 😋. It didn’t have a chance to burn from the sun for me this year, because there was nothing to burn on (no sun) 😂. And regarding yield, I would say above average. The taste is sweet, but not bland, and juicy 👍.
Liliya said:
Nadezhda, judging by the photo, the yield of Carbon outdoors wasn’t bad either? (if you don’t compare it with the greenhouse result)
Yes, there were several bushes in the open ground and all of them had quite a few tomatoes, only they baked badly and became soft quite quickly. In general, I need to cover them immediately from above. And the height is quite small, up to a meter (3.3 ft) or so. At first, while they were green, I even thought it might be an off-type somewhere, the bushes differed so much.
Svetlana said:
Yees, the variety is yummy 😋. It didn’t have a chance to burn from the sun for me this year…
YOU are right. I planted it too, will definitely repeat! 👏
The variety became the favorite of this year, thanks a lot to Olya Ivolga for the seeds! Unusual color, kind of cherry-toned, juicy, meaty, and the tastiest for me. Yield was average, it dropped some blossoms. Grew outdoors.
Will definitely plant it again.
I had seeds from Kulik. Really liked the variety, productive and tasty. The tomatoes are closer to a brick color, weight 200-300g (7-10.5 oz).
Very!!!!! tasty “variety” and beautiful. Tomatoes from Natalya Yaroslavna.
Very satisfied. My neighbors are lining up for tomatoes – they will save seeds including for me. I haven’t mastered this science yet.
Good luck to everyone!
I had Carbon from two different sources. One bush turned out with dark red fruits, the second – burgundy with a cap (green shoulders).
Height of the bushes in the greenhouse was within 1.5 meters (5 ft). The yield turned out average. Taste is excellent, sweet.
I liked the variety very much. Bush about 1.8 m (6 ft), regular leaf. Sets fruit well, but fruits take a long time to ripen. Taste – excellent. Yield – high. Planted a sucker from Carbon in the open ground and harvested some tomatoes from it 🙌
Tried this variety in a polycarbonate greenhouse. Indet, grew up to 1.5 m (5 ft). Set fruit well at the bottom even in the heat. Fruits are beautiful, tasty. Higher up it slowed down a bit, because I didn’t “agree” to pick underripe fruits. 😂 But overall – a pass. 👍
Planted 2 bushes in a poly greenhouse in 2018 (led 2 stems each), 1 grew as a true Carbon (burgundy-brownish), and the second outwardly and by all parameters was identical, but the fruits were dark red, such a rich color. Loved both the original Carbon and its red variation (either an off-type or segregation). Very tasty, productive and trouble-free. Having read the forum, I didn’t send it to the open ground, I was afraid of our sun, grew in the greenhouse in the southeast corner (polycarbonate on 2 sides), the 2nd bush nearby, didn’t bake. In the heat it dropped some blossoms, but less than others, oddly enough. Reached 1.8 m (6 ft) in the greenhouse by September. Very beautiful fruits, for some reason they had absolutely flawless oblate shapes – no clumsiness, no blurring, no misshapen bottoms… as if turned on a lathe. Taste is sweet, rich, the tomato itself is juicy, skin is dense but thin, didn’t crack much.
The variety (and its off-type) made it to the top 10 of 2018 in first place for the combination of parameters. There were tastier ones, but to be both so tasty and productive at the same time, no.
Seeds originally from Angelina. Repeating both red and “brown” versions of Carbon from my own seeds this year.
This is what Carbon looked like in 2018. Such neat and beautiful fruits. 318 g (11.2 oz) – this is the original. In the red version, fruits are slightly larger (429 g / 15 oz), denser with a similar taste, and the yield is even slightly higher. In the photo the difference in color is not very visible, but when two bushes are side by side and fruits are on both – you can immediately see that the color is different and the fruits of the red one are more spherical. Planting both this year to check if it was just a one-time quirk and deviation within the variety or still an off-type/segregation.
Trying it from the second harvest already. The taste hasn’t revealed itself yet, a bit bland. For me it’s excessively juicy. Last year, I remember, I wasn’t impressed by the taste either, though it’s possible it wasn’t exactly Carbon, the color didn’t match the variety, it was just red-pink. This year repeating from another source, looks similar…
Not very productive for me. First time this year. Juicy and sweet. In the greenhouse.
Looks strange inside this year. But tasty.
