Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
🍅 Quick take: Midnight in Moscow (Polnoch v Moskve) is an indeterminate, mid-season Russian heirloom black beefsteak documented on Tatiana’s TOMATObase. Vines have an unusually slender, open canopy and produce 10.5-14 oz (300-400 g) dusky pinkish-brown to dark mahogany beefsteaks with rich crimson marbling inside. Growers praise its exceptional sweet-yet-tangy flavor that blends dark tomato … Read more
🍅 Quick take: O-La-La is a semi-determinate pink tomato from the seed company Siberian Garden (SibSad). When you get the true authentic seed, it produces fantastic, highly uniform 6 oz (180 g) round fruits with a tiny pointed nub and incredibly sweet, juicy flesh. However, this variety comes with two major caveats: the commercial seed … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Ordinary Miracle (Obyknovennoe Chudo) is a mid-season indeterminate variety that produces stunning, oblate pink beefsteaks. It is highly valued for its fantastic, perfectly balanced flavor and its texture—which manages to be incredibly dense and meaty while still remaining very juicy. A low-seed variety with solid yields, it is an excellent dual-purpose tomato … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Orlik is a highly compact, ultra-early determinate variety that thrives outdoors with minimal protection. The bushes stay incredibly short (around 1.5 ft / 0.5 m) but pump out heavy, continuous yields of small, red, round tomatoes weighing between 1.5 to 2.5 oz (40-67 g). With a firm texture and classic, balanced tomato … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Father Goriot (Otets Gorio) is a mid-season indeterminate variety that produces large, heavy, pinkish-raspberry oxhearts. The vines are known for being rugged and low-maintenance, though they perform best when pruned to two stems to support the massive fruits. Flavor reviews are highly dependent on the weather—during hot, sunny summers it gets sweet, … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Orange Elephant (Oranzhevyi Slon) is a determinate, mid-season commercial Russian variety from the Gavrish seed company. While the packet claims massive 1 lb (500 g) fruits, real-world growers consistently report neat, round 5-7 oz (150-200 g) slicers. The flavor is generally considered average to good, but it earns high marks for excellent … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Orenburgskie (Orenburg) is an indeterminate, surprisingly early Russian pink beefsteak that yields fruits up to 14 oz (400 g). Growers praise it for its absolute ruggedness—surviving severe root damage, setting fruit continuously without dropping blossoms, and showing top-tier resistance to leaf mold (Cladosporium). It produces heavily right up until hard frost. Full … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Odesskiy Rozovyi (Odessa Pink) is an indeterminate pink beefsteak with Ukrainian roots. While the original breeder description lists it as an early variety, multiple growers report that it’s actually a very slow starter that ripens late in the season. Growth habits seem a bit unstable (ranging from 3 ft to 6.5 ft … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Orlinyi Klyuv (Eagle’s Beak) is a famous commercial Russian heirloom from Siberian Garden (SibSad). It is an indeterminate, early-to-mid season pink heart/beak-shaped tomato. Like many classic oxhearts, it has a very spindly, wispy (“weeping”) foliage habit that looks frail but pumps out massive yields of large fruits up to 1.3 lbs (600 … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Eagle’s Heart (Orlinoe Serdtse) is a popular Siberian pink oxheart bred by Sibirskiy Sad. It produces hefty, dense, blunt heart-shaped slicers weighing anywhere from 6.3 to 17 oz (180-480 g) with minimal gel and high sweetness. The vine has typical sparse, wispy oxheart foliage and thrives both in protected greenhouse setups and … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Olesya is an indeterminate Siberian heirloom bred by Sibirskiy Sad, renowned for producing meaty, golden-orange elongated plum tomatoes packed with exceptional sweetness. Plants display classic feathery, weeping foliage that can look scrawny despite being healthy. While yield is notoriously light on single-stem setups, multi-leader pruning and leaving fruit to fully vine-ripen unlocks … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Ochre Symphony (Okhrovaya Simfoniya) is a mid-season, indeterminate variety bred by Sofia Saakova. It produces stunning 3.5-7 oz (100-200 g) plum-heart tomatoes that ripen to an earthy ochre color covered in green stripes, sometimes showing a faint antho blush. Growers rave about its incredibly sweet, buttery, nearly seedless flesh and strong yields, … Read more