Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR) 🌍 Origin: A highly regarded heirloom tomato. It famously made it into the top 10 best-tasting tomatoes list by renowned collector Tatiana Kouchnareva (Tatiana’s TOMATObase). 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, mid-season. Features beautiful Potato Leaf (PL) foliage. When grown in a greenhouse, it typically reaches around 1.5 meters (5 ft). It responds … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR) 🌍 Origin: An old heirloom variety originating from Japan. It is also widely known among collectors as Barlow Japanese. One of the strains reviewed here was sourced via a seed swap from Slovenia. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, mid-season. Features beautiful Potato Leaf (PL) foliage. 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, oblate (flat-round) pink … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR) 🌍 Origin: An interesting and somewhat unstable heirloom paste tomato. Its lineage is linked to crosses involving Amish Paste and Amish Red. 🌿 Plant Habit: Mid-season, indeterminate. The plant has thin, wispy foliage (typical for many paste/oxheart types) but is surprisingly sturdy and not flimsy. Highly productive. 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Elongated, … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR) 🌍 Origin: A well-known heirloom variety. It is documented in Tatiana’s TOMATObase. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, mid-season. It features Potato Leaf (PL) foliage. Growers note that the seedlings are sturdy and don’t get leggy. It produces a manageable amount of suckers and shows good disease resistance. 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Beautiful, shimmering … Read more
Quick Summary of Bleeding Heart 🌍 Origin & Name: Another masterpiece bred by Brad Gates (Wild Boar Farms). While the name might sound a bit dramatic, Bleeding Heart is actually the common English name for the beautiful Dicentra flower. The tomato was named for its stunning heart shape and vibrant striping. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. … Read more
Quick Summary of Best Bestos 🌍 Origin & Type: A gorgeous, deeply ribbed (pleated/ruffled) red tomato. Some fruits take on a pear-like or wide piriform shape. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, mid-season. Reaches up to 6.5 ft (2 meters) in height. Highly prized for its stress tolerance—it performs exceptionally well in both extremely hot regions and … Read more
Quick Summary of Banyan Rumi 🌍 Origin & Trivia: A rare, highly resilient heirloom variety collected from Afghanistan. Fun Fact: “Banjan Rumi” literally translates to “Roman Eggplant” in Dari (Afghan Persian), which is simply the local word for “tomato”. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate and incredibly vigorous, growing up to 6.5 ft (2 meters) tall. It … Read more
Quick Summary of Bananu 🌍 Origin: A very attractive elongated yellow/orange paste tomato. Seeds are widely distributed by European and Russian seed vendors (e.g., R. Kraft, A. Kulik). 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, mid-early (often leaning towards early). The plant is characteristically wispy, with thin stems and sparse, delicate foliage. Despite looking fragile, it is remarkably … Read more
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 … Read more
Quick Summary of Bill Bean Select 🌍 Origin: A fantastic American heirloom variety. Named after the grower (Bill Bean), it has become a staple among collectors who are chasing both giant fruit size and extreme productivity. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, mid-early. A very vigorous and tall vine that produces fruit relentlessly right up until the … Read more
Quick Summary of Bandol Blues 🌍 Origin: A visually stunning anthocyanin (blue/black) variety known for its incredibly dark skin. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, early-season. The plant itself is not overly vigorous; it has a rather frail, scrawny, and wispy build. However, it is very well-behaved, easy to manage, and responds perfectly to being pruned to … Read more
Quick Summary of Bobbie 🌍 Origin & Strains: A well-known heirloom oxheart tomato. There is an interesting discussion among growers about the color: seeds sourced from Tatiana’s TOMATObase (Canada) typically produce pure red fruits, while strains sourced from some US vendors produce pink/raspberry-pink fruits. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, mid-season. Like many oxheart varieties, it features … Read more