Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
🍅 Quick take: Lemon 2 (Limon 2) is a moderately vigorous indeterminate vine that produces large, orange-yellow plum tomatoes. Often distributed as a bonus seed packet by vendor Alexey Kulik, this variety has won growers over as an absolute workhorse. It delivers a heavy, concentrated harvest of juicy, buttery-fleshed paste tomatoes that are perfect for … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lotus (now officially renamed White Lotus / Belyi Lotos) is an early indeterminate, potato-leaf variety producing creamy white slicers weighing around 2-5.5 oz (60-150 g). While yields and germination rates can be wildly inconsistent, growers who succeed with it praise its delicate, sweet, fruity flavor and claim it easily outcompetes other white … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lisichka (Little Fox) is an ultra-reliable, early-ripening determinate bush that produces bright orange, icicle-shaped paste tomatoes. While a few growers find its fresh-eating flavor a bit bland, it is overwhelmingly praised as an absolute workhorse for canning and pickling. It thrives outdoors in the dirt, shrugs off late blight, and pumps out … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Limonchik (Little Lemon) is a highly productive, indeterminate orange tomato that sets fruit in massive, heavy trusses. Despite the name, the most popular strain (from vendor V. Redko) is bright orange and round, not yellow or lemon-shaped. Growers rave about its meaty texture, extreme yields, and reliability, though some note it requires … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lemon Slices (Limonnye Dolki) is a striking, elongated yellow-orange tomato marketed by the Russian seed company Aelita. Growers absolutely love its firm, sliceable texture and exceptionally sweet, fruit-like flavor profile. Interestingly, there is a strong consensus among gardeners that this might actually be a rebranded version of the popular variety Mango Django. … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Limonni is an indeterminate, mid-season heirloom known for its large, bright yellow, flat-round fruits. Unlike many sweet yellow varieties, Limonni offers a unique, refreshing tartness with distinct aromatic citrus notes. Growers praise it for its massive yields and reliable greenhouse performance. Full summary ↓ Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zone 3-4 Experience) … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Summer Sun F1 is a legendary, patented Israeli commercial hybrid bred by Hazera Genetics, famous for once selling at a wholesale price of $350,000 per kilogram of seed. It is an incredibly vigorous indeterminate vine that produces glowing, amber-yellow cherry tomatoes with off-the-charts sugar levels. In this mega-thread, growers not only review … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Korshun Zheltyi (Yellow Kite) is an indeterminate yellow/pink bicolor beefsteak. Unusually for an indet, it grows as a very stocky, stout vine. While one grower found it incredibly resilient in a crappy shaded spot with fluctuating temps, another struggled with blossom drop. When it does produce, it offers a well-balanced, excellent flavor … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Kuraga (Dried Apricot) is an indeterminate orange paste tomato. It produces meaty, very sweet 5 oz (150 g) plum-shaped fruits on skinny, wispy vines. While it can be grown outdoors, it performs much better and yields higher when given the shelter of a greenhouse. Full summary ↓ Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Beauty Queen is a stunning striped bicolor indeterminate beefsteak bred by Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms. In this thread, Russian growers fiercely debate the differences between Beauty Queen and its sibling variety, Beauty King. While some experienced identical plants, others note that Beauty Queen produces slightly smaller, more orange fruits with … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Katinka is a highly resilient, semi-determinate orange cherry tomato. Reaching about 4 feet (1.2 m) tall, it sets massive, forked clusters of sweet, 0.5-0.7 oz (15-20 g) orange cherries. It is highly praised for its exceptional cold tolerance and its ability to resist splitting and cracking during heavy rains and temperature swings. … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Beauty Queen Heart 🌍 Origin: A gorgeous bicolor oxheart variety. In this thread, growers trace their seed lines back to Russian collector V. Redko and Marianna’s Heirloom Seeds in the US. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall), reaching up to 6.5 feet (2 m). A very vigorous grower with regular foliage that … Read more