Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
Welcome to one of the most unique and comprehensive tomato databases on the English-speaking web. This catalog isn’t based on generic seed packet descriptions—it is built entirely on the real, hands-on experience of everyday gardeners.
For over a decade, thousands of growers have shared their successes, failures, and harvest photos on one of the oldest and largest Russian-speaking gardening forums. We have taken this massive, multi-year knowledge base and carefully translated and summarized the very best of it for you.
What you will find in our catalog:
Whether you are looking for a bulletproof hybrid for a short season, an exotic anthocyanin variety, or the sweetest beefsteak you’ve ever tasted, the collective experience of our gardening community will help you find the perfect seed for your next harvest. Browse our subcategories below to explore!
🍅 Quick take: Layner (Liner) is a mid-season, indeterminate pink tomato from Russian breeder Petrov. It produces highly versatile, barrel-to-plum-shaped fruits, making it an excellent choice for paste and canning. The vine is notable for its compact, narrow footprint and shorter regular-leaf foliage, making it easy to manage. Growers praise its solid yields and reliability, … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Reckless Driver Vils is a mid-late season pink tomato of American origin. Plants seem to stay relatively compact at around 3.3 feet (1 m) tall but are best grown pruned to two stems. It produces 7-9 oz (200-250 g) meaty, juicy fruits with a sweet flavor that has a unique kick to … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Ledenets (which translates to “Lollipop” or “Hard Candy”) is an early-season, very low-maintenance small plum tomato originally from the Russian seed company Biotekhnika. It produces massive amounts of 1.5-1.8 oz (40-50 g) elongated red fruits. Outdoors in cold climates, it behaves like a compact 20-inch (50 cm) bush, but under cover, it … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lyon-1 (Flax-1) is a mid-season, indeterminate red tomato praised heavily for its commercial qualities. Reaching over 6 feet in a greenhouse, it produces very dense, crack-resistant fruits weighing 5-10.5 oz (150-300 g). Growers love its incredible productivity, noting it sets fruit beautifully without dropping blossoms. While the flavor is described as a … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lya-lya-fa F1 is a highly reliable mid-early hybrid from Russia. Growers absolutely love it for its incredible resistance to leaf mold, heavy yields, and long storage life (up to 2 months post-harvest). While the flavor is described as a “standard, slightly bland” tomato taste, its rock-solid dependability and crack-resistant, 4-5 oz (120-140 … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lyubimyi Malyshik (Favorite Baby) is a mid-season, indeterminate Russian family heirloom promoted heavily by seed vendor V. Kolyakov. The vendor claims it produces incredibly beautiful, sugary fruits up to 7 oz (200 g) with great late blight resistance and massive yields. However, real-world grower experience tells a different story: poor yields, constant … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lampa (The Lamp) is an indeterminate, mid-season orange tomato distributed by the Russian seed company Gavrish. It’s supposed to produce 3.5-5 oz (100-140 g) pear-shaped fruits in massive clusters. Growers report a great sweet flavor with a slight tang, making it perfect for canning and dehydrating. However, the commercial seed packets seem … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Summer Apricot (Letniy Abrikos) is a moderately tall indeterminate vine that produces massive, bright orange beefsteaks weighing anywhere from 14 oz to over 2 lbs (400 g – 1 kg). Known for its tender, melt-in-your-mouth flesh and very few seeds, it is widely considered an excellent fresh-eating slicer, though its flavor can … Read more
🍅 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: Limbo is a mid-season determinate bush variety known for producing heavy yields of elongated, somewhat triangular red paste tomatoes weighing 2.8-4.2 oz (80-120 g). While the seedlings can be notoriously spindly and leggy indoors, the mature plants stay under 3 feet (90 cm) and are highly praised as a bulletproof, long-storing canning … 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: Liguria is a mid-late season indeterminate variety that produces gorgeous, heavily ribbed, pear-shaped red tomatoes. While growers agree it is a vigorous vine that sets stunning fruit, reviews on taste and texture are highly mixed. Some report dense, juicy, and sweet fruits with heavy feeding, while others find them hollow, tart, and … Read more