Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
🍅 Quick take: Striped Cavern (also grown as Striped Stuffer) is an indeterminate specialty tomato bred specifically for stuffing and baking. Producing blocky, 5 oz (140 g) bell-pepper-shaped fruits striped in red and gold, it features thick exterior walls and a hollow interior cavity. Highly productive when trained to 2-3 leaders, its firm walls hold … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Sheboygan is a historic early-1900s Wisconsin heirloom indeterminate vine producing heavy clusters of chubby, pink icicle-shaped plum tomatoes in the 3.5-4 oz (100-120 g) range. While historically grown as a paste and canning cultivar, northern gardeners praise it as a sweet, juicy fresh slicer with outstanding cold tolerance, setting fruit from floor … Read more
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🍅 Quick take: Sarnowski Polish Plum is an authentic Polish heirloom indeterminate vine producing meaty, elongated red plum-paste fruits in the 5-9 oz (150-250 g) range. While shaped like a classic canning paste, it surprises growers with an exceptionally high sugar content – sweet enough to eat straight off the vine like fruit, yet dense … Read more
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🍅 Quick take: Dwarf Stony Brook Speckled is an official Dwarf Tomato Project release from the Worry family (Wherokowhai × Speckled Roman). Featuring dark green potato leaf rugose foliage, this stout 26-28 inch (65-70 cm) bush produces scarlet, Roma-style paste tomatoes marked with jagged golden lightning stripes. Dense, meaty, and sweet, it excels in container … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Reverend Michael Keyes is an indeterminate multiflora cherry bred by Michael Keyes (Black Plum × Sweet Beverly). It produces massive flower sprays resembling giant dill heads, followed by cascades of firm, red 0.5 oz (15 g) plum-shaped fruit. Excellent resilience and storage life, ideal for single-leader greenhouse trellising. Full summary ↓ Growers’ … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Russian Queen (Russkaya Koroleva) is a mid-early, indeterminate striped saladette originating from the United States. Climbing easily over 6.5 ft (2 m) in high tunnels, it thrives when pruned to 2 or 3 vigorous leaders. The vines pump out uniform, crack-proof plum-shaped fruits weighing up to 3 oz (90 g), decorated in … Read more
🍅 Quick take: The Eastern European heirloom strain grown under the name Red Alert (Signal Trevogi) is a mid-to-late season, semi-determinate workhorse reaching 3.3 to 5 ft (1-1.5 m). It pumps out clusters of firm, crack-proof red cocktail fruits weighing 1 to 2.8 oz (30-80 g) sporting ribbed shoulders and a sharp, distinctive pointed beak. … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Royal Finger (Korolevskiy Palchik) is a determinate, mid-season paste tomato producing massive clusters of elongated, bright scarlet finger-like fruits on compact 3.3 to 4.5 ft (1-1.4 m) bushes. Extremely meaty with almost no seeds, it excels at whole-fruit canning and sun-drying. Unlike many long paste varieties that are notorious for blossom end … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Red Pear Franchi (originating from historic Italian seed house Franchi Sementi, often known as Pera d’Abruzzo) is a classic indeterminate Mediterranean workhorse. Producing heavily ribbed, pouch-shaped red fruits averaging 7-9 oz (200-250 g), it yields up to 22 lbs (10 kg) per vine. This thread documents both its exceptional culinary performance (sweet … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Perito Italian is an indeterminate Italian heirloom plum. Vines carry distinctive wispy foliage, setting generous clusters of medium-sized, often ribbed red plums (3-6 oz / 85-170 g). Featuring dense, meaty walls with remarkably small seed cavities, it is a powerhouse for sauce and canning, though growers note its low acidity can taste … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Purpur Isonica (likely a phonetic variation of Purpur Isenika) is an indeterminate dark purple plum heirloom distributed by Bulgarian master collector Hristo Hristov. Yielding juicy 2-5 oz (60-150 g) oval-to-beaked plums, it is hailed as a bulletproof “garden workhorse” for cold-climate open ground. It sets fruit continuously through weather shifts and remarkably … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Pearls of Wisdom is an indeterminate striped anthocyanin plum bred by Brad Gates (Wild Boar Farms, California). Vines produce 3.5-5 oz (100-150 g) elongated, teardrop-shaped fruits painted in dusky burgundy with metallic olive-green and purple striping. Growers highlight its slender, polite canopy, balanced sweet-savory flavor, and dense meat that excels both fresh … Read more