Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
🍅 Quick take: Honey Drop (Medovaya Kaplya) is a fiercely vigorous Indeterminate , ultra-sweet yellow pear/cherry tomato. Growers praise its candy-like flavor and late-season blight resistance, but warn that it throws suckers aggressively and takes up massive space. Full summary ↓ Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 3-8 Experience) V Vestochka (Elena) 🍅 Member (247 … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Michael Pollan is a highly distinctive, green-and-yellow striped cocktail tomato famous for producing massive, multi-flora (grapelike) clusters. Originally bred by Brad Gates, this indeterminate variety can be polarizing. Aesthetically, it is a garden showstopper with incredible yields. However, the flavor reviews are highly mixed—some growers find it wonderfully sweet and tangy when … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Mango Django is a highly productive, indeterminate orange paste/plum variety featuring elongated fruits with a distinct point (often called “icicle” types by growers). The fruits typically weigh between 2 and 5 oz (60-150 g). The vine has wispy, downward-pointing foliage but is surprisingly vigorous, easily reaching the top of a greenhouse by … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Sgt. Pepper’s Raspberry Points is a mid-season, indeterminate anthocyanin variety developed from the famous Sgt. Pepper lineage. It produces a massive wall of 3.5-5.3 oz (100-150 g) raspberry-pink fruits with dark purple antho shoulders. The shapes are wonderfully unpredictable, ranging from ribbed flattened hearts with pointy “beaks” to blunt plums. Growers love … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Medok (which translates to “Little Honey”) is an early-season, determinate red paste tomato. The compact bush maxes out around 2 feet (60 cm) tall, making it a great candidate for underplanting beneath taller vines. It produces sweet, meaty, finger-like “icicle” tomatoes that hold up well for transport and canning. While yields can … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lampochki (which translates to “Lightbulbs”) is an early-season, indeterminate potato leaf (PL) cherry tomato. It produces gorgeous clusters of sweet, meaty yellow pear-shaped cherries. It was grown side-by-side with the famous commercial variety “Honey Drop” to see if it was just a renamed clone, but proved to be vastly superior—ripening earlier, tasting … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Luch (which translates to “Ray” or “Beam”) is an early-season, determinate paste tomato. It is highly praised for being extremely low-maintenance—thriving outdoors with zero pruning required. The compact bush produces very thick-walled, meaty, elongated tomatoes that are noticeably sweet. Because it ripens so early and handles cold well, it is a favorite … Read more
🍅 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: 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: 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: 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