📌 Quick Summary: Cheerful Gnome (Veselyi Gnom)
- 🌍 Origin: Bred by the well-known Russian tomato breeder L.A. Myazina.
- 🌱 Plant Habit: A compact, tree-type determinate (about 16-28 inches / 40-70 cm tall). It has thick, sturdy stems and broad rugose leaves. It does not require pruning (suckering) and is highly recommended for container/patio growing.
- 🍅 Fruit & Yield: Produces elongated, cylindrical red “sausage” type tomatoes weighing 2-4 oz (50-100g). Very high yielding for such a small plant.
- 👅 Texture & Use: The flesh is extremely dense, meaty, and dry with very few seeds and almost no gel. This makes it a top-tier choice for canning whole, making thick paste, or sun-drying. It also boasts an incredibly long shelf life.
- 💡 Grower Trivia: Often compared to similar “sausage” varieties like Drova and Auria. Growers note that Cheerful Gnome has tiny, cherry-like seeds and is strictly two-loculed (2 seed chambers).
Here is the description from the official seed packet:
“For outdoor growing and temporary tunnels. Great for balconies and flower beds. Does not require suckering (pruning). Early variety, about 100 days. The plant has sparse foliage, grows 16-20 inches (40-50 cm) tall. The bush is small, neat, and highly ornamental. It impresses with long (5 inch / 12 cm) red cylindrical fruits weighing about 3.5 oz (100g). The fruit has two locules (chambers), 10mm thick walls, and only 10-15 seeds. There is no juice/gel inside the chambers, but the flesh itself is succulent. Sweet—which is unusual for this type of paste fruit. Yields up to 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) per plant. Plant with 12 inches (30 cm) spacing.”
(Photo credit: Galina P.)
Great outdoor variety. Mine grew up to 28 inches (70 cm). Absolutely no pruning needed. It sets 5 to 7 fruits per truss. The tomatoes are about 4 inches (10 cm) long and weigh between 2 to 4 oz (50-100g). Shape-wise, they look exactly like Auria. 🙂
They are tasty, meaty, and sweet. The yield per plant is definitely way more than 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg)—probably double that. It really does have very few seeds. A great all-purpose tomato.
Do not plant them closer than 12 inches (30 cm) apart. Thanks Elena77 for the seeds! 🌺
Mine wasn’t juicy and definitely wasn’t early, but the terrible weather we had might be to blame for that.
Just a note: this variety was bred by L.A. Myazina.
Such a precious variety! Just adorable! 😍 I grew one plant outdoors and one in the greenhouse. Both reached about 28 inches (70 cm), both were highly productive, and behaved like mid-season varieties for me (our summer had very cold nights).
The fruits are firm, red “sausages” up to 2.5-3 oz (70-80g). They have an incredible shelf life and actually taste pretty good! 😋 There are very few seeds inside. Compared to Auria: the Gnome bush is much shorter, the fruits are slightly smaller/shorter, they aren’t hollow inside (not a stuffer type), and they are a bit juicier.
Here are my Cheerful Gnomes. I bought commercial seed packets (branded by Myazina). I was worried about planting them because there are so many crossed/wrong seeds on the market right now. 😬 But they grew true to type!
Definitely not an early variety. The bush is tiny and compact; you could easily grow this in a patio pot. The leaves are broad (rugose-like). The fruits are small, but for such a tiny plant, the yield is incredible, especially considering it’s still pumping out blossoms. It’s staying in my permanent seed collection! 👍
Good tomato. I got 30 lbs (14 kg) from just 4 plants. I actually had two distinct shapes growing: some were elongated like Auria, and others were shorter and chubbier.
Grew it outdoors under a roof overhang. (Myazina seeds).
Lots of fruit, exactly as described above. However, I can’t say they tasted great fresh. Too hard and a bit bland. No sweetness. They do ripen beautifully off the vine indoors. I used my entire harvest for canning/pickling whole. They fit into jars perfectly. I’ll report back on how they taste pickled later.
Myazina seeds as well. An excellent short variety. I planted them right at the feet of my tall indeterminate vines in the greenhouse. Fruits look like Auria. High yielding, incredible shelf life, and sweet. But I can barely find any seeds inside them! 😳
My outdoor plants matched the official description almost perfectly, just a little taller (28 inches / 0.7m) and definitely not early-season. The yield and visual appeal amazed everyone who saw them. We thought they tasted good, but we only picked them when fully red-ripe. The texture is dense, but perfectly succulent with thick walls. Not a single tomato split or cracked. The bush is compact, healthy, and I saw zero diseases.
alvlad said:
I actually had two distinct shapes growing: some were elongated like Auria, and others were shorter and chubbier.
Sasha, the seeds you sent me grew out like this—elongated and definitely not small. The bush is absolutely smothered in fruit, they are tasty, and they store forever. My husband ordered me to grow these every year, and in larger quantities! SUPER! HUGE thanks to you! 🌺
I’ve been growing the Cheerful Gnome variety for several seasons now. Inside the greenhouse, it grows up to 3 feet (1 meter) tall. Quite early and very high yielding.
Good day everyone! Can someone please let me know if they have seeds for Veselyi Gnom available to share or trade? You can email me. Thank you, have a great day!
I grew this variety again, this time in the greenhouse. Didn’t prune it at all. It stayed around 2 feet (60 cm) tall and was incredibly productive! 👋 Fruit weight up to 2-2.5 oz (60-70g). I actually grew a plant of Drova (Firewood) right next to it, and I couldn’t spot a single difference between the two! 🕵️♀️
Svetik, exactly!!! Add Zhigalo to that list too. All three of them look completely identical!
Regarding the juiciness: it is not a juicy tomato. But you can’t call it dry, either. Back in 2016, we had an incredibly hot second half of the summer. That’s when this variety truly shined. I ate them right off the vine. I don’t really like tart tomatoes, and that year there was no tartness at all. But this year, even the sweetest varieties had an acidic bite. My conclusion: the hotter the weather, the lower the acidity in the tomatoes.
tomatinka said:
My conclusion: the hotter the weather, the lower the acidity in the tomatoes.
Actually, no, not always. When it’s fiercely sunny and hot (like it gets here), tomatoes struggle to uptake potassium—they just gulp down water like crazy instead. As a result, the fruits can end up overly juicy (almost watery) and tart. But as soon as it cools down towards late August, our tomatoes become mind-blowingly sweet.
Reading all this, I’m thinking this variety would be perfect for sun-drying/dehydrating?
Natushkad said:
Reading all this, I’m thinking this variety would be perfect for sun-drying/dehydrating?
It is absolutely perfect for it! It lacks that watery juiciness. I just scoop the few seeds out with a spoon before drying.
I’ve been growing it for several years. It is reliable in any weather, incredibly well-behaved as a seedling (it never stretches or gets leggy), and it is a “polite” plant in the garden—it doesn’t try to shade out its neighbors and you don’t even have to prune it. I just snap off 1 or 2 bottom leaves for airflow.
It keeps exceptionally well in storage. We’ve picked green ones in the fall, let them ripen indoors, and eaten them in early December. I wouldn’t call the fresh flavor amazing—it’s just “normal.” We don’t put it in summer salads; it all goes into canning. But once the fresh summer tomatoes run out, it becomes the king of our kitchen. It almost feels like the flavor improves after it sits in storage for a while. Or maybe we just get less picky by winter!
I specifically planted Veselyi Gnom (Cheerful Gnome) and Drova side-by-side to find the differences. And I found them! 🙂
In the seedling stage, they are indistinguishable. Both are sturdy, tree-type (rugose) dwarfs with broad leaves. They don’t stretch at all indoors. I grew them in 1.3 gallon (5L) pots and transplanted them out while they were already flowering. They grew outdoors without any cover.
The Differences:
1. Size: Cheerful Gnome is smaller (up to 3.5 oz / 100g), while Drova is bigger (3-5 oz / 90-150g). Though this might be because the Gnome was restricted in a pot, while Drova was planted freely in the ground.
2. Shape: Drova has a very specific shape—all fruits have an indented blossom end tip, like Auria. Cheerful Gnome has variable shapes: some have indented tips, others have rounded/pointy tips.
3. The Biggest Difference: This really surprised me. Drova has large seeds, typical of large-fruited beefsteaks. Cheerful Gnome has tiny, microscopic seeds, like a cherry tomato!
Taste-wise, they are standard, not tart. Very firm and incredibly meaty. I processed all of them into jars—they look beautiful pickled, just how I like them. My mom ate them fresh and loved taking them to work for lunch. They don’t get squished in her bag, they are easy to slice, and they don’t squirt juice everywhere.
Photo 1: Cheerful Gnome
Photo 2: Drova (Firewood)
I really liked this variety. A very worthy, low-maintenance, high-yielding workhorse for the outdoor garden.
My greedy hands finally got hold of the Cheerful Gnome variety. Growing it for the first time and it’s just starting to ripen. I also planted either Zhigalo or Drova next to it, and those bushes look almost identical to the Gnome. Same fruit shape, size, and color.
Anyway, I shot a quick video review of the Cheerful Gnome here in the garden:
[Video Link Removed]
Rozalinda said:
I specifically planted Veselyi Gnom and Drova side-by-side to find the differences…
Good afternoon! Thank you for running that experiment and providing such a detailed analysis of the differences! Very clear and interesting.
I also saw a note in a video review once pointing out that Cheerful Gnome has 2 locules (seed chambers) in cross-section, while Drova has 3 locules. The first two photos in your post actually seem to confirm that!
