📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Dikovinka
- 🌍 Origin: A fantastic commercial dark cherry variety from the Russian seed company “Aelita”. The charming name “Dikovinka” translates roughly to “A Rare Marvel” or “Novelty”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. An absolute monster of a plant. Extremely vigorous and fuss-free, performing exceptionally well even outdoors in open ground.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Perfect, round, dark mahogany/purple cherry tomatoes weighing around 0.6–0.7 oz (17–20g). A massive standout feature is its crack-resistance and the fact that it produces massive, complex, multiflora-type trusses later in the season.
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: Sweet, juicy, and highly aromatic with a rich, balanced flavor.
- 🥫 Best Uses: Incredible for fresh snacking, but it truly shines as a canning tomato for pickling or whole-fruit preserves due to its tough, split-resistant skin.
Seeds from Aelita. Here is the official description: Plants are indeterminate, reaching 5.2–6 feet (160-180 cm). Fruits are round, firm, uniform, weighing 0.6–0.7 oz (17-20g), and crack-resistant. The taste is excellent, the little tomatoes are very sweet and juicy with a wonderful aroma. Unbeatable for fresh eating and perfectly suited for whole-fruit canning. Yield is 1.3–1.4 lbs per sq ft (6.5-7 kg/m2). One of the best cherry varieties with an original fruit color.
I will add from my own experience that this variety is incredibly productive, vigorous, and completely fuss-free. I grew it outdoors in open ground. The first trusses are simple, but the subsequent ones are massive and complex, loaded with a multitude of fruits. The flavor is good and rich. Here is a picture of just one truss:
Lena, thanks for the review on this Marvel. I bought a seed packet last fall, but before that, someone actually let me taste this cherry. I really loved the flavor, everything is perfectly balanced—just the right amount of acidity and sweetness. I will definitely be planting it this year. I just wish I knew how Dikovinka tastes when pickled/canned. My family absolutely loves pickled tomatoes, so I can a lot of different jars.
Olga, the flavor in the marinade is actually richer than other cherries (like the red or yellow ones). The skin doesn’t split! I actually prick all my cherry tomatoes with a toothpick before canning them, but some varieties still split anyway. That did not happen with Dikovinka.
ElenaN said:
Olga, the flavor in the marinade is actually richer than other cherries (like the red or yellow ones). The skin doesn’t split! I actually prick all my cherry tomatoes with a toothpick before canning them, but some varieties still split anyway. That did not happen with Dikovinka.
Lena, thanks so much for the reply. I guess I’ll plant a couple of Dikovinka vines then!
Honestly Olga, I think just one plant will be more than enough! You’re better off using the space to plant other colored cherries. Dikovinka was an absolute monster producer for me, it literally took over all my canning jars 😁 This is the root of my Dikovinka after I finally pulled it out—the root alone was half the height of the greenhouse:
Out of all the dark cherry lookalikes I’ve tried, this is the one I kept in my rotation. A massive yielder.
Did you catch Elena’s mention of using a toothpick before canning her tomatoes? If you love to can whole cherry tomatoes or pickle them (a very popular preservation method in Eastern Europe), this is an essential homesteading trick!
When you pour boiling hot brine or water over tomatoes in a mason jar, the sudden expansion of the flesh and juices causes the skins to violently split, resulting in a mushy, unattractive jar of tomatoes. To prevent this, simply take a wooden toothpick and poke 1 or 2 small holes directly into the stem end (where the tomato connected to the vine) of each cherry tomato before putting them in the jar. This creates a pressure release valve for the heat and liquid, keeping your canned cherry tomatoes perfectly whole and beautiful!
