📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Dvortsovyi (Palace)
- 🌍 Origin: A Russian commercial variety. The name translates to “Palace”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Determinate, but grows vigorously to about 4 feet (1.2 m) tall outdoors, meaning it can easily be grown in a greenhouse as well. It has a long fruiting window.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, red, oblate (flattened) beefsteaks with ribbed shoulders. Can reach up to 1.3 lbs (600 g).
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Highly debated flavor. Some growers report large, sweet fruits, while others find them beautifully shaped but completely bland. Good firmness for transport.
- ⚠️ Grower Warning: This variety is notorious for seed mix-ups. Growers buying from the company “Biotekhnika” frequently report getting small, off-type tomatoes instead of the advertised giant beefsteaks.
Seeds from the “Agro Semennaya Kompaniya”. Description from the packet: An early-season variety. The plant is determinate, with a long fruiting period. Fruits are oblate (flattened), ribbed, meaty, red, and weigh up to 1.3 lbs (600 g). Intended for fresh eating. Recommended for open ground and film tunnels. Distinguished by high taste qualities and good transportability.
I’ve been using my own saved seeds for a long time now, grew it outdoors in open ground, they are sweet and large.
Lyuba, I have this one in my stash for next year. Is it worth putting it in the greenhouse? Or is the plant very small?
Quote from kae-2:
Lyuba, I have this one in my stash for next year. Is it worth putting it in the greenhouse?
I grow it outdoors. My garden journal is out at the dacha, I’ll write down the exact height later, but from memory it’s about 4 feet (120 cm).
If it gets over 3 feet (1 meter) tall outdoors, then it can definitely go in the greenhouse. Thank you!
Lyuba, does it need to be pruned? Did it grow outdoors under hoops? When did you remove the cover? Is it very disease-prone?
I planted it under cover initially, but we had a very hot summer, so I took the cover off early. It is not disease-prone, but this year the leaves on all my tomatoes curled upwards. It was probably from the extreme heat, or maybe I overfed them with “Brazhka” (fermented weed tea)*. That’s never happened before. It’s still growing right now, but I haven’t checked on them in 2 weeks because I was away. I rushed to the dacha on Sunday and just didn’t have time for the tomatoes.
Lyubash, thank you, but you didn’t answer about the pruning 😂, do I need to remove the suckers?
Yes, I pruned the suckers and removed all the lower leaves up to the first fruit truss.
Bush height was 4 feet (1.2 m) outdoors.
Mine were from the Biotekhnika company. TOTAL OFF-TYPE…. just small little tomatoes, and it took them forever to even set fruit…
My seeds were also from Biotekhnika and were also off-types… absolutely nothing like the picture on the packet… and I really wanted to try this variety.
I grew it a few years ago, don’t remember which company. It matched the description perfectly. The bush truly had a regal/palace-like appearance. The tomatoes were just… wow.. very firm, absolutely beautiful, not too big, but not small either.
The taste – absolutely nothing. Bland. 😊
👨🌾 Editor’s Cultural Glossary & Grow Tips:
*Feeding with “Brazhka”: Lyubov mentions that her tomato leaves curled upwards, possibly because she overfed them with “Brazhka”. While Western growers often reach for chemical fertilizers, rural Russian gardeners frequently rely on “Brazhka” (which literally translates to “fermented mash” or moonshine). In gardening, this is a homemade, highly potent organic fertilizer made by stuffing a barrel full of weeds (usually stinging nettles), adding water, bread, or yeast, and letting it ferment in the sun for two weeks. It creates a nitrogen-heavy “weed tea” that tomatoes love, but if you don’t dilute it properly, it will absolutely shock the plants and curl their leaves!
