Quick Summary of Efemer
- 🌍 Origin: A very popular, reliable, and trouble-free commercial/heirloom variety from Eastern Europe (Ukraine/Russia/Moldova).
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Determinate (bush) type. Typically grows to about 60-70 cm (24-28 inches) outdoors, but can reach 1 m (3.2 ft) in a greenhouse. Requires minimal pruning.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Perfectly round, smooth red fruits weighing around 80-100g (2.8-3.5 oz). They are crack-resistant with medium-thick skin, making them excellent for transport and processing.
- 👅 Flavor: A very classic, traditional “old-fashioned” tomato flavor. While it may not win exotic tasting competitions, its taste is incredibly consistent throughout the entire season.
- ⏳ Maturity & Yield: Ultra-early. It is often one of the very first tomatoes to ripen in the garden (80-100 days from emergence). Yields are massive, up to 10 kg per square meter (approx. 22 lbs per 10 sq ft).
- 💪 Disease Resistance: Highly valued for its strong resistance to Late Blight (Phytophthora), producing reliable harvests even in cold, rainy summers.
Seeds are from “Urojay U-Dachi”
Determinate variety, 2 bushes grew in the greenhouse with a height of about 1m (3.2 ft).
These tomatoes were among the very first to turn red.
Leaf type – regular, I pruned the suckers only up to the 1st truss.
The bushes didn’t turn out to be tree-type (rugose) 🤷
Fruits – round, uniform, up to 80 g (2.8 oz), did not crack.
Yield – excellent, but the trusses need to be thinned out, otherwise the fruits tend to shrink to the size of peas. 🤫
Taste – classic tomato, consistent throughout the entire season (it was very convenient to use it as a baseline to taste-test all other varieties against it!)
I saved the seeds again, since I’ve been planting this variety for two years, but having tried many other varieties, I will think about whether it’s worth planting again…
On one bush, as many as 8 trusses were blooming simultaneously!
I don’t have a cross-section photo, but here it is in comparison: on top is Purple Brandy, then Legenda Tarasenko, and two little Efemers:
Catalog Description for Efemer Tomatoes:
- Ripening: Early-season
- Purpose: For fresh consumption and processing into tomato products
- Taste qualities: Excellent
- Commercial qualities: High
- Main advantage: Ultra-early self-pollinating variety, valued for its disease resistance and good transportability of fruits
- Planting scheme: 50 x 40 cm (20 x 16 inches), planting density – 7-9 plants per 1 sq m.
- Cultivation: For open ground and film tunnels
- Period from emergence to start of ripening: 80 – 100 days
- Disease resistance: Resistant to Late Blight (Phytophthora)
- Fruit description: Red color, good density, round shape. Weight: 80 – 100g (2.8 – 3.5 oz). High transportability. No green spot at the stem.
- Plant features: Even without pruning suckers in a cold rainy summer, the fruits of this variety always fully ripen. Height: 60 – 70 cm (24-28 in). Determinate bush.
- Total Yield: Up to 10 kg/m² (approx 22 lbs per 10 sq ft).
A normal tomato, trouble-free. If you don’t need super early fruits, you can direct sow them straight into the open ground without any hassle (at least in our climate).
Quote by Rok5:
There is a cross-section photo very similar to mine here – a link to Happy Garden…
Is their skin thin or thick? Are they better for pickling or fresh eating?
The skin is medium, not very thin, but not too tough either. However, for whole-canning/pickling, they turn out a bit too large for my preference, I like smaller ones for that. For fresh eating, there are certainly tastier varieties out there, but these are tasty too. And outdoors in the open ground, because of their trouble-free growing, they are great for processing into sauces/paste.
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