Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 4-5 Experience)
Seeds from Gavrish. Grew outdoors, indeterminate vine. In August, at a height of about 4.5 ft (1.4 m), I topped them. I didn’t notice any diseases on it. The little tomatoes are very beautiful, with firm, crunchy flesh, but not woody. They didn’t crack, sweet, weighing up to 0.5 oz (15 g). A decent variety for cherry tomato lovers.
Nadezhda, did you plant the other Monistos from Gavrish? I have my eye on the yellow ones. Should I buy them? Are they sweet?
Marina, I didn’t plant any other Monistos.
I also bought Monisto, but the pink ones. There are absolutely no reviews on it 🤷♀️. I’ll plant them and see how they do.
Weird name for a brown tomato, but otherwise – it’s sweet (better than Black Cherry and Black Chocolate), the flesh is crunchy. The bush is very elegant, it’s best to prune to 2 leaders. I’ll definitely keep it for next season.
Pink Monisto is not a cherry size – they are cluster-type, cocktail sized, oval-elongated with a little beak. The clusters are small, the flesh is a bit spongy, the skin is soft, it lacked juiciness for me. The bush is sturdy, I grew it to 1 leader, although 2 would have been fine. I didn’t try canning them, but they look beautiful in a jar and didn’t crack.
The Russian seed company Gavrish sells an entire series of tomatoes under the “Monisto” name (Emerald, Chocolate, Amber, and Pink). “Monisto” traditionally refers to a necklace made of coins, hinting at the fruit cascading down the vine. However, as growers noted, these are *not* the same genetic lines just in different colors. Pink Monisto acts more like a multiflora cocktail tomato (similar to Barry’s Crazy Cherry), while Emerald and Chocolate are standard crunchy cherries.
Quote from kormanova:
I also bought Monisto, but the pink ones. There are absolutely no reviews on it 🤷♀️. I’ll plant them and see how they do.
What are your impressions?
Emerald Monisto. Indeterminate vine, can be pruned to multiple leaders, fruit up to 0.7 oz (20g), firm, sweet, crunchy, and very beautiful.
We grew every Monisto we could find outdoors for two years.
Chocolate was the tastiest, but not the most prolific.
Emerald is very similar to chocolate, but it gave us practically zero yield.
Amber (Yellow) was overall not bad, more productive than chocolate and emerald, but nothing special compared to other yellow cherries.
But Pink Monisto completely surprised us – huge clusters similar to Barry’s Crazy Cherry, loaded with pear-shaped pink fruits. Except they cracked, but we never managed to get a proper watering schedule dialed in outdoors.
For now, we gave up on them and are trying other varieties.
In the photos from August 12, 2020: Harvest from the plants: pink, chocolate, and amber. And the Pink Monisto bush.
Full Summary: The Monisto Series
- Emerald Monisto: A green-when-ripe cherry tomato known for its exceptionally firm, crunchy texture and sweet flavor. Some growers report disease resistance and excellent fruit quality, while others complain of incredibly low yields outdoors.
- Chocolate Monisto: Highly praised for flavor (beating out Black Cherry in side-by-side tastings), with the same crunchy flesh as the Emerald version, but generally lower yielding. It grows as an elegant, slender vine that does best when pruned to 2 leaders.
- Amber (Yellow) Monisto: Noted as a decent yellow cherry with slightly better production than the Emerald and Chocolate variants, but not particularly standout compared to other popular yellow cherry varieties on the market.
- Pink Monisto: Radically different from the rest of the series. This is a larger, cocktail-sized tomato (oval with a little beak) that grows on massive multiflora-style clusters. The flesh is softer and can be slightly spongy or mealy. It is prone to cracking outdoors if watering is inconsistent.
