Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 3a-4b Experience)
One of my absolute best varieties this year. Vines hit about 5.5 feet (1.7m) tall, very tidy with wispy foliage. It’s a heavy yielder, loaded with beautiful, uniform heart-shaped fruits. Barely any seeds and the flavor is great. Weights ran 4–5 oz (120–150g). Grew it in the greenhouse, pruned to two stems. Seeds from Redko.
Thanks for the info, Irina. I’m definitely giving it a try in 2016, it looks like a real beauty.
Really kicking myself for not planting it during this rough season 😢
Awesome variety 👍! I grew it last year and was just thrilled with it. One of my heaviest yielders. Even with almost zero maintenance (I was stuck in the hospital and got to suckering it way too late), it set a massive crop. Good, classic tomato flavor.
Grew it in the greenhouse. It’s a tall indet that yields like crazy 😲. Barely takes up any space. Was one of the very first to start blushing. The hearts are elongated, glossy, tasty, and not overly acidic. Not massive, but you get a lot per truss. Only downside was I got some yellow shoulders.
Gorgeous tomato… definitely adding this to my wish list 🙂
Got my seeds from Kulik. Grew it in a hoop house. The vines got up to about 8.2 feet (2.5m). A chunk of the crop got hit with BER (my soil is slightly acidic). Even with that, the yield was fantastic. The fruit was sweet, tasty, and plenty juicy.
ilja said:
Got my seeds from Kulik. Grew it in a hoop house… The fruit was sweet, tasty, and plenty juicy.
Ilya, is it just me, or does your GRS have faint stripes? And the shape doesn’t really look like a heart. 😳
Mine, just like the other folks here, was distinctly heart-shaped and a heavy producer. Grew it in the dirt in 2016. Indeterminate, huge yields, meaty fruit with very few seeds.
Galina P. said:
Ilya, is it just me, or does your GRS have faint stripes? And the shape doesn’t really look like a heart. 😳
Galina, I figured there might just be different variations floating around.
ilja said:
Galina, I figured there might just be different variations floating around. Here is a pic from tatianastomatobase.com
Ilya, the photo you pulled from her site actually belongs to collectors Dan and Val McMurray. It’s totally possible there’s a variation out there, I’ve just never seen that shape before. 🤷♀️🙄
Ilya, unfortunately, you’ve definitely got crossed seeds. 😢
I was messaging back and forth with Tatiana Kushnareva about this, and here is what she told me:
“Sometimes the very first fruit looks odd… but they shouldn’t all look like that. It’s not the typical shape for this variety. It’s a mix-up. Often you get a couple of wonky fruits on a vine… but if they are all atypical, or the majority are, it’s definitely something else…”
Don’t sweat it though, Ilya. Crosses happen even with famous collectors. Kulik is no exception. If it tastes good, it has every right to stick around in your garden under a working name. 🙂
Galina P. said:
Don’t sweat it though, Ilya. Crosses happen even with famous collectors… If it tastes good, it has every right to stick around in your garden under a working name.
Galina, you’re spot on. I wouldn’t mind an “off-type” like that myself. Gorgeous! And tasty too. Too bad my grow list is completely maxed out for next year 😆 I’ll keep it in mind for down the road. 🎩
I’m with you on that one 🙂
Elena 62 said:
Grew it in the greenhouse. It’s a tall indet that yields like crazy… The hearts are elongated, glossy, tasty, and not overly acidic.
Elena, thanks so much for the seeds for this one! I loved it. My greenhouse was blazing hot this year. Yet it still turned out early, beautiful, tasty, and super productive. Compared to my other oxhearts, I barely got any yellow shoulders.
One overripe fruit was pretty wild–when I hulled the stem out, the core looked exactly like a real strawberry 😋
I grew this awesome variety again in 2017. Put it in the ground outside and it came through for me again, even though we had a lousy summer. Tomatoes weren’t huge—around 3.5 to 7 oz (100-200 grams)—but they were delicious. Replanting it this season.
Productive, tasty variety. The plant pumps out a ton of perfectly uniform red hearts weighing 5–7 oz (150-200g). Really loved this one 🙂
Grew this great variety again. Kept it pruned to 2 stems in the greenhouse. It’s a slightly shorter indeterminate, massive yields, beautiful, and delicious! The fruits were perfectly uniform, topping out around 7 oz (200g). Didn’t get a single gnarly catfaced bloom, and absolutely zero cracking.
I didn’t get a massive crop. All the plant’s energy went into this one giant strawberry on the bottom truss. But hey, at least I saved seeds for my collection.
Greenhouse. 2 stems. The vine is vigorous and tall, but pretty frail. Stems are skinny and barely thicken up even with heavy feeding—it just doesn’t respond much. Leaves are medium, long, and droopy. Canopy is maybe 70% dense at the bottom; 25-30% up top. Spread is no more than 20 inches (50 cm).
Tastes like a sweet oxheart. The first fruits ripen completely red, later ones get yellow shoulders: needs more potassium. Because it’s so sweet, I don’t use it in savory onion and oil salads, so I’m giving it a 4.5 out of 5. Yielded about 11 lbs (5 kg) for me. Honestly, it’s just not practical. Maybe good for juice? But even that would be too sweet. Won’t be planting it again.
Jumping the gun a bit here. I judged the taste during a blistering hot July. But in overcast weather, it’s really not overly sweet at all. So I’ll probably plant a couple of vines next year to give it another shot before my final verdict. Seeds from V. Redko.
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Storage
- 🌿 Plant: A wispy, indeterminate vine with classic droopy “oxheart” foliage. The skinny vines don’t take up much space in the greenhouse, making it easy to tuck in tightly. However, it can be prone to blossom end rot (BER) and yellow shoulders if calcium and potassium are not tightly managed.
- 📈 Yield: Exceptionally high for a plant with such frail-looking foliage. It starts setting fruit early and continues to reliably pump out tomatoes even during poor weather or with negligible care.
- 👅 Taste: Boasts a universally loved, very sweet, classic oxheart flavor profile. Heat waves significantly amp up the sweetness, while cooler, cloudy weather mellows it out to a more balanced tomato flavor.
- 📦 Texture/Usage: True to its name, it produces perfectly uniform 4–7 oz (120–200g) red oxhearts that look incredibly similar to giant strawberries (even mimicking a strawberry core when the stem is hulled out!). The flesh is meaty, glossy, and nearly seedless. Excellent for fresh eating or making a sweet tomato juice.
“German Red Strawberry” is an iconic heirloom that was first introduced to the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) in 1993 by Marjorie Morris of Indiana. She originally received the seeds from a close friend of German descent. Over thirty years later, it remains a gold standard for oxheart tomatoes. As discussed by the growers above, while seed mix-ups occasionally circulate in the trading community (throwing flat or round fruits), the true historical strain is always unmistakably shaped like a plump, elongated strawberry.
