📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Giant Belgium
- 🌍 Origin: A legendary American heirloom originating in Ohio in the 1930s. This is the original standard strain (not the later “Pink” specific selection, though the original also ripens to a dark pinkish-red). It is famous in tomato lore for being so sweet that commercial growers used it to make tomato wine!
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). An extremely vigorous vine that is known to produce heavy, dense foliage. It requires sturdy staking and regular pruning to maintain good airflow.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Massive, slightly ribbed, dark pink/reddish beefsteaks. They consistently weigh between 1 to 2 lbs (450-900 g) and have a very meaty, dense interior with small seed cavities.
- 👅 Flavor: The gold standard of sweet heirlooms. It has an incredibly rich, sugary flavor with just enough acid to balance it out.
Tasty, heavy yielder, slightly ribbed.
And here is my Giant Belgium. Seeds were from the forum. A very delicious tomato.
Natalya Khotkovo wrote:
And here is my Giant Belgium. Seeds were from the forum. A very delicious tomato.
Natasha, how was the yield for you? Is the bush super vigorous, does it have heavy foliage?
Lyudmila asks a question at the end of this thread: “Does it have heavy foliage?”
Classic heirloom giants like Giant Belgium are notorious for producing a massive, dense canopy of large leaves. While all those leaves act as solar panels to pump sugar into the giant fruits, too much foliage is actually a bad thing! A bush that is too heavily foliated restricts airflow, trapping morning dew and humidity against the stems, which is an open invitation for Blight and Leaf Mold.
If you grow vigorous old heirlooms, you must practice proactive leaf pruning! Always prune off the lower leaves touching the soil, and thin out the middle of the canopy so the wind can blow freely through the plant.
