📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Gigant Krasnyi (Red Giant)
- 🌍 Origin: A classic Russian amateur heirloom variety. The name translates directly to “Red Giant.”
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate and highly vigorous. It grows very tall (easily exceeding 6.5 ft / 2 m) and features large, long, “weeping” or drooping foliage. The first blossom truss sets quite high on the plant, usually after the 10th leaf.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, slightly ribbed, oblate (flattened-round) red beefsteaks. The seed cavities are exceptionally small, making the interior almost solid meat. Fruits generally weigh around 12 to 14 oz (350-400 g), but under good conditions, they can easily reach 1.3 to 1.8 lbs (600-800 g).
- 👅 Flavor & Use: A sweet, classic slicing tomato flavor. Because the flesh is so dense and firm, it’s not only great for fresh eating but also holds up surprisingly well if you want to can them in slices.
Description from the seed packet: A large-fruited amateur bred tomato. The value of the variety is its ability to produce fruits weighing 1.3-1.8 lbs (600-800 g) with excellent flavor. The fruit is oblate, slightly ribbed, red, the seed locules are very small, and the flesh is dense and meaty.
The plant is indeterminate. It requires staking and pruning – usually grown to 1 or 2 main stems, leaving 4 to 5 trusses on the plant. The foliage is large, long, and drooping. The first truss is formed after the 10th leaf, and every subsequent one after every 3 leaves. The truss is simple, with 5-6 fruits per cluster. The largest fruits are formed on the first truss. To achieve maximum fruit size, you need to thin the trusses down to 2-3 fruits.
Photos by: Fleurette, vavladi, Nessi
The fruits on the first trusses of this variety were medium-sized, but then the later ones got large and very large. Powerful bushes, over 6.5 ft (2 m) tall in the hoop house. Good yield. The taste of the fruits was just ordinary.
I really like this one. In the greenhouse it got over 6.5 ft (2 m). In a normal year the fruits are around 1.8 lbs (800 g) and slightly more, but in the terrible summer of 2016 they were all a uniform 12-14 oz (350-400 g). Sweet, slicing-type flavor. The tomato is very meaty, I even canned it in slices and it holds its shape perfectly.
The seed packet description shared by Svetlana contains a fantastic piece of advanced grower advice: “To achieve maximum fruit size, you need to thin the trusses down to 2-3 fruits.”
This is exactly how competitive giant tomato growers get those massive 2+ lb show tomatoes! A large beefsteak variety like Gigant Krasnyi will naturally try to set 5 or 6 tomatoes per truss. If left alone, the plant divides its energy equally, giving you five 12 oz (350 g) tomatoes. But if you take a pair of snips when the blossoms drop and snip off all but the two best-looking baby tomatoes on that cluster, the plant pumps 100% of its energy into those two remaining fruits, resulting in absolute monsters!
