📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Gelfrut Zolotoy (Golden Gelfrut)
- 🌍 Origin: A highly productive commercial/heirloom variety from Ukraine, popularized by famous seed collectors like A. Kulik and V. Redko.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Determinate (bush). Compact and manageable, usually growing to about 3.3 ft (1 m) tall. Performs beautifully outdoors in open ground even in shorter, cooler seasons like Siberia.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Elongated oval / plum-shaped fruits. They are lemon-yellow to deep golden (depending on summer heat), with a slightly translucent, glowing skin. Firm and uniform, weighing around 2.8 oz (80 g).
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Sweet and tangy (sweet-and-sour balance), juicy but not watery. It is an incredible all-purpose tomato—fantastic for fresh salads, but its firmness makes it a top-tier choice for whole-canning. Exceptional shelf life (a very good keeper).
GELFRUT ZOLOTOY (Ukraine). Description from A. Kulik: (early / 1.6 ft / 2.8 oz / elongated / golden). A favorite, super yield and quality, simply a miracle.
I had seeds from Kulik. In Siberia, it performed as a mid-early, determinate variety, up to 3.3 ft (1 m) tall. Firm lemon-yellow elongated-oval fruits. Tasty. Good keeper (long shelf life). Heavy yielder. Grows well in open ground.
The fruits are slightly translucent. I was surprised when I saw Redko’s description of this variety saying it’s round 😲
Mine were from Redko, no roundness at all. The variety is excellent, though mine turned out yellow, it just didn’t get enough heat to reach that golden color. It didn’t have the best spot in the greenhouse.
Good for both canning and salads. Beautiful, tasty, not dry, sweet and tangy, and was quite productive. Will definitely plant it again.
Anzhela mentions a very interesting quirk about her harvest: “Mine turned out yellow, it just didn’t get enough heat to reach that golden color.”
She is absolutely right. The vibrant golden and deep orange colors in tomatoes are produced by beta-carotene and other carotenoid pigments. These pigments are highly temperature-sensitive. If you have a cool, cloudy, or rainy summer (or if the plant is heavily shaded), the fruit will ripen to a pale lemon-yellow. But if the plant gets blasted with intense summer heat and full sun, those same fruits will develop a deep, glowing golden-orange hue!
