📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Gonsiorovski’s Home Heart
- 🌍 Origin: A legendary family heirloom from Minusinsk, Siberia, maintained by the Gonsiorovski family. It is sometimes sold or traded under the name “Minusinsk Hearts from Gonsiorovski”. The name translates to “Gonsiorovski’s Home Heart”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, growing up to 6.5 feet (2m). Like many classic oxhearts, it features very thin, drooping, “wispy” foliage that can make the plant look fragile or thirsty, even when perfectly healthy.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Stunning pink/raspberry oxhearts with a distinct, elongated “beak” or nipple at the blossom end. They are large, typically reaching up to 1.1 lbs (500g).
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: Extremely meaty with very small seed locules. The flavor is notably sweet with very low acidity, though not bland.
- 📈 Performance: Generally an excellent yielder that resists blossom drop in the heat, though it may struggle to produce its best flavor in excessively hot, dry climates.
Gonsiorovski’s Home Heart is a family heirloom variety from Minusinsk. It’s a tall indeterminate, up to 6.5 feet (2m). The bush has medium foliage density. I ran it to two leaders.
The fruits are beautiful pink-raspberry oxhearts with a pronounced, pulled-out beak. They are extremely meaty and the seed locules are tiny. Low acidity, but definitely not bland.
These are the fruits from the very last truss.
A very beautiful and delicious pink oxheart variety, fruits up to 1.1 lbs (500g) with a charming little beak 😘 I caught the bug for these Hearts when I saw photos from the Minusinsk Tomato Festival – a whole vendor stand covered in identical, prime, huge beaked tomatoes 👋 I am falling more and more in love with these family heirlooms 🙇♀️
I completely agree with the previous reviews – Gonsiorovski’s Home Heart turned out to be the leader and the best-tasting variety for me. I grew it for the first time and have zero regrets. I will be growing and saving this one permanently. A deep bow of gratitude to the Gonsiorovski family for this variety.
Tell me, are “Home Hearts from Gonsiorovski” and “Minusinsk Hearts from Gonsiorovski” the same variety, or are they different?
It didn’t do well for us, probably just too hot. The yield wasn’t great, and the flavor ended up being on the bland side.
I’ll also add that the bush is extremely wispy, the leaves just hang straight down. But the tomatoes are gorgeous, a real sight for sore eyes.
I put this variety in my Top-10 this year; productive, tasty, and it didn’t drop its blossoms despite the intense heat we had in July and August.
Gonsiorovski’s Home Heart Yellow
👨🌾 Editor’s Note: The Magic of Minusinsk
Svetlana mentions seeing this variety at the “Minusinsk Fair”. For American growers unfamiliar with Russian geography, Minusinsk is a small town in Siberia that is world-famous for its microclimate and its tomatoes. Due to its unique location in a natural hollow, it experiences very hot, sunny summers despite being in Siberia.
For over a century, local families have been saving seeds from the largest, meatiest, and sweetest tomatoes they could grow. Today, the annual “Minusinsk Tomato Champion” festival awards a brand-new car to the local grower who brings the heaviest tomato to the fair (often exceeding 4 or 5 pounds!). When you see a variety with “Minusinsk” in the name, or tied to a local family like the Gonsiorovskis, it is virtually guaranteed to be a massive, old-fashioned, wildly delicious heirloom.
