📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Green Sausage
- 🌍 Origin: A famous novelty variety bred by the legendary American tomato breeder Tom Wagner (Tater Mater Seeds).
- 🌿 Plant Habit: A strict determinate. The plants are extremely short and bushy with a sprawling, almost trailing habit. They feature very distinct, finely cut, wispy “carrot-like” foliage. Excellent for outdoor growing and large containers.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Elongated, sausage-shaped paste tomatoes. The skin is green with beautiful pearlescent yellow or bronze stripes when fully ripe.
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Fresh eating flavor is often described as mild or tangy. However, this variety truly shines when used for processing, sauces, or whole canning, especially when paired with garlic.
- 💡 Growing Tip: Due to its sprawling nature and heavy fruit set, it is highly recommended to lay down a thick layer of straw mulch under the plant so the tomatoes don’t rot on the bare soil.
I’m surprised this variety isn’t in our database yet since so many people are growing it. It’s a really interesting, short plant with delicate, wispy, finely cut foliage. Very unique, and it ripens its harvest all at once. The taste is pleasant with a slightly unusual aroma. Word is, it’s especially good in dishes with garlic. I decided I’m only going to grow it outdoors in the dirt. It does great out there.
Here are the little tomatoes just setting. And here they are fully ripe.
Svetlana, won’t it be too late if grown outdoors? Will it have enough time to yield most of its crop? Also, how many stems do you prune it to outside?
It’s a pretty unique plant. It’s a strict determinate: once it finishes fruiting, that’s it. It doesn’t push out any new suckers or blossoms (at least for me). So it begs the question, why even waste valuable greenhouse space on it? Though I did have other taller varieties branching out above it. As for how many stems to prune it to, I can’t really say. You could probably let it grow on multiple stems.
Thanks Svetlana, I’ll definitely be planting it outdoors then! 🌺
Grew “Green Sausage” for the first time this year. I tested it in the greenhouse. Even in there, the bush stayed pretty short, about 4 feet (1.2 m). I pruned it to 3 stems. All the trusses it set ripened fully on the vine. When fully ripe, the fruits are a beautiful emerald green with bright pearlescent yellow stripes. They look just like Christmas tree ornaments hanging there… 👍
Yaroslavna (Natalya) said:
Grew “Green Sausage” for the first time this year… All the trusses it set ripened fully on the vine. When fully ripe, the fruits are a beautiful emerald green with bright pearlescent yellow stripes.
Natalya Pavlovna, what was the maturity time like for you? Was it early, mid-season?
Here is my little sausage. Seeds were from Natasha (Yaroslavna), thank you! 🌺
I honestly didn’t like them at all. They were tough and flavorless. I tried growing them two years in a row…
Hey everyone! Could you guys tell me how Green Sausage actually tastes? 😊
Big thanks to Vera for the Green Sausage seeds. I had two bushes growing outside. Didn’t cover them with anything. It’s really hard to describe the height. All I can say is my plants turned out to be extremely short determinates, practically trailing or creeping along the ground like hanging basket plants. They literally just laid on the dirt. Short little stems, but the trusses were packed with fruit, and the leaves were super long. I had no idea how or what to tie them up to. It was the only variety outdoors that I had to put a thick layer of straw mulch under.
Exceptionally productive variety! Just a massive pile of green fruits hiding in green foliage. Fresh eating flavor is pretty mediocre. But they look awesome and unique when canned in mixed tomato jars.
Inna, when you canned them, at what stage did you pick them? Fully ripe or slightly underripe? I ask because people usually recommend picking Michael Pollan a bit underripe for pickling, otherwise it turns to mush and tastes bad. I’m planning to grow Green Sausage this year too, got my seeds from Gusev.
Green Sausage is much firmer than Michael Pollan. It’s better to use it fully ripe.
tomatinka (Vera) said:
Green Sausage is much firmer than Michael Pollan. It’s better to use it fully ripe.
Vera, does the skin stay thin in the marinade? Like, do you actually bite into the tomato, or do you just suck the insides out? 😂
sofochkamai (Svetlana) said:
Inna, when you canned them, at what stage did you pick them? Fully ripe or slightly underripe?
Vera already answered, but I’ll add my two cents: I canned Green Sausage fully ripe, though a few slightly underripe ones accidentally made it into the jars too. No big deal, they still turn out delicious. And yeah, when I pickle tomatoes, I use about double the standard amount of sugar. Even then, sometimes I crave even more sweetness, especially for tomatoes canned in their own juice.
Hey folks, I moved your marinade discussion over to the “Sweet Canning Brines” thread.
I’ve had seeds for this variety sitting in my stash for a few years now, mainly because I don’t grow many green varieties, maybe 1 or 2 a year. This year, Green Sausage finally got its turn.
I actually liked it. It’s very beautiful and the taste isn’t bad at all. When fully ripe, the fruits take on an almost bronze color. The bushes are short with long, lacy foliage. Grew it outdoors. I didn’t prune it whatsoever, the bush basically crawled along the ground.
Katrinka (Ekaterina) said:
I actually liked it. It’s very beautiful and the taste isn’t bad at all. When fully ripe, the fruits take on an almost bronze color. The bushes are short with long, lacy foliage. Grew it outdoors. I didn’t prune it whatsoever, the bush basically crawled along the ground.
So beautiful! Mine were green with stripes last year, but man, there were SO many of them. Bought my seeds from Vera. Honestly, the flavor did absolutely nothing for me, and I didn’t really get the appeal of canning them either.
In this thread, you’ll notice growers discussing “canning”, adding “double sugar”, and even joking about whether you “bite into” or “suck the insides out” of the pickled tomato!
In Russia and Eastern Europe, canning tomatoes doesn’t mean making a puree or pasta sauce like it usually does in the US. The standard practice is whole pickling. Growers pack whole, unpeeled tomatoes into large glass jars and submerge them in a boiling hot, sweet-and-sour brine (marinade) made of water, vinegar, salt, sugar, garlic, and dill.
Since the boiling brine cooks the tomato inside its own skin, the flesh becomes incredibly soft. That’s why users are asking if the skin of Green Sausage stays firm enough to bite into, or if it gets so soft that you have to suck the juicy, flavorful tomato puree right out of the skin!
