Quick Summary of Humph (Хм)
- 🌍 Origin: A relatively rare variety originating from the USA, introduced to Russian growers in 2015 by seed collector V. Popenko. In Russian, it is translated/transliterated as “Хм” (Hmm / Hmph).
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall) and extremely vigorous. It is prone to putting out many suckers and can easily “run away” into multiple stems if not aggressively pruned. Yield can be finicky—growers note poor fruit set on the lower half of the plant, but it improves higher up.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Stunning flat-round fruits weighing up to 250 g (9 oz). The exterior skin turns a beautiful, clean honey, sand, or ochre color (similar to the Dwarf Uluru Ochre but “cleaner”), while the interior remains striking green (a Green-When-Ripe type).
- 👅 Flavor: Exceptional. Like most Green-When-Ripe (GWR) varieties, it is very juicy, sweet, and complex without being bland.
- ⏳ Maturity: Mid-season.
A tomato called “Hm” (Humph), seeds from Popenko. I didn’t save his description.
Indeterminate, vigorous, it ran away from me into three stems (before I could prune it). The trusses are like those on truss-type tomatoes, but with fewer flowers, of course. I have a photo, but I don’t know where it is. If I find it, I’ll post it.
The fruits are very beautiful. An incredible honey color. Or sandy. The color is similar to the Dwarf Uluru Ochre, but somehow cleaner, without that muddy tint. When I found a ripe fruit, I exclaimed “Humph!!!” (Hmm!!!). Maybe that’s why they named it that? Because before that, looking at the yield, it only made me say “Oh boy!” and “Well, well!”.
I fell in love with this little tomato.
The yield up to the middle of the bush was basically zero, there was only one tomato per truss. But higher up, it was more or less okay. I need to plant it one more time.
Maturity – I would say mid-season.
And here are the photos, enjoy.
Sveta 😂! I was just wondering what such a meaningful word like “Hm” (Hmph) could possibly mean… 😄
Evgeniya said:
Sveta 😂! I was just wondering what such a meaningful word like “Hm” could possibly mean… 😄
My train of thought was exactly the same 😂
But the tomato is a beauty!
Sveta, for some reason you didn’t write anything about the taste…
Elena said:
Sveta, for some reason you didn’t write anything about the taste…
That’s right, I forgot about the taste. It is tasty, sweet, but not bland, and juicy. It is, you could say, a Green-When-Ripe (GWR) inside. And I have never come across a GWR tomato that didn’t taste good.
I found the description of this tomato in Popenko’s 2015 catalog. Here is what he writes:
“Hm (Humph). Seeds received from the USA. 2015 Novelty. Indeterminate. Fruits are flat-round, yellow-green, very good taste, weighing up to 250 g (9 oz).”
I tried to translate the word “Humph” in Yandex. Strange, it translates it as “GM” (Гм – another Russian equivalent for Hmm).
Here is what the Multitran Dictionary says about this word:
Humph
Eng
humph noun | Webster
general: hm!; hmph! (expresses doubt, uncertainty); hmm
colloquial: to hem and haw, to grunt in doubt.
It is pronounced as “Hamf”. You can listen to it here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humph
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