Ildi Tomato Grower Reviews and Photos

🙂 I don’t have a ton of experience growing cherries, but this variety completely blew my mind! A tall vine with absolutely massive trusses of little yellow tomatoes. They are sweet, and the skin isn’t tough, though it isn’t paper-thin either. Shape-wise, they look similar to the Cherry Liza F1 hybrid, but the yield, taste, and sheer volume of Ildi are way better. This one is on my favorites list now, definitely planting it in the coming years. Especially if I end up liking the taste once they are pickled… 😋 Seeds were from Gusev.

I really loved them too.

Couldn’t insert a photo here, but I have one in my gallery album.

Nadya, this variety amazed me too, but mine looked a little bit different. They were more round, I guess. Yours look more like teardrops.

Has anyone grown the ones from Biotekhnika? I bought a packet, just couldn’t walk past it 😲😲😲

🙂 Well, I don’t even know what to say… Visually, ours do look different. But they are both heavy yielders. I grew mine from Gusev’s seeds. But as my experience with Geranium Kiss (Potseluy Gerani) showed me, I’m not sure of anything anymore. We could plant the Ildi from Biotekhnika and compare them. Here is a picture, they look very similar to yours in color and shape.

I agree with Nina, a friend gave me a couple of seeds last year, and mine grew out looking exactly like Nina’s 😲

Nadin: 🙂 Well, I don’t even know what to say… Visually, ours do look different… We could plant the Ildi from Biotekhnika and compare them.

I actually have Gusev’s Ildi and that exact same seed packet. I’ll plant both of them to compare then 📝

🙂 Here is what the Ildi multiflora looks like on Gusev’s site. Well, mine grew into whatever it grew into! By the way, how tall did your Ildis get? I was just thinking, maybe I should have let my Ildis hang on the vine longer, maybe they would have ripened to an orange color?

I’m definitely planting it! I really liked Nina’s photos 😉

My Ildi from the store-bought Biotekhnika packet. Excellent cherries, both in taste and looks. Loved them in canning jars, even though I usually don’t like tiny tomatoes for canning.

Mine were in the greenhouse, definitely hit around 6.5 feet (2 m) tall.

🙂 I think I’ll go ahead and plant both Ildis, the one from Gusev and the one from Biotekhnika. And I will compare them!

I planted from the same packet two years in a row.

The plant habit and the flower trusses were identical, BUT the fruits…

The first year, they were tapered toward the blossom end, like a bullet.

The second year, they were pronounced pears.

I liked the first ones better, but I didn’t save seeds from them. Saved seeds from the second batch. And I still have some original seeds left in the packet. Thinking about planting them… Maybe a third shape will pop out…

Nadia: I planted from the same packet two years in a row…

Whose seeds were they?

Galinka: Whose seeds were they?

Biotekhnika.

Nadin: 🙂 Thanks a lot! I also have Geranium Kiss from two different sources to plant… Looks like I’m running an experiment soon: “Gusev’s Seeds – Discovering the Real Variety Name”….

Hey, you aren’t the only one 😉😂

I have both Kisses (thanks to the forum!) and both Ildis (store bought) too 😂

Just found another photo, this is from the last harvest on September 26th. There are some elongated ones here too, and I also noticed some have a little beak, but not all of them. Maybe they really do change depending on the age of the plant or the weather 😂

Nadia: We’re gonna get in trouble for going off-topic in the catalog…

We’re just discussing the variety… Up until today I was only going to plant one of them since they were supposed to be identical 😲

Ninulia: Here are elongated ones, some have a little beak… Maybe they change with age or weather 😂

Nina, are you saying I shouldn’t bother with the experiment? 😂

No, Yulechka! You definitely should! Then we’ll know for sure if they are identical. Right now we are just guessing. This year I want to plant identical varieties from different sources. Because sometimes I get one thing, and other people get something else.

That’s what happened with my Pink Mikado. Mine has potato leaves, it’s pink, and the plant looks like Black Mikado, but Sveta told me the fruit shape is completely different. Mine are round and smooth, while Sveta’s are oblate, slightly ribbed, and larger. Mine actually looks like Brandywine. Verochka made a guess that Brandywine and Mikado are twin brothers. So what exactly is growing under my Pink Mikado labels?

There really is a lot of confusion with varieties (and names). Supposedly the exact same variety, but you get totally different things from different sources. Wow!

Hello everyone. To those who grew Ildi, how many stems do you recommend pruning it to based on personal experience? 🙂

Here is my Ildi. Grew outdoors in the dirt. I barely suckered it, just pruned up to the first flower truss.

Nadia: First year bullet shaped. Second year pear shaped…

I planted from a Biotekhnika packet this year. Grew outdoors in the dirt in the northwest of the Moscow region.

I had two bushes. Sprouted March 27th. One was lagging behind in development (when the first had 3 pairs of true leaves, the weak one had two). Planted out May 13th under row cover. Began blooming June 13th. Didn’t feed them anything. On June 21st, the strong plant set its first truss with full-sized fruits, while the weak one was just finishing blooming.

So, the first truss on the strong plant had pear-shaped fruits (by the way, it ripened by August 2nd). But when fruits appeared on the weak plant, they were all elongated and tapered at the bottom. At first, I even thought one was an off-type. But then the second truss and all subsequent trusses on the strong plant ALSO produced tapered fruits. I never saw pear-shaped tomatoes again.

The plant habit and flower trusses were identical (the weak plant’s truss was just a bit more sprawled out).

I have no idea how to explain such drastically different fruit shapes on the same plant…

It seems like it’s not a genetic variety issue, but some environmental growing factor…

I grew Ildi in 2012. Seeds were from Irina in St. Pete. Grew it outdoors in the dirt. The blooming is incredibly impressive 👍, but we had a rainy summer that year, so it dropped a lot of blossoms. Looks very pretty when canned.

I planted Ildi from Biotekhnika in 2014 – the germination was soooo slow, I actually thought they wouldn’t sprout at all 😠… it barely started popping up after 2 weeks.

It was the weakest, slowest-growing seedling out of all 48 varieties I grew. Seeded on March 3rd.

After transplanting to the greenhouse, it started to recover and ended up growing massive 🙌😋

I saved seeds from it…

This year I decided to play it safe and seeded it earlier, on Feb 20th. And what do you know? It showed loops on the 24th!

That’s the crazy difference in germination time between store-bought seeds and your own saved seeds 👍

Here is my Ildi, currently blooming. Seeds from D. Gusev. I left 4 trusses on them, and they ended up being about 3 feet (1 m) tall in the greenhouse. Nice and sweet 👍

kustik: I left 4 trusses on them, and they ended up being about 3 feet (1 m) tall in the greenhouse.

I’m also restricting how many trusses it carries this year. Learned from last year that it just can’t physically support more than three or four anyway. But I messed up with the seeds – planting store-bought for the second year in a row, really need to try saving my own 🙂

Alyona Latvia: …really need to try saving my own 🙂

Definitely need to use your own 😉 And regarding the number of trusses – I read here on the forum that it’s plenty for it. And it’s true, 4-5 trusses in a greenhouse is more than enough. I need to try it in open ground, but I think it makes sense to leave 2, maximum 3 out there. And it’s pretty compact and doesn’t push crazy amounts of suckers, huge respect to it for that.

I’m growing Ildi too (thanks to Ninulia for the seeds!). It’s sitting in the greenhouse. I topped its growing tip after the third truss. Very impressive! 🙌 No ripe tomatoes yet, just waiting… Question: is there anything similar to Ildi, just as sprawling and productive, but red-fruited?

mamaGalya: Question: is there anything similar to Ildi, just as sprawling and productive, but red-fruited?

I have one, but it’s unnamed. Saved seeds from fruits I bought at a market in England. It produces two types (sometimes it throws a wide truss, sometimes a garland-style truss) from saved seeds. I sent a bunch of seeds to folks on the forum in Moscow, maybe someone will chime in, but I actually like the standard truss ones better, they’re bigger 🙂

For round reds – Sweet Million F1.

For oval pinks – Pink Raisin (Rozoviy Izyum).

But their trusses are a bit looser.

Galya, Red Alert is sprawling, heavy-yielding, and red-fruited. I grew it last year – really, really liked it. Height is 5 feet (1.5 m), it throws fan-shaped trusses, excellent fruit set, weights are 2.5-3.5 oz (70-100 g). Easily supports 4 trusses. It wasn’t early for me (August), but the yield was massive! 🌺

Oksana, I didn’t use to have a lot of varieties before, so I planted more than one bush of each. This year I planned for 3, but ended up with 5 😂 The seedlings were just so sturdy, I didn’t have the heart to toss them out 🤐

Lelikovna: This year I planned for 3, but ended up with 5 😂 The seedlings were just so sturdy, I didn’t have the heart to toss them out 🤐

And I just had one growing and growing. I’ll be repeating it next year. It blooms so beautifully. The little yellow tomato balls are just adorable.

mamaGalya: Question: is there anything similar to Ildi, just as sprawling and productive, but red-fruited?

Galina, there is a sprawling one just like it, but pink – the Madame Butterfly variety. I really love this variety! A solid truss has 50-55 cherry teardrops, sweet and tender…

The best keeper of 2018 – it’ll easily last until January 1st.

How does the size of Ildi compare to Summer Sun, are they the same?

klusha: How does the size of Ildi compare to Summer Sun, are they the same?

Olya, I didn’t weigh them, but eyeballing it, it looks like SS is a bit bigger. Or were you asking about the plant size rather than the fruit size? If so, my SS was much more vigorous.

@SvetaR, thanks, my question wasn’t precise, I was asking about the tomato sizes, I want to plant the ones that are larger.

Grew in open ground, ran it to a single stem, left three trusses. They didn’t manage to fully ripen on the vine before the end of the season… but the variety looks gorgeous! 👍🙌 Thanks to Olya-Zolushka for the seeds!

A super cherry. I absolutely loved it. Incredibly productive, beautiful, and the plant isn’t sickly. It grew right up until the very end, there are still fruits hanging on it in the greenhouse. I’ll probably pull it this weekend, or maybe I won’t, depends on the weather. Still lots of green ones on it.

The tomatoes aren’t particularly sweet, but they are tasty and juicy. There is another huge plus: the skin doesn’t split when processed, which is crucial when canning cherries. Definitely planting it again.

Mine turned out tasting way better than Honey Drop (Medovaya Kaplya). I’ve been trying to tame Honey Drop for 3 seasons now and I just can’t get it to taste like honey.

Redko sent me the seeds. My description was pieced together from the forum and Redko’s site (for my personal spreadsheet). Indeterminate, cherry-pear, small, heavy yielder, orange or yellow, sweet. Greenhouse.

I ended up with an orange, oval one with a little beak. I expected something special from Ildi… didn’t get it. Fruit set was terrible, just awful. And it tasted like absolutely nothing. Just completely bland.

It didn’t grow too tall either, about 5 feet (1.5 m). It barely had any leaves, just bouquets of flowers… without tomatoes. The fruits themselves didn’t get sick, but the flowers got gray mold.

kalinka-malinka: Expected something special… didn’t get it. Fruit set was terrible… And it tasted like absolutely nothing.

Wow… that’s weird… I grew two bushes and was completely buried in tomatoes. Shared them with neighbors, friends, ate them ourselves, made preserves. My family is small, one bush would have been enough for me. In my opinion, it only has one downside – they don’t have a long shelf life…

It definitely has potential, judging by the blooms. It’s my fault here, I couldn’t get it to actually set a real harvest 🤷‍♀️ But the taste! I had some really tasty varieties, and compared to them, this one was just not good. Nothing weird about it. It’s not like I went out and picked them off just to ruin its reputation 😂

Grew it for the first time, seeds from Gusev. Insanely lush flower bouquets, ripening is very uneven. Honestly, I tried to prune it to leave 2-3 trusses, but Ildi defeated me 😂 Grew into an absolute octopus. Beautiful fruits, don’t store long. One single tomato has a mountain of seeds inside – just a thought regarding seed seller pricing lol.

I got a plant of these tomatoes through a friend of a friend. I didn’t even know the variety name. I dug through the entire Internet this fall trying to find the name. I join the chorus of praise – you will not find a heavier yield anywhere!

There are quite a few varieties like that out there right now, if your friends didn’t know the name, it isn’t guaranteed that you had exactly Ildi and not another variety.

I spent forever looking for what variety my neighbor gave me, dug through the whole internet… Now I’m positive it’s Ildi. Rare variety, by the way. Extremely heavy yielder (!!!) and tasty. It sat in the greenhouse right up until the end.

In early October, I ripped the bush out with green “runts” still on the trusses and just tossed it next to the compost pile as is. At the end of October, I found fully ripe tomatoes on that bush. Surprise!

Here’s my photo for the collection. Ildi in bloom. More than half of those flowers eventually set fruit.

I think it’s definitely Ildi. Did you save seeds?

Very beautiful bush 🌺 I think to get more trusses/fruits to ripen in a season, you need to reduce the number of stems.

Of course I did! I was so worried it might be some F1 hybrid and the seeds would be useless. Now I’m rubbing my hands together happily waiting for spring – I can’t wait to plant everything. I’m practically a beginner gardener, but my enthusiasm is shooting out of my ears!

By the way, I read that the seeds are slow to germinate. Is that true? Should I seed extra?

I tried to restrict its growth, but it defeated me, the little pest! I had a one-year-old baby on my hands, so you don’t get much done in the garden. Plus, it was my first time planting tomatoes. But the bush made me really happy.

By the way, the fruits stored in the fridge until November!!!

And thanks for the support, ladies!

I wouldn’t say that… mine popped up on day 4. And… mine didn’t push suckers aggressively at all. If you have the heart to cull the extras later, go ahead and seed with a little buffer margin 😉

All of my Ildi seedlings look like tree-type micro-dwarfs 😲 Crossed seeds?

Olesya, in the seedling stage, Ildi was a very compact mater, grew slowly. But then it absolutely exploded with growth once it was in the hoop house.

Growing it for the 3rd year, delicious, grows taller than me, and super productive 👍 Ildi hanging out with Chocolate Stripes.

Really liked Ildi – the seedling was beautiful and strong, growing it to 3.5 stems in the greenhouse and 3 outdoors. I topped all the stems at 5.5 feet (1.7 m), leaving two leaves above the last truss.

The trusses are huge, but I probably won’t get a photo because we are constantly picking the ripe ones off.

Medium sweetness.

🙂 planted Ildi from Biotekhnika this year, from an original packet. Spent a few years trying to track it down with no luck. Turns out Biotekhnika stopped packing Ildi a long time ago and it isn’t for sale anymore, that’s what the clerk at their branded store told me. Anyway, I made a deal with the clerk 😉😂 and a little while later I became the proud owner of an expired packet of Ildi.

Planted it with full honors. The seedling was so, so ugly. Right now it’s growing in the greenhouse, running it to two stems. Blooming and setting fruit beyond all praise. But, let me tell you, Biotekhnika’s is a different color. Theirs is orange, while Gusev’s is yellow. So there’s that.

In 2016 I planted Ildi Multiflora from Gusev. Loved the massive trusses, ran it to a single stem, though I did plant it late. Pulled the last trusses with green tomatoes, hung them inside, and they all counter-ripened. For our climate, you really need to start seeds in February. Was super scrawny as a seedling.

Also, Gusev has a variety called Orange Grape – it’s a dead ringer for Ildi, except the fruits are a bit smaller and rounder. 🙂

I’m assuming a tomato with that many flowering trusses requires a lot more feeding.

Oksana, no, it doesn’t require anything special 😉

Oksana, I have warm raised beds, plus I plant mustard cover crops for winter, and dig a bucket of compost per square meter into the soil in the spring. In the planting holes: wood ash and a teaspoon of superphosphate (I’m against chemical ferts, but I confess, I add this). After that, standard routine: weed tea, ash, yeast wash every two weeks. It set 5 luxurious trusses, even though the summer was an absolute nightmare!

Oksana, when I lived in Astana (do you have a similar climate?) I also planted it outdoors in the dirt, didn’t feed it a single thing (it was my first years gardening), and it set and ripened perfectly. This year, my feeding schedule was: 1 round of poultry manure, 1 round of yeast wash, and 2-3 rounds of weed tea. Just yesterday I pulled the bushes, absolutely covered in green and yellow tomatoes.

Grew it again in the greenhouse – ran it to 2 stems, 4 trusses fully ripened on each, the 5th ones didn’t make it in time. Super handsome plant 👍

Grew Ildi for the first time. It completely buried me in tomatoes. The last fruits, picked at breaker stage in mid-October, finished ripening inside and are STILL sitting on the counter. It’s an absolute record-holder for storage life for me.

Hello. I want to plant Ildi in a large pot, about 6.5 gallons (25 L). Do you think it can handle that, or does it need more space? Another question: is this tomato heavily dependent on full sun? My yard is in perpetual shade.

If you plant it in a pot, what are you going to tie the stems to?

Valid question, the tomato grows to 6.5 feet (2 m), won’t it just tip over in a strong wind? 😳 Last year, my plants growing outside tied to stakes got blown over and snapped during a bad storm 😞 If it was in a pot, it probably would have ripped out completely.

Or maybe the pot would just tip over and the stem wouldn’t snap. It would just lay there and wait for someone to pick it up.

Nobody is really writing much about the taste of this variety… Is it sweet?

Tanya, it is sweet. But Summer Sun is sweeter.

Sweetness and taste depend heavily on accumulated heat units (GDD) and watering levels. In 2017, in the greenhouse with restricted watering, it was sweeter than most fruits (especially local ones). We ate them like candy, they never even made it to the canning jars.

My Ildi seedlings look very different from the rest: the plants are short, they aren’t stretching at all (even though my seedlings usually stretch), and the internodes are extremely short. It seriously looks like a micro-dwarf or an ultra-early determinate. Does anyone have photos of your Ildi seedlings? 🙇‍♀️

Mine looked exactly the same last year. That’s just how it is in the beginning.

I got “bulbs” or little pears too. I remember writing about them somewhere. Store-bought seeds. Might have been labeled just Ildi, or Bush Ildi… or something else – it was a long time ago.

I grew it once. Turned into a very “aggressive” plant 🙂 It sprawled out so much I couldn’t even reach the tomatoes planted next to it. Started fruiting by mid-July, which is pretty good for me. Usually, I’m waiting for the first ones until early August.

Normally I don’t sucker cherries much, but I had to thin this one out aggressively. Here are the “Before” and “After” shots.