📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Italian Sweet
- 🌍 Origin: A classic heirloom variety originally from Italy, widely circulated among seed collectors for its outstanding taste.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Vigorous indeterminate (tall) vines with Potato Leaf (PL) foliage. They grow exceptionally well in greenhouses, easily reaching over 6.5 feet (2 m). Performs best when pruned to 2 or 3 main leaders.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Massive, heavy, red-pink beefsteaks. They are incredibly dense and meaty.
- 👅 Flavor: The name says it all. It boasts a remarkably sweet, rich, old-fashioned tomato flavor.
🍅 Grown this variety? Click here to add your own photos and review below!
I really loved this variety. The fruits are beautiful, meaty, sweet, and large. I grew these tomatoes in the greenhouse. The plants were pretty vigorous, reaching about 6.5 feet (2 m) tall. I pruned them to 3 leaders. Yield was high. This variety definitely lives up to its name.
Vigorous plant, and the fruits are large, heavy, and delicious. The yield was pretty average for me. Pruned it to 2 main stems.
Indeterminate, potato leaf (PL), the fruits are a gorgeous red-pink and absolutely delicious! Grew it in the greenhouse to 2 stems.
👨🌾 Editor’s Note: Potato Leaf (PL) Genetics
Svetlana (Svetikk) points out a crucial detail for heirloom seed savers: Italian Sweet is a Potato Leaf (PL) variety! In the seedling stage, the leaves will look smooth and wide, resembling potato plants rather than the deeply serrated Regular Leaf (RL) tomatoes. If you ever sprout a seed from this variety and it has regular serrated leaves, you know it suffered an accidental cross-pollination. PL varieties are fantastic because their dense canopy helps protect the massive beefsteaks from sunscald.
Svetlana (Svetikk) points out a crucial detail for heirloom seed savers: Italian Sweet is a Potato Leaf (PL) variety! In the seedling stage, the leaves will look smooth and wide, resembling potato plants rather than the deeply serrated Regular Leaf (RL) tomatoes. If you ever sprout a seed from this variety and it has regular serrated leaves, you know it suffered an accidental cross-pollination. PL varieties are fantastic because their dense canopy helps protect the massive beefsteaks from sunscald.
