📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Izumrudnaya Parcha (Emerald Brocade)
- 🌍 Origin: A modern, highly sought-after collectible variety bred by the Russian breeder Sofia Saakova. The name translates to “Emerald Brocade.”
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall) and mid-early season. It displays classic oxheart genetics: the vines are very skinny, frail-looking, and have sparse, weeping foliage. Don’t panic, it’s not dying—that’s just how it grows!
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Beautiful, pastel-emerald heart-shaped tomatoes typically weighing 7 to 12.3 oz (200-350 g). The flesh is very dense with almost no seeds. When fully ripe, it often develops a beautiful pink blush or “tongue” at the blossom end and inside the core.
- 👅 Flavor: Outstanding. Growers consistently rate it as exceptionally sweet and highly aromatic, with distinct fruity flavor notes.
This is a new variety from Sofia.
It’s an indeterminate, mid-early season plant. It throws absolutely gorgeous pastel emerald hearts weighing about 7 to 12.3 oz (200-350 g). The flesh is bright emerald green with very few seeds. When it gets fully dead-ripe, a little pink tongue might show up inside. Super sweet and aromatic.
This variety was bred by Sofia Saakova, here is her official description:
Indeterminate, mid-early. Very beautiful pastel emerald hearts, 7 to 12.3 oz (200-350 g). The flesh is emerald with a small amount of seeds. At full maturity, a pink tongue may appear. Sweet and aromatic.
The fruits are sweet, beautiful, and have distinct fruity flavor notes. The plant itself is very skinny and wispy with sparse foliage.
.jpg.c996f2aeb9a103b7518cd5b9a2aaac54.jpg)
A very low-seed variety. The bush is pretty manageable and grows like a skinny, wispy vine. The fruits are delicious, really sweet with nice fruity notes.
Two classic heirloom traits are perfectly described in this thread! First, Masha and Svetlana mention that the plant is a “skinny, wispy vine” with sparse foliage. Many first-time oxheart growers panic when they see this, thinking their plant is sick or wilting. Don’t worry! This is the classic “weeping oxheart” habit. The vines look frail and droopy, but they are incredibly tough and will pump out massive tomatoes all summer long.
Second, the “pink tongue” (a splash of pink at the blossom end or in the core) is a legendary feature of the best Green-When-Ripe (GWR) tomatoes. Varieties like Captain Lucky, Malakhitovaya Shkatulka, and Cherokee Green all do this. It is the ultimate visual cue that your green tomato is dead-ripe and ready to eat!
