📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Karl
- 🌍 Origin: A rare Eastern European heirloom passed around by private collectors.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). An absolute beast of a plant. Growers report it easily reaching 8-10 feet (2.5-3 m) with the most massive root system they’ve ever seen. It pushes suckers very aggressively, so stay on top of pruning!
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Red, ribbed pear or “lightbulb” shaped fruits. Weights range from 5.3 to 10.5 oz (150-300 g). The ribbing actually gets more pronounced on the higher trusses.
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Very dense and meaty flesh that holds its shape perfectly when sliced. A fantastic dual-purpose tomato: the smaller ones are perfect for whole canning, and the larger ones are great for fresh salads. Taste is generally described as a sweet, classic tomato flavor.
It’s weird, but for some reason, this variety isn’t in our catalog yet. If I did something wrong, mods please delete the thread.
Variety is Karl. Thanks to Elechka (elja1968) from Bashkiria for the seeds.
A resilient, worthy variety with a very good yield, even though it wasn’t planted in the best spot. The plant is incredibly vigorous and strong. This bad boy grew over 8.2 feet (2.5 m) tall, I eventually had to top it. Spent the whole season trying to keep it in check 😊, tied it along the slope of the greenhouse roof, and it ended up forming a beautiful semi-arch out of two stems. You walk down the greenhouse aisle, and there are these cute ribbed lightbulbs hanging over your head. The higher the tomatoes are on the vine, the more pronounced their ribbing gets.
Fruit weight is from 5.3 to 10.5 oz (150-300 g). Nice standard tomato flavor, stored pretty well, fruits have almost no hollow cavities, not dry. The smaller ones can be canned whole, and the big ones can be sliced into wedges, they don’t turn to mush.
I grew the KARL tomato outdoors in the dirt. The plant is extremely vigorous, pushes suckers aggressively, and grew to nearly 10 feet (3 meters) over the season. Set fruit on every single truss without skipping. Very long harvest window, didn’t get sick. The root system is absolutely massive, I’ve never seen anything like it on any other variety.
The fruits are ribbed red pears, with minor hollows inside. The flavor was a bit bland for me.
Vigorous plant, late production, but incredibly heavy yields! I really liked the variety.
Karl
Indeterminate. I got somewhat smaller red pears. They were meaty, soooooper tasty, and sweet. Excellent variety – great for both canning jars and fresh salads 😋
I grew Karl back in 2021, but I still remember its raw power and mind-blowing yield.
Many growers refer to the shape of Karl as a “ribbed lightbulb” or a “pear.” This specific shape (wide, pleated bottom tapering into a narrower neck) is highly prized in Eastern European heirloom circles for canning. Varieties with this shape often have a very dense, dry, meaty structure with tiny seed cavities—and sometimes, minor hollow pockets (like ALIANNA noted). While a hollow pocket might be a flaw in a slicing beefsteak, it’s actually an advantage here, making the tomato perfect for roasting, sauces, and canning without turning into watery mush!
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