📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Krasnaya Shapochka (Little Red Riding Hood)
- 🌍 Origin: A very popular commercial Russian determinate variety, translated as “Little Red Riding Hood”. Often goes by the German name Rotkäppchen on seed packets. Widely distributed by several Russian seed companies (Sibsad, Aelita, Agros, Poisk).
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Determinate (bush) or dwarf. Extremely compact, usually ranging from 16 to 27 inches (40-70 cm) tall. Does not require pruning or suckering. Highly recommended for open ground, tight spacing, or container/balcony gardening.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Highly dependent on the seed vendor! The true standard is a smooth, round red cocktail tomato weighing 1.7-3 oz (50-90 g). However, some growers report receiving ribbed beefsteaks or micro-cherries (0.5-0.7 oz / 15-20 g) depending on the seed packet brand.
- 👅 Flavor: Average, classic tomato flavor. Most growers agree it doesn’t stand out in fresh salads compared to heirlooms, but it performs excellently as a heavy-yielding canning tomato that doesn’t crack in jars.
Seeds from the Invent+ company, Kazakhstan. An early variety, short bush, very good fruit set. The red, dense fruits weigh up to 2.1 oz (60 g), yield was over 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) per plant. I liked the taste, above average, a nice mix of tartness and sweetness. The photo shows part of the plant. The ribbing on the fruits is very deep, see the photo. The very first tomatoes grew from megablooms.
Planted it last season. Seeds from Sibsad. It’s a dwarf, the tomato is small, 1.7-2.1 oz (50-60 g), totally average taste, and it wasn’t even in my top five earliest varieties to ripen. What was the point of it taking up space in the garden then? 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
I was planning to plant these as my early producers this season, but now I’m wondering if it’s even worth it? Seeds are from Agros.
Tomato Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood) (Agros)
An excellent early, high-yielding dwarf variety for open and protected ground. Plant height is 20-27 inches (50-70 cm). Does not require pruning. 90-100 days from sprouting to harvest. Fruits are round, red, uniform, weighing 2.5-3.2 oz (70-90 g), 4-5 per truss. Recommended for fresh consumption. Tolerates very tight spacing. The true value of the variety lies in its high, stable yields, excellent taste, and resistance to fruit cracking.
According to the description from “Agros”, the fruits are round and uniform, they don’t say a single word about “ribbing”.
Seeds from Poisk, from the “Four Summers” series. It’s a dwarf tomato. Tiny little fruits, completely unmemorable taste, not the earliest to ripen either. The description specifically stated it is for balcony boxes and planters. Honestly, growing it as a decorative plant is about all it’s good for. I grew mine outdoors in the dirt. I had my fun with it and that’s enough, there is absolutely no point in growing it again (especially considering the price of the seeds). The photo isn’t great, taken close up, so it looks like the tomatoes are somewhat large. That is not the case, they are tiny, weighing 0.5-0.7 oz (15-20 g).
Has anyone grown Little Red Riding Hood from Aelita?
I’m noticing that completely different plants are growing from different seed brands 😆
I planted the one from Aelita. The bush was 24 inches (60 cm), I barely pruned it at all. Lots of fruits, smooth, shiny, round, max diameter 2.7 inches (7 cm) (I didn’t weigh them). They fit perfectly into canning jars and didn’t crack. We ate the bigger ones in salads – just a standard tomato flavor.
I planted the one from Aelita. The bush was 24 inches (60 cm)…
Nelly, did they turn out to be early for you?
Standard tomatoes. Compact bush, fruits are round, uniform, and smallish. They grew in the greenhouse. I think they’d do better outdoors. Whatever is in the very first post of this thread is clearly not Little Red Riding Hood. (I don’t know how to insert a photo yet, haven’t figured it out).
So it’s totally unclear what this variety actually is. Yellow, red, ribbed, smooth 🤷♀️
The fruits are red, hence the name Little Red Riding Hood 🙂
Short plant (20-27 inches / 50-70 cm), early-season variety for outdoors and protected ground. Very heavy yielder. Does not require pruning. Fruits are round, sweet, weighing 2.5-3.2 oz (70-90 g), 4-5 per truss. For fresh consumption and whole fruit canning. Sortsemovoshch – “Dom Semyan” seed stores (I don’t know how to rotate the photo).
I planted this one, I’ll report back on how it actually grows.
I’m going to try Little Red Riding Hood in 2021. Honestly, Volzhskiy Sad seeds have been making me really happy with their germination rates and lack of off-types. We shall see…
Leningrad region. Seeds from Sibsad. The bush is short, from 16 to 20 inches (40 to 50 cm). Average fruit diameter is 1.5 inches (4 cm). Planted outdoors in the dirt, covered them with plastic during cold snaps. The taste… Well, it tastes like summer. Right next to them I had Königsberg, Malachite Box, and all sorts of cherries (those were planted in the greenhouse two weeks earlier during the May holidays). It dumped its main harvest all at once in early September. The taste is totally average. On par with Sanka. But you’ll pull twice the weight in fruit off a Sanka bush. I can recommend it if you are short on space in your greenhouse and need compact plants.
This thread highlights a classic issue in the Russian heirloom community: buying seeds from large commercial companies! Because Krasnaya Shapochka is an old, unpatented open-pollinated variety, every single seed house (Agros, Poisk, Sibsad, Aelita) grows their own strain of it. This leads to massive discrepancies, which is why the first user posted photos of a heavily ribbed beefsteak, while another user grew a tiny micro-dwarf cherry tomato. Based on the consensus, the “true” strain should be a compact dwarf producing smooth, round red 2.5 oz (70 g) cocktail tomatoes.
