Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 3-4 Experience)
Seeds came as a free gift from Kulik. Turned out to be an absolute workhorse of a variety, extremely productive! Plum shaped, grew outside in the dirt to about 3-4 ft (1-1.2 m), very pleasant orange-yellow color. Juicy, tasty, medium firmness, I really like this type for pickling in jars. Dropped its crop early and all at once. Doesn’t have a long, dragged-out harvest window. Definitely planting it again.
This one was a real discovery for me this year too. Only planted one vine just to test it out. It’s getting a permanent spot in my garden now. I’m totally happy with both the taste and the yield! Grew it in the greenhouse right by the door. Manageable indet. Fruits are large orange plums with dense, buttery flesh.
Edited December 13, 2018 by Valentina
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Storage
- 🌿 Plant: A moderately vigorous indeterminate vine. It is highly manageable, growing to about 3-4 ft (1-1.2 m) outdoors and slightly taller in a greenhouse. Produces large, beautiful orange-yellow plum/paste tomatoes.
- 📈 Yield: Exceptionally high. It is praised as an absolute workhorse that sets a heavy, concentrated harvest early in the season, allowing growers to pick the bulk of the crop all at once rather than waiting on a dragged-out harvest.
- 👅 Taste: Excellent. The flesh is dense, smooth, and buttery, but still retains enough juice to be delicious for fresh eating.
- 📦 Hardiness: Very versatile. It performs incredibly well both in greenhouses and outdoors, even in the extremely short, cold summers of Siberia and Khakassia. The medium-firm texture makes it highly desirable for canning and whole-pickling in jars.
If you look closely at Svetlana’s original post, she mentions her plant grew to “10-12 cm” (about 4-5 inches) outdoors. This is a classic forum typo! She almost certainly meant 1-1.2 meters (3-4 feet), which perfectly aligns with how a “moderate indet” behaves outside in the dirt.
Also, she notes she got these seeds as a “free gift from Kulik.” Alexey Kulik is one of the most famous private heirloom tomato breeders and seed collectors in Ukraine/Eastern Europe. In the Russian seed-swapping community, it is highly traditional for vendors to throw in unreleased or experimental varieties as freebies to test them across different climates—and in this case, the freebie became a permanent favorite!
