📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Gigant Limonnyi (Lemon Giant)
- 🌍 Origin: A famous Russian heirloom. It is widely distributed by the renowned seed company Siberian Garden (SibSad), as well as kept pure by private collectors. The name translates directly to “Lemon Giant”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall), typically reaching around 6 to 6.2 ft (1.8 – 1.9 m). Note that growers report this variety is quite susceptible to foliage diseases like Leaf Mold and Late Blight, so proactive fungal management is highly recommended.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, bright yellow/lemon-colored beefsteaks. The fruits size up consistently well with very few runts or undersized tomatoes on the trusses.
- 👅 Flavor: A well-balanced, old-school sweet and sour tomato flavor, not just purely sweet like some modern yellow varieties.
- ⏳ Maturity: Early season. Surprisingly for its massive size, growers often report it as one of the very first large beefsteaks to ripen in the garden.
Photos by: Nadija, borchanochka, vavladi
Photo by: Tien-shan
Gigant Limonnyi from Siberian Garden (SibSad). The bushes were 6 – 6.2 ft (180-190 cm) tall. Heavy yielder, and it was the earliest one of all, we picked them fully ripe on June 23. The taste is balanced sweet and sour, and there were no runts at all 🙂
Could you tell me please, is Lemon Giant from E.O. Fet and Gigant Limonnyi from SibSad the same thing or different?
It was one of the first to ripen in the greenhouse, but it was also the very first to get hit by Leaf Mold. Yanked it out. Outdoors in the open ground, it stalled after the first truss and just refused to ripen 😡. Taste was average.
I like this tomato, grew it for 2 years. Heavy yielder, tasty, not a late one. But I won’t plant it this year because it’s the first to catch Late Blight. Such a pity…
👨🌾 Editor’s Note
While Gigant Limonnyi is celebrated for its huge early yields and fantastic flavor, it does not carry modern disease-resistance genes. If you live in an area prone to Blight or Leaf Mold (like the American Northeast or Pacific Northwest), you should plan to use a preventative organic copper or bio-fungicide spray schedule early in the season!
