Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 4-5 Experience)
Mid-season, determinate variety. Red fruits, elongated, mine turned out with a pretty triangular shape, averaging about 2.8 oz (80 g).
Description from the catalog: “Produces a massive crop of long, red, uniquely shaped plum tomatoes with a tiny beak, up to 4.2 oz (120 g). Excellent taste, good keeper, handles transportation well.”
Great variety for canning, I really liked it. And it’s true, the fruits hold up in storage really well.
Continued:
You’ve got Limbo listed as a determinate. But in my seedling trays, it’s growing way taller than all my other dets. Is that normal?
On 3/28/2019 at 6:40 PM, Vlad-69 said:
You’ve got Limbo listed as a determinate. But in my seedling trays, it’s growing way taller than all my other dets. Is that normal?
Sorry to jump in, but I’ll answer since I dealt with the exact same thing. When I planted it for the first time about 5 years ago, it got ridiculously leggy as a seedling. Just super tall and spindly. Once it got bigger, I actually had to chop the top off and root it in water all over again. By the time transplant day rolled around, it had grown a nice new root system. Put it in the greenhouse. It topped itself at about 31-35 inches (80-90 cm) in there. If you plant it outside in the dirt, it’ll stay even shorter, probably around 24 inches (60 cm) like the vendor claimed.
Overall, I totally loved the variety. Great fresh, perfect for all kinds of canning, and stores really well. Between this and Palmyra, they both have a permanent spot on my grow list every year.
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Storage
- 🌿 Plant: Determinate bush. Don’t panic during the seedling stage—this variety is notoriously spindly and leggy indoors, often towering over other determinate seedlings. However, once transplanted, it behaves like a true bush, automatically terminating at around 24 inches (60 cm) outdoors or up to 35 inches (90 cm) in a greenhouse. Produces elongated, triangular-shaped red paste tomatoes weighing 2.8-4.2 oz (80-120 g).
- 📈 Yield: Exceptionally high. It sets heavy clusters of fruit and is highly reliable.
- 👅 Taste: Excellent, classic tomato flavor. While it is primarily meant for processing, growers also rate it highly for fresh eating.
- 📦 Storage: World-class. Thanks to its firm, meaty walls, it handles transportation easily, stores for a long time on the counter, and holds its shape perfectly when canned or pickled whole.
If you’ve ever started tomatoes indoors without strong enough grow lights, you know exactly what Vladimir and Olga are talking about—leggy, spindly seedlings that threaten to snap in half! Olga mentions a classic, ruthless Russian gardening technique to fix this: chopping the head off the seedling. Instead of burying the long stem deep in the soil during transplanting (the common US method), many Eastern European growers will literally snip the top 4-6 inches off the overgrown seedling and stick it in a glass of water. Because tomatoes root easily from their stems, the cutting will grow an entirely new, vigorous root system in just a week or two, creating a much stockier, healthier plant ready for the garden!
