Quick Summary of Serdce Lva (Lion’s Heart)
- 🌍 Origin: Bred by Russian tomato breeder Yury Kuzminykh from the Krasnodar Region. The name translates to “Lion’s Heart”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate and highly vigorous, but well-behaved (not overly leafy or aggressive). It thrives in a greenhouse and produces best when pruned to 3 stems. It has a very long harvesting window, often producing right up until the autumn frosts.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: A stunning, large, red “pleated pouch” or ribbed pear shape. While many ribbed tomatoes tend to be hollow inside, Lion’s Heart is completely dense, meaty, and heavy. Weights typically range from 200g (7 oz) up to massive 600g (21 oz) specimens.
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Very sweet with a rich, classic, concentrated tomato flavor. Surprisingly for a large ribbed heirloom, it has excellent shelf life and handles transportation very well.
- 💡 Pro Tips: The degree of “pleating” or ribbing can vary based on climate and weather. Early fruits might look like heavily folded sacks, while later fruits may smooth out into a more traditional heart/pear shape.
A tall greenhouse tomato from Yury Kuzminykh from the Krasnodar Region. A large-fruited indeterminate; the fruits are ribbed and pear-shaped, very beautiful and delicious.
I liked this variety a lot. Sown in early March, it began fruiting from late July and continued straight through to October. It is highly productive even under less-than-favorable conditions. The plant is vigorous but not aggressive, very resilient, and you can easily prune it to 3 stems. The fruits are red, dense, meaty, with a rich tomato flavor. They travel well and actually have a pretty good shelf life.
A very beautiful tomato. I am a huge fan of all sorts of “pleated pouches” and ribbed sack shapes. But this is the first time I am hearing about this particular tomato, and I haven’t seen any of our seed sellers offering it. Does it perhaps go by another name?
I grew the exact same variety—Lion’s Heart. A vigorous bush and incredibly productive. I had massive fruits weighing 400-600g (14-21 oz) and even more. Delicious! A gorgeous variety!
Another variety that looks very similar to Puzata Khata. (Though I’ve actually never grown Puzata Khata myself). I was searching for reviews from others and found one from Tiffany. They are all Lion’s Heart. It means I’m not the only one whose tomatoes started out looking like heavily folded, pleated sacks, and then smoothed out as they grew. It must have just been a “pouch-shaped” year for my garden. Yield, taste—everything gets an A+. The Lion truly has a kind heart.
Did I understand correctly: are the tomatoes of this variety supposed to be in the shape of pleated pouch-hearts? Or is the ribbing/pleating just an exception on a few random fruits?
Svetlana said:
…are the tomatoes of this variety supposed to be in the shape of pleated pouch-hearts? Or is the ribbing/pleating just an exception on a few random fruits?
There is a hint of pleating/ribbing on all the fruits; it’s just that on some, it is much more pronounced. (Maybe it’s like the blossom end tips on certain heart tomatoes, which change shape depending on climatic conditions?).
This is what mine looked like this year. The perfect size, about 200g (7 oz) each. And every single one of them was nicely pleated and ribbed.
A wonderful variety, incredibly productive, tasty, and sweet. And absolutely no hollow voids inside! I liked it very much, I will be repeating it next year since I forgot to save seeds from it.
