Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 5-6 Experience)
Loving Heart. Seed source was Uralskiy Dachnik. Grew it outdoors in the dirt, and despite the totally crappy summer we had, it performed really well and pumped out a huge yield. The photo just shows what I pulled off the vines in the fall during garden cleanup, the main harvest was already picked, and I didn’t take any other pics. Let the plant run to three stems, it got to about 4 feet (1.2 m) tall. It sets nice hearts of varying shapes, and I really enjoyed the flavor.
Got this from V. Pulinsh under the name Loving Heart Red (Lyubyaschee Serdtse Krasnoe).
The vine got to about 5 feet (1.5 m) tall, nice and sturdy, and very productive. Mid-early season. Fruits were around 7-17.5 oz (200-500 g), a reddish-pink color, super clean with a gorgeous shape. Great taste, definitely not bland. My overall rating for it among oxheart varieties is 4.8 out of 5.
Edited November 2, 2019 by Tan4ik
It’s a truly worthy variety. Both the yield and the flavor are top-notch. Taste-wise, it’s very similar to Bull’s Heart (Bychye Serdtse), but the plant is much more vigorous and pumps out way more fruit.
Bought my seeds as Loving Heart Red from E. Gorlova. Grew them outdoors in the dirt. The plant is a semi-det, definitely not an indet. Pink hearts with blunt tips. They are incredibly uniform, practically carbon copies of each other. Classic sugary, watermelon-like flesh. The taste wasn’t bad, but the crazy summer weather really did a number on tomato flavors this year. So I definitely want to give it a do-over next season. Mid-season. Yield was average. It has a nice, long extended harvest window.
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Storage
- 🌿 Plant: Semi-determinate vine reaching 4 to 5 feet (1.2-1.5 m) tall. It is described as vigorous and much sturdier than traditional spindly oxheart vines. Fruits are large, blunt-tipped pinkish-red oxhearts weighing 7-17.5 oz (200-500 g). Highly uniform in shape.
- 📈 Yield: Very productive. Multiple growers noted that it heavily out-produces traditional classic oxhearts (like the famous Bull’s Heart) and has a prolonged, extended harvest window rather than dropping all its fruit at once.
- 👅 Taste: Excellent. It features the classic sugary, meaty, watermelon-like flesh expected from a high-quality heirloom oxheart.
- 📦 Hardiness: Extremely reliable outdoors. It proved resilient and productive even during notoriously bad, cold summers.
