Lya-lya-fa F1 Tomato Review & Photos

Seed packet description says: Mid-early hybrid (100-105 days to maturity), meant for greenhouses. Flat-round, uniform fruits with 4-6 locules, weighing 4-5 oz (120-140 g). Crack-resistant. Can store for 1.5 to 2 months after picking.
Photo credit: Deniza

I always squeeze in a couple plants of Lya-lya-fa F1 every year. It’s completely trouble-free, gives a solid yield, ripens early, and keeps really well. To me, the flavor is a little on the bland side, but it totally hits the spot for those very first early salads.

I’ve already picked a few here. After the main harvest, I just let a sucker take over the lead, so the vine keeps pumping out tomatoes right until fall. I put the very last ones away for storage, and they hold up fine for about two months.

The fruits are running smaller than usual this year. We basically had zero rain until mid-July, so that explains it. But the plant set way more of them, so the overall yield didn’t take a hit at all. Already tossing some into salads. 😉

Someone gifted me a plant of this awesome hybrid, and I couldn’t be happier with it. Incredible fruit set, and all the tomatoes on every truss were the exact same size, nice and meaty. Started ripening up in late July with a good sweet and sour flavor. Definitely putting it on my grow list for 2017. Awesome, heavy-yielding 👍

Barely had a single day off through July and August. The tomatoes basically had to fend for themselves, plus I didn’t spray them with anything at all. The result was exactly what you’d expect: leaf mold swept through the greenhouse.

The only plant that completely shrugged it off was Lya-lya-fa. 👍 It’s the one right in the foreground of this picture:

Quote from Karamel:
The result was exactly what you’d expect: leaf mold swept through the greenhouse. The only plant that completely shrugged it off was Lya-lya-fa.

I got hit with leaf mold too… I was totally unprepared, didn’t even know it was a thing until this year 😢
Was actually thinking about Lya-lya-fa yesterday and remembered it was growing outside for me and looked great out there. Maybe I just shouldn’t waste greenhouse space on it if it’s not happy in there? Might just stick it in the open garden. It was my first tomato love, but I’m seriously thinking about ditching it.

Leaf mold is mainly a greenhouse issue, you rarely see it outdoors.

I stick with Lya-lya-fa for three main reasons: it yields heavy, ignores leaf mold completely, and stores forever. If it lost even one of those traits, I’d probably drop it.

My only worry right now is getting a bad batch of fake seeds once my current packet runs out. Just talking about this with a coworker today actually. She bought a packet over the winter on my recommendation, and it grew into some completely random junk. 🤷‍♀️ Sucks that she already tossed the empty packet.

Quote from Karamel:
Leaf mold is mainly a greenhouse issue, you rarely see it outdoors.

I’ve got seeds from three different vendors. We were actually just talking about the leaf mold situation, and it turns out it did hit outdoor plants here in Belarus this year. I thought I was just imagining things, but the local tomato veterans confirmed it. Inside my greenhouse, Lya-lya-fa was actually the second plant to catch it, so I’ll have to check which vendor those seeds came from.

I had a little bit of leaf mold outside last year too, but nothing major. In the greenhouse it absolutely rages, but outside it just kinda messes around. On the bright side, those infected outdoor plants completely dodged late blight! 😉 Definitely a silver lining for those of us living in this rotten swamp. 👍

Quote from Karamel:
On the bright side, those infected outdoor plants completely dodged late blight! 😉 Definitely a silver lining for those of us living in this rotten swamp. 👍

😄 Bless your heart, always finding the bright side in everything! 🌸

This tomato has a permanent spot in my garden, never lets me down. Been growing it for five years straight now 😄😄😄

Did my first selective picking of Lya-lya-fa yesterday. Seeds were from Gavrish. Sowed them on Feb 15th, planted out in the dirt under row covers in two batches mid-April.

Overall, it perfectly matches the description. Out in the open garden, the plant topped out around 30 inches (80 cm). Set fruit really well. By early June, the vines were pretty loaded, and the first ones ripened up by the end of June. I only picked a portion of the ripe ones.

Overall verdict: The fruits have a perfect shape, very dense, nice looking, zero blemishes. Even survived falling off the table a couple of times while I was weighing them, despite being fully ripe and slightly soft. Sliced open, they look like this:

The flavor is your standard, classic tomato. Very pleasant for a hybrid, not acidic at all. Absolutely perfect for canning.