Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 3-7 Experience)
Seeds are from Partner. Here is what the vendor claims: Ultra-early determinate hybrid. 80-85 days from germination to first harvest. Simple trusses with 7-8 flowers. First truss forms above the 5th-6th leaf. Fruits are round to flat-round, firm, bright red, no green shoulders, weighing 4.2-5 oz (120-140 g) with excellent flavor. Known for ripening all at once. Resistant to cracking and BER, tolerant to tomato mosaic virus, alternaria, and late blight. Recommended for early outdoor production. Plant spacing is 1 plant per 2 sq ft (5 plants/sq m), pruned to 2-3 stems. Yield outdoors is 1.8-2.3 lbs/sq ft (9-11.5 kg/sq m), and indoors 2.7-3 lbs/sq ft (13.5-15 kg/sq m).
It really is an early hybrid, pumps out a ton of fruit all at once. Growing it in my poly greenhouse, the bushes are short, somewhere around 3.3 ft (1 m). Here is a photo from June 10, 2018:
The taste is honestly just average, typical basic tomato flavor.
Well my Lyubasha is already almost 5 ft (1.5 m) tall with exactly one truss about 2.6 ft (80 cm) off the ground. No more flowers, no suckers, but it’s pushing massive leaves even though my greenhouse soil is pretty poor. Basically, it’s a monster! 😲
My Lyubasha is growing outdoors in the dirt, bushes are about 3.3 ft (1 m) tall, trunks are as thick as my arm, leaves are massive. Total monster too, but there’s only one truss and it just has 3 tiny tomatoes on it. I planted 3 bushes total, the other two are pushing out nothing but foliage. Total disappointment, not a real tomato.
I’ve got Lyubasha out in the dirt too. Bush is about 2.6 ft (80 cm) tall. Lots of tomatoes, but they are the size of a walnut. And they aren’t even early for me. Won’t be planting this one again.
Growing Lyubasha in a poly greenhouse. Sowed on March 10, bush is about 3.3 ft (1 m) tall, letting it run to 4-5 stems. Tons of fruit on it, started ripening around July 10. Taste is standard tomato, but if you let them hang on the vine longer, they do get some sweetness to them.
Grew it in the poly greenhouse, sowed in late March, started coloring up in late July (the weather really didn’t help with early ripening this year). Topped itself at about 3.3 ft (1 m) tall. Not a monster for me, set fruit reliably, and matched the catalog specs for shape and weight. The fruits are firm but not woody, standard tomato flavor.
How’s the taste? And how do they hold up in canning? Worth planting or not?
Here are my notes on this hybrid (grew it in 2018).
Sowed March 28. For outdoors. Massive bushes and foliage. At some point (when it had 3-4 stems) I started pruning the suckers, but they already had flower trusses on them (even the tiny 2-inch ones). I just stopped pruning entirely (and you really shouldn’t with this one!).
Tomatoes average 2.8-3.5 oz (80-100 g). Extremely productive. If I had sown them in late February, they would have ripened even earlier.
Considering it’s a hybrid, the taste is perfectly fine (not a sour bomb, though we did have a very hot June and July).
I grew it too. Height was up to 3.3 ft (1 m). Lots of fruit, about 3.5 oz (100 g) each, very firm. Tastes exactly like a plastic grocery store tomato. Won’t plant it again.
On 1/26/2020 at 5:20 PM, Kristina_Lv said:
I grew it too. Height was up to 3.3 ft (1 m). Lots of fruit, about 3.5 oz (100 g) each, very firm. Tastes exactly like a plastic grocery store tomato. Won’t plant it again.
Are they totally bland for canning too?
I use them for sauces, juices, and lecho, they just all go in the pot together.
On 1/26/2020 at 5:59 PM, gulli said:
Are they totally bland for canning too?
The way I see it, the most important thing for whole canned tomatoes is firmness. Plenty of folks rave about canning Auria or Eros. But in my opinion, Lyubasha tastes a hundred times better than those, even fresh (those other two are literally inedible to me).
On 1/26/2020 at 7:21 PM, Natsha said:
The way I see it, the most important thing for whole canned tomatoes is firmness. Plenty of folks rave about canning Auria or Eros. But in my opinion, Lyubasha tastes a hundred times better than those, even fresh (those other two are literally inedible to me).
Agreed, I grew those before. Don’t want them again either. I’ll plant a couple Lyubasha bushes and figure something else out.
Planted it in the greenhouse and out in the dirt. I was amazed by the 100% fruit set in the greenhouse. Fruits are firm, larger indoors. The taste is good for a hybrid. Honestly better than a lot of OP canning varieties grown outdoors. Zero disease issues. But the pests absolutely loved it. A lot of the fruits got chewed up by hornworms (they barely touched anything else). In the greenhouse it acted more like a mid-early, but outdoors it was very early.
Compared to Verochka F1, they are almost identical. But Lyubasha is slightly better in terms of yield and fruit size. Outdoors they perform exactly the same.
Edited September 21, 2022 by Vz
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Storage
- 🌿 Plant: Determinate hybrid. Plant habits are highly variable depending on soil and climate. Some growers got compact 2.6 ft (80 cm) bushes, while others reported massive 5 ft (1.5 m) “monsters” with thick trunks. Fruits are uniform, round, and red, weighing 3-5 oz (80-140 g). It does best with minimal pruning.
- 📈 Yield: Generally very high and concentrated, though a few growers experienced poor fruit set with plants pushing too much foliage instead of flowers. It performs well both in greenhouses and outdoors.
- 👅 Taste: Divisive. Many growers rate it as a basic, “supermarket-style” tomato. However, it is highly valued as a canning and processing tomato due to its firm texture and lack of woody cores.
- 📦 Hardiness: Excellent disease resistance, but highly susceptible to caterpillar/hornworm damage. It holds up perfectly in jars for whole canning.
In this thread, growers discuss using firm hybrids like Lyubasha F1 for “lecho” and whole-canning. Unlike in the US, where gardeners often chase the perfect fresh-eating heirloom slicer, Russian and Eastern European growers dedicate a massive portion of their garden strictly to canning varieties. They want bulletproof, thick-walled, uniform fruits that won’t turn to mush in a boiling water bath or when slow-cooked into Lecho (a traditional thick bell pepper and tomato stew). This is why a tomato that “tastes like the supermarket” fresh off the vine is still highly prized if it performs perfectly in a mason jar during the long winter!
