Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zone 7 Experience)
Love and Doves F1 from Premium Seeds.
Supposed to taste like a classic pink variety with dense, meaty flesh and no tough skin, getting juicy and melt-in-your-mouth when overripe. I ran a few vines and honestly, the traits were all over the place. Some had a grainy texture and were way more tart than sweet, bordering on totally bland. Others were on the watery side with barely any hint of acid or sugar. Out in the dirt, the fruit set was fantastic though, the plums didn’t shrink in size further up the plant, and the vines are pushing past 6.5 ft (2 m) and still throwing blossoms.
Edited September 28, 2020 by Drosera
Ran this one last summer in the poly greenhouse. Set fruit fine, just like any regular hybrid, but definitely didn’t blow me away with any crazy super-yields. Might be because it was in the hoophouse and got way too hot in there at times. Flavor couldn’t hold a candle to open-pollinated heirlooms. Not going on my grow list again 🙂
On 9/28/2020 at 9:43 AM, Olviya said:
Ran this one last summer in the poly greenhouse. Set fruit fine, just like any regular hybrid, but definitely didn’t blow me away with any crazy super-yields. Might be because it was in the hoophouse and got way too hot in there at times. Flavor couldn’t hold a candle to open-pollinated heirlooms. Not going on my grow list again 🙂
Taste-tested some gnarly, blocky plums off one of these hybrid vines last night, and man, they were bone dry and completely tasteless. I’ve got another off-type vine of this throwing red, meaty fruits, and it had that exact same cardboard winter-greenhouse taste to it.
Edited September 29, 2020 by tusik
Here’s another vine on November 2. Absolutely zero hint of sweetness or meatiness. Just a tough, tart, kinda starchy plum tomato ripening up from a brownish color.
Edited November 2, 2020 by tusik
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Storage
- 🌿 Plant: Indeterminate vine that easily tops 6.5 ft (2 m). Genetics appear highly unstable for a commercial F1 hybrid; growers reported getting off-type plants producing red fruits instead of pink, as well as varying fruit shapes ranging from standard plums to blocky, gnarly pastes.
- 📈 Yield: Good outdoors, but mediocre in the greenhouse. While it sets fruit reliably all the way up the vine, it does not like extreme heat under plastic or glass.
- 👅 Taste: Extremely poor. Multiple growers complained about a distinct lack of flavor, describing the texture as tough, grainy, or dry, and the taste as a generic, bland “supermarket” tomato. It lacks the rich sweetness you would expect from a pink heirloom.
- 📦 Hardiness: Very robust outdoors and keeps pushing out blossoms late into the fall, but the late-season fruits remain tough and tart.
If you’re wondering why a seed company named a tomato “Love and Doves”, it’s a direct homage to one of the most famous and beloved Soviet romantic comedy films of all time, released in 1984. Russian seed catalogs absolutely love cashing in on nostalgia, frequently naming hybrids and commercial varieties after iconic movies, actors, or catchphrases to catch the eye of older gardeners browsing the seed racks!
