Medvezhya Lapa (Bear’s Paw) Tomato Review & Photos

I planted seeds from a Sibirskiy Sad (SibSad) packet… And ended up growing three entirely different Bear’s Paws… 😂😂😂 Let’s start with #1: regular leaf vine, not too many tomatoes and not very large… color is red, taste is good, classic tomatoey… Here’s how it looked on July 2nd.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Drosera

And here is what grew as Bear’s Paw #3.. July 2nd, July 7th. The tomatoes turned out a crimson-red color and very tasty… juicy… I really liked them…

And here is the Paw that grew as #2… raspberry-colored tomatoes, about 10 on the vine weighing ~7 oz (200 g) each.. 😞 Potato leaf… the taste of the first tomato seemed bland, waiting for the next one to ripen – maybe it’ll taste better…

How do they fundamentally differ from each other, besides #2 having potato leaves???

And what are the actual baseline characteristics of the Medvezhya Lapa variety?

On 1/29/2015 at 10:15 AM, Drosera said:
How do they fundamentally differ from each other, besides #2 having potato leaves???
And what are the actual baseline characteristics of the Medvezhya Lapa variety?

Svetlana – they are all completely different…

The packet says: “Mid-early, up to 1.8 lbs (800 g), oblate, red, 3.3-5.6 ft (1-1.7 m). Characterized by a rare combination of large fruit size and enviable yield.”

#1 – kind of fits the description… maybe it didn’t size up properly because of my terrible agrotechnique… 😂
#2 – light pink – definitely not it…
#3 – red outside, but dark raspberry inside, and not oblate but perfectly round like a ball, growing in clusters of equal-weight fruits… 👍

I’d really love to know what variety I actually grew under #3… turned out so delicious… 😋

Pomidoroved, whose seeds did you plant?

Seeds were from “Sibirskiy Sad”.

Last year it was a very productive, tasty tomato. I saved the seeds. This year here’s what grew: the plant is smaller, the tomatoes are much flatter, and they are YELLOW!!!!!!

I had 2 or 3 vines of Medvezhya Lapa this year, all identical. Oblate, red, act like indeterminates, set excellent full trusses. Average fruit weight was around ~7 oz (200 g); if I had thinned them, they probably would have been bigger.

Flavor is a 3+ out of 5. You can definitely taste the acidity, and the aroma is average, but they are very juicy–many people prefer that style.
Pros: Good yield, great fruit set even in tough weather conditions. The tomatoes do not crack!
Cons: Average taste, could have been better.

I want to stand up for this variety. Someone gifted me one of these tomatoes. Red, large. I thought it would just be bags of water with no flavor, but no, I actually liked it. Sweet, juicy, didn’t turn to mush even though it was overripe. I wasn’t the only one who tried it, everyone liked it. Mind you, we’d been eating tomatoes for two weeks already, so that initial “tomato hunger” was gone and we were already getting picky. But we didn’t reject this one, everyone told me to plant it. Didn’t get many seeds out of it though. My tomato weighed 15.7 oz (445 g), and it wasn’t even the biggest one. Yield was average. Seeds were from a SibSad packet.

I didn’t like Medvezhya Lapa. A massive vine, gorgeous seedlings, incredibly powerful foliage–I was exhausted from pruning it. Average yield, normal taste. In the space it took up, I could have planted three Orlinyy Klyuv (Eagle’s Beak) vines, which would have been tastier and more productive. Mine was from SibSad.

I liked Medvezhya Lapa last year – tasty, juicy, large tomatoes. But I grew a lot of similar red and pink oblate varieties that were also large and tasty… So I want to repeat it just to figure things out for certain. 😉

These were a failure for me, they turned out very small when I was expecting giants. They’d grow just a bit and immediately ripen. Maybe I missed something. Grew them in the greenhouse and outdoors in the dirt, equally unproductive in both. I’m disappointed.

I grew 2 vines of Medvezhya Lapa. One outdoors, one under a roof. Yield wasn’t really impressive, I was expecting them to be larger. The taste was a good, classic sweet-tart tomato flavor. I’ll plant it one more time and try to push for a better yield.

Hello. Here is my Medvezhya Lapa, grown during the hot summer of 2016 outdoors in the dirt. At first it was under row cover, then out in the full sun. Here is the commercial packet photo, and here are my photos from the patch, plus a ripened one.

The vine was powerful, tall, mid-season, and yield was average. The fruits have an interesting flattened, triangular shape that really does resemble a paw. Tasty, red, meaty, weighing up to ~10.5 oz (300 g). I’m keeping this variety in my collection and definitely plan to repeat it.

I’ve never tried Medvezhya Lapa outdoors, and judging by your posts, I missed out… I didn’t plant it at all this year, kicking myself for it…. but what can you do, greenhouses aren’t made of rubber, so many new interesting varieties, and I didn’t want to risk it outdoors. Still, I miss the Paw…

Seeds were from SibSad. Grew it in the greenhouse for four years and never ran into off-types, sad I didn’t take photos. The tomatoes were dark red (not pink or light colored like some photos here), oblate, medium sized, no giants. Tasty, beautiful shape, very classic look, and never had any green shoulders. Now I’m going to try them outdoors since they apparently do well there.

It performed gorgeously for me outdoors! Repeating it this year.

Grown outdoors. Poltava. Indeterminate. Large and medium fruits. Not a massive amount of them because many trusses burned up in the heat. The flesh is sweet, not dry, pure “meat”. No unripe green shoulders or dry cores.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Valentina-11