🍅 Quick take: A mid-early, potato-leaf indeterminate that produces thin-skinned, red oblate tomatoes. Highly notable for its uniquely sweet seed gel, though it can be finicky in high heat and inconsistent moisture. Full summary ↓
Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 4)
Indeterminate vine, moderate height and average vigor. Mid-season, but leans closer to mid-early. Potato leaf type foliage.
The fruits are red, oblate, and perfectly meaty yet juicy. They have thin skin but handle transport surprisingly well and can even be stored for a short while. The flavor really surprised me! The flesh itself is pleasantly sweet-tart, but the seed gel is actually way sweeter – usually, it’s the exact opposite!
It does have a few drawbacks: inconsistent watering leads to cracking, and it doesn’t handle heatwaves very well (it tends to drop some blossoms). There is also a huge variation in fruit weight across the plant. Still, it’s staying in my collection purely for that uniquely sweet seed gel 😄
Full Summary: Mikado Red (Mikado Krasnyi)
- 🌿 Plant & Foliage: An indeterminate potato-leaf variety with moderate height and vigor. Usually performs as a mid-early to mid-season producer.
- 🍅 Fruit & Shape: Produces red, oblate (flattened globe) tomatoes with thin but surprisingly durable skin. Fruit size can be highly inconsistent, with a wide weight range found on a single plant.
- 📈 Yield & Health: Requires close attention to environmental factors. It is highly susceptible to blossom drop during heatwaves and will quickly crack if soil moisture fluctuates too much.
- 👅 Taste: Boasts a very unique flavor profile. While the dense, meaty flesh offers a classic, balanced sweet-tart tomato flavor, the gel surrounding the seeds is exceptionally sweet.
🍅 Have you grown Mikado Red? Drop a comment below! Did your plant suffer from blossom drop in the heat, or did you get a solid harvest?
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