Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 4-8 Experience)
A new variety for me, the discovery of the season. Very good 👍 😋. Grown in the greenhouse, pruned to two leaders. The vine is a bit wispy and spindly, just like a lot of oxhearts. Good yield. Seeds were from Uralskiy Dachnik (Ural Summer Resident). 100% germination rate. The red fruits are very tasty, pure meat, aromatic, large, and dense. I recommend planting this one to everyone 👍. It was also one of the very last plants to catch late blight.
Edited January 29, 2015 by Drosera
I grew Mishka Kosolapy quite a while ago (unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures back then either). My seeds were from Alena-Lux. It was advertised as an early determinate, maybe 1.6 ft (50 cm) tall, but it grew into a solid mid-season indet (even for me, planted out in the dirt).
The fruits were just like Svetlana’s, really liked them.
Here is how my Mishka Kosolapy Red turned out. Indeterminate, fruits are massive—up to 21 oz (600g)—but there aren’t a ton of them on the vine, usually 3 per cluster. It has a real, true tomato flavor with a nice sweetness, very pleasant. The inside has that gorgeous watermelon-like flesh. Mid-late season ripening for me.
A very good tomato! 👍
Very tasty fruits 😋 Easily one of the tastiest I’ve grown.
The vine doesn’t take up much space, it has those long weeping leaves that just hang straight down. Fruits are large, yield is good. Turned out to be mid-season for me, and reached an average height.
Mishka Kosolapy Red. Excellent variety! Total respect to the original breeders! The fruits have a beautiful, even shape with thin skin. The flesh is juicy with a perfectly balanced flavor and a slight tang in the aftertaste. Productive, and the vine is actually quite vigorous for a heart-shaped variety. My absolute discovery of the 2018 season!
Tasty, large tomato. Disease resistant and fruited very well. Planted it in the greenhouse. I’m happy with it and will definitely grow it again.
A few years ago at a forum meetup in Moscow, a kind soul gave me a few seeds for “Mishka Kosolapy Raspberry” (Pink) and “Mishka Kosolapy Orange”. Somehow they never made it into my planting schedule. The seeds came from commercial, colored packets, so I figured they were just some non-serious mass-market strains))) YEAH RIGHT)))
This year I finally planted one vine of each side by side. Turned out to be a very worthy variety! Huge oxhearts, lots of them, and very tasty. Granted, the orange one turned out to be yellow, almost lemon-colored, but it wasn’t any worse for it. Good to go!))))
Productive variety. Mid-season. Pink fruits with great flavor.
Full Summary: Plant Habit, Yields, and Oxheart Traits
- 🌿 Plant & Foliage: Indeterminate (though sometimes mislabeled as determinate on commercial packets). Exhibits classic oxheart genetics: vines are slender, wispy, and feature long, weeping foliage that points downward, saving space in dense plantings.
- 📈 Yield & Health: Generally highly productive. Multiple growers note excellent disease resistance, specifically holding off late blight (Phytophthora) much longer than surrounding varieties.
- 🍅 Fruit & Shape: Massive oxhearts averaging 14-21 oz (400-600g). Initially a red variety, it has since been stabilized into distinct color lines including Pink (Raspberry) and Yellow/Orange.
- 👅 Taste: Thin-skinned with a dense, meaty, “watermelon-like” interior. The flavor is praised as a true, old-fashioned tomato taste—primarily sweet, well-balanced, and finishing with a slight tang.
