Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 3-5 Experience)
I got these seeds at a forum meetup; there was a packet just sitting on the seed exchange table. Grew it in the greenhouse. It took forever to get going and didn’t start fruiting until August. The vine turned out to be incredibly tall—practically all the fruits set way up at the 6.5 ft (2m) mark.
I looked up descriptions of the variety online, and my tomatoes weren’t nearly as deeply ribbed as the pictures. They had more of a wavy side profile with faint yellowish stripes down the ribs. When sliced open, it has very obvious hollow cavities, with thick structural walls and core. The fruits were quite uniform, weighing around 10.5 oz (300g). To my taste, eating it fresh is basically like eating store-bought plastic.
Edited September 11, 2018 by Drosera
My seeds were from the online shop “Sortovye Semena”. Grew it outdoors in the dirt. A very cheerful, vigorous little tomato plant! Tall and productive. The tomatoes are bright red, shiny, and have a flat, ribbed shape like little pumpkins. Max weight was 3.5 oz (100g), didn’t get any bigger than that. The flavor is just your standard tomato taste with a little tang.
Thanks, will definitely be giving this one a try next year.
Edited May 13, 2019 by Mikhail
My seeds were brought over directly from Spain. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of seeds in the commercial packet – 350 seeds! Information on the packet read: Montserrat – ancient Catalan heirloom, Indeterminate, medium height. Pink stuffer, fruit weight 175-225g (6-8 oz), very sweet. Harvest in 4 months.
This tomato grew into something that brought me incredible joy this past season! The thing is, I have been searching for a good, open-pollinated stuffer variety for ages that hits all my criteria: size, shape, concentrated ripening, and the ability to hold its structural shape when baked. And jackpot–I finally have a gorgeous stuffer in my stash! 😆
In the greenhouse, it grew into an absolute beast! Thick, sturdy stem with insane, rampant vigor, and huge, tough leaves. Excellent fruit set, and good disease resistance. Honestly, I probably won’t risk planting it in the greenhouse again (it gets too huge). As for days to maturity, it acted like a mid-late season variety for me—I harvested 3.5 to 4 months after transplanting. As a stuffer, it exceeded all expectations: decently large fruits, and the ability to harvest a bunch of uniform ones all at once. It was super easy to scoop the seeds out of the cavities. The fruit walls held their shape perfectly after baking.
Conclusion: Montserrat is an excellent special-purpose variety!
Full Summary: Plant Habit, Yields, and Culinary Uses
- 🌿 Plant & Foliage: Indeterminate, mid-late season. Known for rampant, “monster” vigor with extremely thick stems and large leaves. If grown in a greenhouse, it will require rigorous pruning and heavy trellising to keep it from taking over the structure.
- 📈 Yield & Health: Sets large clusters of fruit simultaneously (which is ideal for making large batches of stuffed/baked recipes). Highly disease resistant.
- 🍅 Fruit & Shape: Deeply ribbed, flattened “pumpkin” shapes. True Spanish seeds produce pink fruits ranging from 6 to 10.5 oz (175-300g). Inside, the fruit is completely hollow, with thick structural walls and an easily removable central seed core.
- 👅 Taste: As a fresh eater, it is terrible—dry, hard, and devoid of the gel/juice that gives slicers their flavor (described as “store-bought plastic”). However, when baked, the thick walls sweeten up and hold their shape perfectly without collapsing into mush, making it a top-tier culinary stuffer.
The contrasting reviews of Montserrat perfectly highlight the divide between “fresh eating” slicers and “culinary” tomatoes. Natalia expected a standard fresh-eating beefsteak, and because stuffers lack the juicy locules and gel that carry a tomato’s flavor profile, she correctly noted it tasted like “store-bought plastic.” Marina, however, approached it purely as a cooking ingredient, where those exact same traits (thick, dry, structural walls) are highly prized for baking. Additionally, beware of seed provenance: true Catalan Montserrat is a large pink heirloom, while some mass-market seed companies sell a smaller (3.5 oz) red variant under the same name…
