Growers’ Notes and Photos
I love this variety for the flavor and color, but definitely not for the yield. I can’t seem to pull more than 4.5-6.5 lbs (2-3 kg) off a single vine, it’s just not a heavy producer at all. Still, I plant it every single year.
Edited March 16, 2019 by Pomidoroved
Alexander, we’d love a bit more detail on this variety! Vine height, growth habit, fruit weight, how early it is, leaf type, your growing conditions, etc.
Here’s my Olympic Flame. Seeds came from Brizhan. Sadly, I don’t have any pics of the plant itself. It’s a late-season variety and a low yielder for me too, but I’ll absolutely keep growing it–again, purely for how gorgeous and tasty the fruits are. Grown outdoors, the vine hit around 3.3 ft (1 m) tall.
My Olympic Flame (seeds from Olya in Voronezh). Grew it outdoors in 2012, it produced heavily and had plenty of time to ripen. But in 2013 (grown from my own saved seeds) it turned out super late. I think it only set about 3 tomatoes total, and they all got hit by late blight so I had to toss the whole batch.
Indet, bicolor, absolutely delicious variety 😋 with sweet, tender, almost jelly-like flesh. It looks stunning when you slice it open 👍.
Grew two vines, pruned to two stems each, in an old poly high tunnel during the rainy summer of 2013. It’s a late indet. One plant gave me about 7-8 fruits, and the other one (seeded later from a different source) only managed to set 2 tomatoes. High temps and humidity inside the tunnel during the blossom stage probably played a huge role there. Fruits were up to 15 oz (420 g). The ones at the top of the vine were smaller, so I pulled them green and they ripened up nicely indoors without losing their flavor.
Grew this one outdoors in ’13. It was a poor yielder and very late. Flavor was decent enough, but I won’t be growing it again… For our zone, this is strictly a greenhouse tomato.
Olympic Flame actually fruits really well for me outdoors. Inside the greenhouse, I just can’t get it to yield, and the fruits end up much smaller.
Hands down the best tasting tomato I’ve tried so far 😋. Nice and firm, incredibly sweet with a rich, silky tomato flavor. The skin is on the thicker side, which might be exactly what saved it from the rot and diseases that our northern tomatoes usually suffer from. Seeds from ElenaN 🌺. The color shifted from a standard bi-color to this orangey-raspberry shade, almost leaning toward bright brown. My son gave me strict orders to replace more than half my seedlings with this variety next year 👍
Olympic Flame didn’t disappoint on flavor, as always!
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste, and Quirks
- 🌿 Plant & Looks: A late-season indeterminate that produces absolutely stunning oblate beefsteaks (up to 15 oz / 420 g). The skin and flesh feature intense marbling, ranging from standard yellow/red bi-color to deep orange-raspberry depending on the weather. The skin is notably thick, offering great resistance to cracking and rot.
- 📈 Yield & Greenhouse Issues: Yield is the major weak point of this variety. Many growers report harvesting only 2 to 8 fruits per vine. It is highly susceptible to blossom drop if temperatures and humidity spike, which makes growing it in a greenhouse very tricky for some. Paradoxically, several growers found it actually sets fruit much better when grown outdoors, provided the season is long enough for it to ripen.
- 👅 Taste & Texture: Exceptional. It is repeatedly praised as one of the best-tasting tomatoes in the garden. The flesh is dense, sweet, and described as having a silky, jelly-like texture that melts in your mouth. Many growers tolerate its poor yields purely because the flavor is unmatched.
