Orange Strawberry Tomato Review & Photos (USA Heirloom)

Orange Strawberry
We are also discussing the variety German Orange Strawberry here.
Description: A large-fruited orange tomato with a fruity flavor and very few seeds. The vine grows up to 13 feet (4 meters) tall and absolutely needs support. Fruits weigh 14-18 oz (400-500 g), provided you thin out the blossoms on the truss, of course. 75-80 days from transplant out into the ground to harvest.
I grew mine in the greenhouse. The first fruit was about 2.2 lbs (1 kg), the rest were around 10-14 oz (300-400 g). Pretty good yield. It’s one of the first ones we eat once they ripen. 😃
There really are very few seeds. Overall, a nice variety, definitely growing it again in the coming years.

And here is my Orange Strawberry. Still producing, today is October 19th, just picked a couple! 😉

What beauties! 😋 👍 👍 👍

Lena! Your photos show a true strawberry (heart) shape. Were they all like that on the plant? I grew mine from English commercial seeds distributed to forum members by Larisa. Loved the variety! All specs match up, except my fruits (other than the very last one) were oblate, not hearts. Can I keep sharing seeds calling it a “strawberry”, or is some parent variety showing up?

Zulfiya, mine weren’t all hearts either, but about 90% were. The first couple weren’t, but then the rest looked like hearts. As for sharing the seeds, that’s up to you. If it’s a tasty and good variety, why not? 😉

Lena leo_leo_1 said:
And here is my Orange Strawberry. Still producing, today is October 19th, just picked a couple! 😉

Good afternoon, Lena! Could you tell us where you grew it, what the yield and height were like, and how many stems you pruned it to? 🌸 🌸

Marisha, my Orange Strawberry grew outdoors in open ground. I pruned it to 2-3 stems. Yield was average, maybe even slightly below average. The plant got tall, about 6.5 feet (2 meters). Fruits were absolutely delicious. 😉

Here’s my Orange Strawberry. Seeds from D. Gusev. Productive, tasty.

More:

What a stunner! 👍

Yeah 🌸, I really liked this one too. The vine is sturdy, doesn’t stretch out too much, and was well-behaved as a seedling. Definitely making the cut for my 2014 grow list!

ElenaN said:
Here’s my Orange Strawberry. Seeds from D. Gusev. Productive, tasty.

Mine was from Ruslan Dukhov. Very firm and meaty. The cross-section looked more like the one in the first post. Almost seedless. Delicious, no acidity. Mine was a low yielder due to bad care (planted too close together, didn’t pinch suckers in time). Guess I’ll try Gusev’s line this year. Thanks for the seeds, Lena! 🌸 🌸 🌸

ElenaN said:
Yeah, 🌸, I really liked this one too. The vine is sturdy, doesn’t stretch out too much, and was well-behaved as a seedling. Definitely making the cut for my 2014 grow list!

Lenochek, how many plants are you planning to put in?

Lenochka, I’m planting exactly 1 plant of every variety 😃, including Orange Strawberry. Going to start 2 seeds just in case, though!

A post from the seed exchange got me thinking…

Volzhanka said:
Orange Berry from Popenko’s catalog. He wrote the English name right, but the translation is wrong. Orange Berry (Orange Strawberry, USA). Tatiana Kouchnareva lists it as Orange Strawberry. It’s the same variety, an American heirloom, shape is closer to a heart. Gusev’s catalog has ‘German Orange Strawberry – old German variety of large tomatoes’ ???, shape is oblate-heart. Is this the exact same variety just circulating with the wrong name?

My beauties. This variety has become a favorite. Checked all the boxes for me.

Drosera said:
A post from the seed exchange got me thinking… Is this the exact same variety just circulating with the wrong name?

I grew German Orange Strawberry specifically, seeds from England.
Here are the specs: vigorous seedlings, fast growth. By 6 weeks you can see heavy fuzz on the leaves and stems (it’s velvety, so it looks a bit lighter green). The flower truss is gorgeous, lush, but points straight up… the whole vine is covered in bouquets. The plant limits its own fruit set. Cold tolerant. Sown in February, harvested from July 10th to mid-October. The fruits ripen beautifully on the counter indoors–out in the bright sun they ripen unevenly.

Bought seeds from Popenko (photo above). First year yielded average—acclimation plus a bad summer. Extremely tasty: buttery, sweet but not bland, with very few tiny seeds. Probably one of the sweetest and prettiest in my collection. Will absolutely keep growing it.

German Orange Strawberry. Loved it, delicious, productive. Tall, you can let it grow to several stems. Fruit shapes were oblate and rounded-heart.

Are these the same variety? Why do they look so different 😮? Or are they completely different tomatoes with the same name? 😮

Elfia said:
Are these the same variety? Why do they look so different 😮?

Elfia, I think there is German Orange Strawberry and regular Orange Strawberry, and they are different. I want to try both next year and compare the differences.

I wonder which is tastier and more productive? Has anyone grown them both side-by-side?

I got my seeds from Popenko, under the name: Orange Strawberry, USA.

elena1984 said:
Elfia, it seems they are sold as German Orange Strawberry (heart-shaped) and just Orange Strawberry (oblate)…

Actually, it’s the opposite. Orange Strawberry is the heart-shaped one. I asked about the “Strawberries” back in the summer.

I’m gonna confuse you all even more 😃 I just had the regular Orange Strawberry (not German) and it was oblate ??? Is it an off-type?

Studying the packet closer… looks like I got a 2-in-1 combo (a third variant). Like that monkey joke, where do I belong: with the German or the regular strawberry? 🙂 Grew exactly like the picture.

Here is how my little strawberry turned out! 😉

My Orange Strawberry, seeds from our dear Leo. The plant in the photo is already half-picked. I definitely got around 25 fruits total. Even though I let it go to 4 stems, the fruits weren’t small.

Adding some of my photos of this wonderful tomato. 😋 Grew in the ground.

My Orange Strawberry from Kulik. I noticed it’s radically different from what’s on the forum. Liked the variety though: firm, juicy, with noticeable sweetness and decent yield. A candidate to grow again in 2015.

A miraculous, super productive, delicious variety! 👍 Grew it in the greenhouse on 2 stems. The stems were literally breaking under the weight of the meaty fruits–even the top trusses had fruits up to 1.3 lbs (600 g) 😛 Seeds from ElenaN 🌸. Definitely growing it again!

I wonder how it performs outdoors in the ground. 🙂

Sveta! 👍 👍 👍

Andrey_K said:
I wonder how it performs outdoors in the ground. 🙂

I grew it outdoors last year: [link removed]

My German Orange Strawberry – seeds from Kulik. Large-fruited, productive, tall vine, I’ve been growing it for several years straight indoors. Delicious, beautiful, wonderful variety!

Excellent variety. I want to plant it again this year, which I rarely do (repeating varieties I’ve already grown). Tasty, productive, and very pretty!

My strawberry. 🙂 Planting it earlier this year, and putting in 4 plants instead of 2.

A bit about “German Orange Strawberry” (since it came up, I’ll copy my post from another thread here):
Orange Strawberry has absolutely nothing to do with the word “German” because it’s an American heirloom. Folks who register varieties in the US state that Orange Strawberry grew out of a packet of “Pineapple” tomato seeds at Marjorie Morris’s place in Indiana. But people who don’t know the variety’s history keep adding “German” because it sounds like “German Red Strawberry”, even though these two are NOT related.
Tatiana, who is incredibly meticulous about variety history, points out the origin of Orange Strawberry on her site. The other weird names we see are just translation errors, like “Orange Berry” because “translators” saw “berry” in “Strawberry” but didn’t bother opening a dictionary to see it meant strawberry… Or they use “Orange Wild Strawberry” (Zemlyanika)… and add “German” to it.
Fruit shape, taste, and maturity dates can vary because it gets to us through third parties. It acclimates, but over time it can also cross-pollinate or mutate. It depends on climate, care, seed quality, and seed-saving technique. You can ruin any gorgeous variety if you let it run down.
This one did not like shade in my garden, gave a low yield. A couple of pics from my collection as they were ripening:

Alisa, we talked about the correct name 2 years ago here on the forum. We put this name in the thread title simply because that’s how some seed vendors sell it. And nobody answered what the variety sold under “German Orange Strawberry” actually is, since its fruit shape differs from “regular” Orange Strawberry.

Alisa said:
It acclimates, but over time it can also cross-pollinate or mutate…

If a variety “mutates” or “cross-pollinates”, it’s no longer the same variety, it’s something entirely different. Spontaneous mutations are quite rare, as is cross-pollination by another variety. And genotype changes don’t happen for the reasons you listed.

Alisa said:
Orange Strawberry fell out of a Pineapple seed packet, meaning it was a mutant or a lucky cross…

I repeat. We established 2 years ago that the word “German” shouldn’t be in Orange Strawberry’s name. We included it in the title because some vendors sell it that way. As for how seeds of another variety ended up in a Pineapple packet, we can only guess. We get stuff growing out of packets that doesn’t match the label all the time—we call it “mixed-up seeds” (off-type), not an “unstable variety”.

I can tell you that my version of the strain gives extremely uniform, standard plants. The traits are very pronounced; you can’t confuse it with any other variety. All 6 plants I grew last season were ABSOLUTELY identical, almost reminded me of F1 hybrids with that level of uniformity. So I highly doubt it’s an unstable variety. It’s more likely that vendors are selling completely different lines, or just making mistakes–for example, one variant floating around is just a copy of Liskin Nos, for instance.
More than happy with this variety so far.

Alena Latvia said:
I can tell you that my version of the strain gives extremely uniform, standard plants…

Excuse me, what do you mean by “uniform”? Are the fruits oblate? Round? And does “Liskin Nos” even exist in the US (just curious), how does it sound in English (would love to track it down)?

Alisa said:
And does “Liskin Nos” even exist in the US (just curious)…

That’s the “folk” name for Orange Heart.
P.S. Everything off-topic has been moved to the De-hybridization section.

Alisa said:
Excuse me, what do you mean by “uniform”?

Uniform meaning identical appearance, growth rate, and fruit shape, plus entering every growth phase simultaneously—setting flower trusses, first ripe fruit, overall yield, and finishing the season at the same time. This variety does exactly that, great uniformity.

It has very beautiful flowers, fuzzy and large, nothing blooms prettier than Strawberry for me, well maybe Golden Rain, but GR looks really frail.

Andrey_K said:
It has very beautiful flowers…

Yeah, the flowers are gorgeous 🙂 But the trusses are kind of droopy. This is my first year growing Strawberry, and yesterday I tried to tie up the trusses (they are heavy) and couldn’t figure it out. How do you tie them?

kae-2 said:
How do you tie them?

I only got one tomato on one truss (second from the bottom), but it was huge, and then the next trusses had 3-4 each.

kae-2 said:
How do you tie them?

The trusses are huge, but the plant will naturally abort the ones it can’t support. Once the fruitlets are about half an inch, loop a tie under them and anchor it UP to the crotch of the leaf branch above it.
By the way, this variety has a habit of stalling fruit development—until you pick the first ripe tomato on the truss, the rest won’t size up.

My surprise for 2015: this variety is lagging behind for me right now. Last year it bolted out of the gate, this year it’s so slow. The only difference is I sowed it 2 weeks later. Looks weaker than last year, trying to yellow its leaves while everything next to it is thriving… Don’t see a logical explanation yet. It’ll just be much later, can’t judge yield yet, only has tiny fruitlets. Doesn’t seem to be its year.

Alena Latvia said:
By the way, this variety has a habit of stalling fruit development—until you pick the first ripe tomato on the truss, the rest won’t size up.

I noticed that last year too: until the first fruits on the truss reach full size, the rest don’t develop.

Alena Latvia said:
My surprise for 2015: this variety is lagging behind for me right now…

This year I don’t even see fruitlets yet, just flowers.

Drosera said:
This year I don’t even see fruitlets yet, just flowers.

Same here…
Massive plant, went to three stems. I counted 14 trusses. Potential for crazy yields, if only 2-3 fruits would set per truss… But my first truss completely aborted (blossom drop happened on a lot of varieties due to the weather), and the rest are blooming or done blooming, but no fruit set yet… Both my plants are acting the same.

What’s most interesting is that after reading about the “variants” of this variety (with and without ‘German’ attached), I planted my own seeds and Kulik’s. Mine say “German OS”, his say “OS”. Both are growing side by side and are ABSOLUTELY identical plants—foliage color, temperature reaction, and BOTH are acting this exact way this year. You can’t mix this variety up, it looks specific.
So the conclusion is—it’s the same variety. I’ll compare the fruits later, but climate probably affects their development differently, hence the discrepancies…
Look at my forecast: daytime highs of 66-68°F (19-20°C), nights at 46-50°F (8-10°C) until early August. What is going to grow in that? June frosts, then 4(!!!!) days of heat, and now it’s autumn again. >:(

Alena Latvia said:
Once the fruitlets are about half an inch, loop a tie under them and anchor it UP to the crotch of the leaf branch above it.

Thanks, Alena—got it! Like pulling them UP—I kept trying to tie them at the base. I have 4 trusses fully set, big already, about to ripen—but the next ones set and are still walnut-sized (growing slowly). It’s my tallest plant though, already running along the greenhouse roof. Some leaf tips are yellowing (I trim them)—only on Strawberry and Monomakh’s Hat. But the Strawberry plant out in the ground only set 6 fruits—blooms heavily but refuses to set (probably not meant for outdoors). 🌸

Alena Latvia said:
So the conclusion is—it’s the same variety…

Of course it’s the exact same variety ))) That’s been written and rewritten across so many forums… In my climate, it’s a late girl… and this year too… just won’t get moving, but the blooming trusses are gorgeous, fit for a show ))) I topped it after the 6th truss, couldn’t hope for more than that anyway… let it focus on reproduction and finishing what it has.

kae-2 said:
But the Strawberry plant out in the ground only set 6 fruits—blooms heavily but refuses to set (probably not meant for outdoors)

It’s possible that in a less-than-ideal climate this is strictly a greenhouse variety. I also noticed leaf issues this year (yellowing followed by necrosis) while neighboring varieties are fine. Gave it ashes and potassium fertilizer… gave it calcium… no difference. Don’t remember how it was last time, I grew too many tomatoes back then and didn’t have time to monitor the leaves on every single plant.

Orange Strawberry and my Orange Heart (Fox Nose) are different varieties. I’ve been tracking catalogs for a long time, and I’ve grown Orange Heart for a long time. Original seeds. Orange Strawberry is growing this year. Fruits are oblate. I know there are two versions. But if the heart-shaped one is the exact same as Orange Heart, then someone probably just renamed it OS at their own discretion. IMHO.

tomatinka said:
Orange Strawberry and my Orange Heart (Fox Nose) are different varieties…

I am growing 2 types of OStrawberry and OHeart.
OStrawberry has thick fuzz, sturdy velvety vine, leaves and flower trusses pointing strictly upward—very distinct, looks most similar to Slankard’s.
OHeart is different, has classic Oxheart traits (leaf, truss), overall a wispy vine.

And yes, this year GOS has characteristic leaf damage that didn’t exist last year (sadly, a couple other yellow varieties have it too, and Black Cherry). I watched this variety closely last year, it was new to me, made me very happy, and the leaves were perfectly healthy, just a lighter green.
Plus a huge delay—first truss set (heavy, 8-9 walnut-sized fruits), second is pea-sized, and then two trusses of bouquets… Very late, last year I was picking them by July 10th.

2015 season. Seeds from Alena Andreeva. Thanks, Alena!

tomatinka said:
Orange Strawberry and my Orange Heart (Fox Nose) are different varieties…

Verochka, I’m growing all three: Orange Strawberry, German Orange Strawberry, and Fox Nose (Orange Heart). The first two are identical (maybe German is slightly more heart-shaped), but Fox Nose is a totally different variety, you can’t confuse it. It has a pointy tip 😃 And flavor-wise, Fox Nose is the absolute tastiest to me! 😋

Crazy productive variety. Didn’t drop trusses, huge fruits and lots of them—more than 16 so far, with egg-sized ones still hanging up top. Seeds from Svetikk.
Taste is good for yellow hearts, very meaty.
Really liked it. A candidate for next year. 🙂

Here is my beauty.. 😃 The plant is interesting, different from most hearts. The stem is sturdy, leaves don’t droop like typical wispy hearts, they point straight out horizontally. The leaf itself is kind of short. It’s a very tidy, compact vine… Huge thanks to Lorochka-Larek for the seeds! 🌸

My German Orange Strawberry. Seeds from Larisa.

Question for those who grew it! My Strawberry has extremely thick skin that peels off in one single motion. Is this a trait of the variety or did something go wrong on my end? Loved the yield and taste, but the skin… you have to peel it, you can’t even eat it in salads, it’s so tough…

kae-2 said:
My Strawberry has extremely thick skin…

Extreme heat can make the skin thick. My very first fruit had normal skin, then it thickened up. It turned out to be a late-season ripener for me, but set a lot of fruit by late July. Grew in the greenhouse in partial shade, maybe that’s why it was late, but the leaves and fruits didn’t scorch, ripening beautifully on the vine.

Outdoors in the ground, mine turned out to be mid-early. Ripened very fast and all at once, finished producing, topped itself, and dried up. Really loved that the flesh is firm; it keeps well when ripe and doesn’t turn to mush.
Besides the great taste and pretty fluted shape, the color and texture of the flesh look exactly like a real strawberry, very beautiful. Wasn’t a huge yielder, but I’m hoping for a better harvest from my saved seeds.

Lana_s_Kavkaza said:
Extreme heat can make the skin thick…

Sveta, it really did bake heavily for 1.5 months, and the first 2 that ripened in July were normal. I didn’t know heat affects skin thickness. I still have a lot of green ones, and it’s cool now, so I’ll see what happens. Thanks, I was almost ready to give up on it because of the thick skin 🌸

Time to add a fly to the ointment… Planted OS from “Happy Garden” seeds. It completely failed for me! From the seedling stage all the way to harvesting its ONE single fruit (!), it was sick, spindly, and wimpy. Droopy foliage, vine barely made it to 3.5 ft (1.1m) outdoors in the ground. My conditions clearly didn’t suit it, even though a ton of other varieties grew perfectly fine.

– Plant habit: late, wimpy, droopy leaves.
– Fruit set: kept dropping blossoms, finally set one single fruit.
– Height outdoors on Sept 12th: 4 ft (1.2m).
– Truss: 1 fruit.
– Overall yield: extremely low.
– Fruit: bright orange, perfect heart shape, very pretty, tapers heavily at the bottom.
– Density: medium.
– Taste: very intense, tasty, sweetish with noticeable acidity, firm, juicy, sweetness is a 4/5.
Initial impression: a tasty and beautiful slicing tomato. Seedling grade: 3/5, Plant grade: 3/5, Fruit grade: 5/5, Overall: 4.5/5.
Hard to judge a variety off one fruit. It clearly failed this year—Strawberry just didn’t like my conditions. Will retry in 2016…

My Orange Strawberry was a heavy vegetative grower, demanded lots of potassium fertilizers. To my taste, it had an ordinary tomato flavor (not store-bought by any means), but no pronounced sweetness, definitely had acidity. Average weight 10 oz (300 g). Fruits keep well, firm, meaty.

Mine performed excellently. We barely had a summer, but it set fruit really well, the whole vine was loaded with big tomatoes. Taste has a nice tang to it.

My strawberry was from Kulik. Label said it had a “prominent tip”. Huge, massive vine. The first two trusses were blunt hearts, no tips, massive fruits from 1.5 to 2.1 lbs (700-980 g). Then it started setting ones with a tip, and not just a tip, but a giant long nose, also huge, around 10 oz (300 g). Prolonged harvest, they are still hanging in the greenhouse. Incredible yield, super taste. Very sweet. All photos are from a single plant grown in a greenhouse.

Very beautiful, productive, pretty tasty. Seeds were from Gusev.

Seeds from Tomik. The description was cobbled together from our forum. Indeterminate (aggressive, 13 ft / 4m), can take multiple stems, oblate with ribs and a pointy tip (strawberry shape), large, productive, yellow.

Grew in the greenhouse. My husband tasted it and approved–we can plant it next year. Very tasty, didn’t even expect that kind of flavor from an orange tomato. But it wasn’t a huge yielder for me. A couple of fruits per branch, lots of blossom drop (but blossom drop happened on many varieties, so maybe not a fair test). Fruits were a good size. Very few seeds. Tall, spindly, sparse foliage. Mid-season.

Orange Strawberry is one of my favorites this year. A breakthrough variety, adding it to my permanent seed bank. Loved it. The plant was massive (I planted 3 of this variety), one was slightly weaker because it grew in a cooler greenhouse. The others were super. Great potential. Fruits are large, the last ones are a bit smaller, keep reasonably well, meaty, tasty, although mine weren’t overwhelmingly sweet, just a good solid tomato flavor, and beautiful. Bottom photo shows the very first ripe strawberries.

I fell in love with this variety. Turned out to be a mid-season ripener (~80 DTM), grew in the greenhouse. Sweet, buttery, productive 😋😋😋😋😋😋

Quote from Svetikk:
A miraculous, super productive, delicious variety! 👍 Grew it in the greenhouse on 2 stems…

This year I repeated the oblate version of Orange Strawberry plus 2 plants of the heart-shaped one. All grew in the greenhouse pruned to 2 stems. Massive vines and again quite productive 👍 The beauty and taste are unreal! 😲 Fruits are dense, meaty, keep well, up to 1.4 lbs (650 g).

Very tasty tomato, large, productive, will definitely repeat it. I have the oblate version. Orange Strawberry gave me the champion fruit of this year, though it came from a megabloom.

I still don’t get it – is it worth planting outdoors in open ground?

Quote from Aglaya:
is it worth planting outdoors in open ground?

Out of all the varieties I doubled up on, this is the only one that failed outdoors for me. I mean, it had tomatoes, but they were 3 times smaller than the ones in the greenhouse, and the yield was barely 4.5 lbs (2 kg). 🤷‍♀️

Grew it out in the ground for two years. Came to the conclusion it’s much better in a greenhouse. Outdoors the yield is terrible—the fruits are huge, but there are barely any of them. 🙁

Last season I planted two Strawberries, a beaked one and an oblate one; liked them both. They grew in the greenhouse, but I planted one oblate plant in a low tunnel and covered it with frost cloth on really cold nights (it was a cold summer). It was productive, fruits slightly smaller than the greenhouse ones, but it grew wonderfully. Loved both versions: productive, meaty, tasty.

It’s on the dry side, though all hearts are like that.
Not planting it again. 🙂

Quote from Andrey_K:
It’s on the dry side… Not planting it again. 🙂

I actually loved it for the juiciness, large size, taste, and beauty.

My beauty 😋

Quote from Andrey_K:
It’s on the dry side… Not planting it again. 🙂

In my climate it’s not particularly juicy either, mainly because it has almost no seed cavities where the tomato gel usually accumulates. But the tradeoff is they have amazing shelf life and don’t lose flavor when ripened indoors on the counter. Everything depends on your goals for growing them. I felt OS had more acidity, which carries the flavor when counter-ripening, compared to something like Honey Spas, which gets bland if it sits too long. What were your impressions?

Quote from Alisa:
I felt OS had more acidity… Honey Spas gets bland…

I grew them side-by-side and completely confirm your observations! A fresh-picked Honey Spas had plenty of sweetness and juice, but after sitting a while it got a bit bland. But the Strawberry held up beautifully! Not dry, counter-ripened perfectly. It was slightly less juicy than fresh-picked, but definitely not dry!

Been planting Strawberry for three years now, still failing. Year one it was very late, lots of green ones didn’t size up. Year two I got exactly one fruit per plant. Giving it one last chance this year, seeds are from various sources.
Here’s my question: two plants are growing, medium habit, weeping foliage, bloomed before anything else. Flowers are huge, truss points up, but three trusses have bloomed and 4 & 5 are flowering, but they are in no rush to set fruit. Is this a trait of the variety or another weather anomaly this year?

Quote from Tomatanya:
…three trusses have bloomed… but in no rush to set fruit…

I think it’s better to use your own acclimated seeds. My first year from purchased seeds, I got two tomatoes per plant. Second year: 5 full trusses, though two had to ripen on the counter indoors. First truss died a hero’s death due to extreme temp swings. It produced in two waves: gave up 3 trusses basically at once, and then the rest started sizing up. But I topped it myself after the 6th truss.
At my mom’s place (where days and nights are hotter), it yielded way more, also in two waves: first 3 trusses, then the rest kept going until the freeze. But we don’t have ideal tomato weather, so don’t judge this variety solely on my experience.

Absolute favorite of this summer—German Orange Strawberry! The tastiest, most productive, just the absolute best 👍

First time growing this. Loved it. Sweet, beautiful, productive. Pruned to 2 stems and it pumped out about 10 gorgeous deep yellow fruits weighing 7-14 oz (200-400 g), zero cracking. Ranks 3rd for taste this year behind Striped Chocolate and Amethyst Jewel. Definitely planting it again next year. Only set 1 fruit on the 4th/5th levels, but that’s likely the weather’s fault. Other big beefsteaks did even worse.

Quote from Nata N.:
Absolute favorite of this summer—German Orange Strawberry…

I agree! Still hanging in the greenhouse covered in tomatoes. Liked the regular Strawberry a lot less.

Which one is the “regular” one? 😳

Very nice variety. Meaty sweet hearts. Not massive, but extremely productive. Set fruit and grew in the greenhouse until the deep freeze. We had already stopped watering it and it just kept trying and trying. Will grow it again!

Not a bad variety. Will repeat it someday.

Quote from Strekoza:
Meaty sweet hearts. Not massive, but extremely productive.

Mine only set a few random huge fruits all season long. The vine itself grew at least 13 feet (4 meters) tall 😮 Pruned to a single stem. The flavor is top notch 👍 — sweet, buttery tomatoes. 😋 But next year I’ll plant other varieties with this shape, like Fox Nose, Orange Oxheart, or Yellow Scallops.

Quote from TanyaK:
Mine only set a few random huge fruits…

Mine also hung in trusses of max 3, but my family only eats sweet tomatoes and we don’t need a ton… so it’s easier to just plant tasty low-yielders.

Quote from Strekoza:
Mine also hung in trusses of max 3…

Did you feed it with Potassium-Phosphorus? It’s highly responsive. Phosphorus pushes more flowers per truss, and Potassium sizes up the fruit. Try different pruning styles for your climate (1 stem vs 2 stems), you might see a difference. I ran it single-stem this year. Managed to set 6 full trusses, plus two half-trusses for indoor ripening.
Also, try sowing it earlier and burying the stem (trench planting). The bigger the root system on this variety, the more fruit you get. That’s from my personal notebook on this one. And it needs maximum sunlight. I always plant it on the sunniest end of the row. I put it in the middle of a bed last year and lost some yield, but still got up to 5 fruits per truss.

Alisa, thank you, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Failed for me, finally set fruit in August, picked them green, they counter-ripened and tasted bad. Next year I’ll sow it in February.

Mine was pretty productive this year, even though it dropped the first truss from the crazy heat. Absolutely loved the taste, sweet and meaty 👍 😋.

Heart varieties always amaze me. 😳 How does something so weird grow? 😮 Beautiful!!! Didn’t notice much sweetness, and yield was small, but it grew in the shade in the greenhouse, plus we basically had no summer. A huge one grew from a megabloom and hogged all the energy until I pulled it to let the others grow. But a negative experience is still an experience. I want to try a ton of hearts next year, kind of obsessed with them now. 😃

Elena, is yours German Orange Strawberry? Were all the tomatoes those elongated hearts? Planting it for the first time in 2017, but my packet says they are oblate. Now I’m sitting here wondering if I bought the right thing or not. 🤷‍♀️

Quote from Anyuta:
Elena, is yours German Orange Strawberry? Were all the tomatoes those elongated hearts? Planting it for the first time in 2017, but my packet says they are oblate. Now I’m sitting here wondering if I bought the right thing or not. 🤷‍♀️

I’m not Elena 😳 but still… There are two versions of Orange Strawberry circulating: an oblate one and one with a pointed beak…

Svetlana, thank you! Both are tasty and productive, right?

Quote from Anyuta:
Both are tasty and productive, right?

Tasty—yes, very! As for productive… Well, my pointy-beaked one was a low yielder the first year, but she redeemed herself this season! 😉 😃

My oblate Strawberry actually threw these heart-shaped fruits on the upper trusses this year. Saved seeds from them, we’ll see what grows out of them next season.

Svetlana, what beauties! 👍 Definitely planting it!

Quote from Anyuta:
Elena, is yours German Orange Strawberry? Were all the tomatoes those elongated hearts?

All my tomatoes were elongated like that. The very first one came from a megabloom and was massive, a wider, rounder heart, but still elongated. The color is extremely orange. My camera is old and my eyesight is shot, so the photos aren’t great. 😢 I always admire you folks’ photos on the forum. You guys are awesome. 👍 👏 Make sure to pick that first fruit right away. I want to try the oblate one too. My seeds came from a forum member. Where are yours from?

Quote from Anyuta:
…my packet says they are oblate. Now I’m sitting here wondering if I bought the right thing or not. 🤷‍♀️

Two different fruit shapes circulate under this one name.

Quote from Elena 62:
Where are yours from?

Elena, mine are from the commercial company “Nash Sad” (Our Garden). Going to grow it for the first time, really hoping for success—it was the last seed packet in the store.

I had this one too. A stunner. Has a pearlescent glow. Cuts like butter. To my taste, it was the best tomato of this cold summer. Growing it again! Yield wasn’t top tier, but two vines were enough for us. Failed completely outdoors in open ground—the fruits were small and just split open from the constant rain. So this one is strictly a greenhouse resident.

Repeated it from my own saved seeds, yield definitely went up.

Grew it for the first time. Reached about 6.5 feet (2 meters) in the greenhouse. Showed solid yield. Mid-to-late season ripener for me. Fruits were extremely tasty, meaty, and sweet.

Grew this variety two years in a row. Tasty, sweet, meaty beauties, good yield. Making the grow list again 😋

Does anyone know if it will have time to ripen in the Urals?

Quote from Lyudmila D.:
Does anyone know if it will have time to ripen in the Urals?

It will. Check my photos on page 1 showing it coloring up on the vine during the freezing summer of 2014.

Thanks, going to try it! 👍

Can I sow it right now? It didn’t ripen for me last year, or maybe I was just too early.

My Orange Strawberry. Growing it for three years now, originally from Redko, seeds via Aliya. Sown right at the beginning of March, grows under low hoops outdoors in open ground. Tasty, sweet, average yield. Planting it again this year!

Excellent variety! Beautiful, productive, tasty. Extremely happy with it. The vines are absolute monsters in the greenhouse, but it’s worth it. Practically zero seeds inside.

Quote from Meri:
Practically zero seeds inside.

Exactly. Barely found enough to save for seed. Pruned to two stems, good yield, massive tomatoes, the trusses were snapping (I don’t know how to tie them up properly). The ones that set at the very top of the plant were just as huge as the bottom ones. Taste is excellent! Out of all the yellow/orange varieties, this is the one I’m sticking with for now.

Completely blew me away this year! I was debating whether to plant it again—it tasted great last year, but the vine was so wimpy, looked like it was growing on its last breath, and only gave me 2-3 late fruits.
But man, is it awesome this year! The vines look great, fruits have that signature strawberry shape, perfectly uniform, and definitely not small. They were among the first to start coloring up. And there are tons of them! 👏
Inside: lots of meat, very few seeds. Taste: sweet, practically no acid 😋

Grew it this year—absolutely super, incredibly tasty. Even the rooted suckers I stuck out in the garden managed to grow a few tomatoes.

I just never had any luck with this variety. Planted it three years in a row, the last two years using my own saved seeds… just an extremely low yield.

Grew it for 2 years, originally forum seeds, this year my own. Last year the yield was below average, fruits were pointy, tasted okay but leaned toward sweet/bland. It lost out to Honey Barrel and Nature’s Riddle in flavor.

This year they grew into the tallest vines in the greenhouse. Loose, wide habit, ran to 3 stems. The flower trusses were massive with tons of blooms. But fruit set was absolute zero. I got 3-4 fruits off this entire mountain of a plant. It didn’t just stand out for its size, but also for being sickly. Showed signs of mild chlorosis and edge necrosis very early on.

It grew in the sun in the greenhouse, fed it the same as everything else. See no point in growing this variety for myself anymore. It probably demands a much more intense feeding/care regimen for cooler, Midwest-like climates.

Turned out pretty late for me, which might be why it was a low yielder—it just ran out of time in this cold summer. But the flavor of even the counter-ripened ones is beyond praise. Definitely planting it again.

Seeds from Kulik. Grew in the greenhouse, seedlings were wimpy. Didn’t get to taste a ripe one until September 13th. Picked them green because we had to leave. Extremely late for me. Very weak yield. Repeating it this year from my saved seeds because the summer of 2017 was terrible anyway. Sown 3 weeks earlier than last year, we’ll see what the harvest looks like this time.

Orange Berry (that’s what Popenko calls it). Grown it for 5 seasons, very worthy variety, especially flavor-wise. This year every single fruit was huge, 14 oz (400g) and up. Pulled the last ones recently, absolute monsters. Meaty, buttery, incredibly sweet as always, and always very few seeds inside.

I have German Orange Strawberry from Ilya Korolev. Extremely productive right from the first year I grew it. This year is my third time growing it. Mid-to-late season.

Are Orange Strawberry and Orange Wild Strawberry (Земляника) the same variety?

Love it so much, grow it every year and will keep growing it. Absolutely delicious, a crowd pleaser! 👍

Quote from swetlanna:
Are Orange Strawberry and Orange Wild Strawberry the same variety?

I think they are the exact same thing. The original name is Orange Strawberry. People just translate “Strawberry” however they feel like it over here.

Grew OS here in Aktobe, seeds from Lidiya Ganzen. Grew it both in the poly greenhouse and outdoors in open ground. Seedlings started Feb 26 for the greenhouse, and March 21-22 for outdoors. In the greenhouse, I got my first fruits mid-July. Outdoors it completely failed, nothing properly ripened, maybe picked a couple in September.
Seedlings are tall and spindly. I wouldn’t call them sickly, but the leaves are thin and have a weeping, wispy habit like a willow. It instantly tells you when it needs water. Transplanted to greenhouse on May 7. Blooms in gorgeous megatresses/bouquets, flower stems are long and flexible, flowers are huge. Doesn’t set every blossom in the truss, but sets plenty, it self-regulates. I suspect if I had fed it heavier it would have held more fruit. So the yield was average or slightly below. During the heatwaves (greenhouse was baking over 104F/40C for weeks in July) it skipped about 3 trusses entirely, either aborted the flowers or set exactly 1 tomato. But all the greenhouse varieties dropped blossoms in that heat. The vine itself is massive with long internodes. Pruned to 2 stems, though I missed a sucker and ended up with 3. Had to throw 30% shade cloth over the greenhouse, otherwise it would have hit 120F/50C even with doors/vents wide open.
Fruits were strict hearts, slightly scalloped/flattened, truly looking like a strawberry (the tip isn’t always sharp, sometimes it just tapers and flattens out). Absolutely zero cracking, even when overwatered.
Just a breathtakingly beautiful tomato, the color is neon orange, practically glowing. Skin thickness was perfect—firm but thin enough. Taste is a 5+++. Meaty, seedless, slightly buttery, perfectly juicy, flawlessly sweet but not cloying, balanced and intense. Family voted it the best tasting tomato of 2018. We just devoured it plain, sliced with no salt/sugar/dressing. Phenomenal tomato.But outdoors it totally failed for us (transplanted mid-May). We had 2.5 weeks of warm weather with cold nights, then four freezing weeks up to mid-June, nights dropping to 55-60F (13-16C), which is freezing for June here. And insane winds 5 days a week. Then brutal heat, 90-95F (32-35C) daily. Nights started dropping back to 55F in mid-August. We have a bone-dry climate, can easily go 6 weeks without rain. Hose watering in the trenches.
Planting it again in 2019, but only in the greenhouse. Probably 2-3 vines. Going to change its spot, we have more than enough sun. And going to feed it harder, OS clearly loves heavy, generous feeding.

Here is a photo of an OS from a megabloom (you can see it looks like two fruits fused together). This was the only misshapen one, but it was huge. Picked July 17. The color in the photo is pretty accurate, though in real life it literally glows. The rest of the fruits were proper “strawberry shape” and smaller, I didn’t get any 1.3 lb (500-600g) monsters sadly. It has a crack because it grew in the crotch of two branches and got stuck; I had to pry it out and bruised it.
I actually picked one fruit earlier but rushed it—it was bright yellow but tasted totally ordinary, not mind-blowing like everyone said. I got upset, gave up on the plant, and ignored it for a week. Then I noticed this stuck, crazy-orange one and worried it was overripe and would rot and infect the plant. So I dug it out. Felt it—wasn’t overripe at all, felt dense and nicely firm. Decided to taste it instead of tossing it. It was SO good… Long story short, you have to pick OS when it turns “neon orange” and looks like it’s about to turn to mush, it gets this semi-translucent glow, almost like a matte opal.

Quote from Svetikk (2015):
This year I repeated the oblate version of Orange Strawberry plus 2 plants of the heart-shaped one…

My absolute favorite among orange varieties. Grew it 5 years in a row. Firmly on my “Love Forever” top list 💋
In 2018, one of the fruits weighed in at 2.3 lbs (1065 grams) 😲

Quote from Svetikk:
My absolute favorite among orange varieties…

Totally forgot about it, your seeds have been sitting in my stash since 2014 😁 Unacceptable! Moving them to the planting list…

Growing in the greenhouse right now. This year I have OS from Zolushka and OS from my saved seeds (originally Ganzen). Zolushka’s plant is much sturdier and the fruits are more oblate. Yield for both is currently average. Fruits are mostly huge. These aren’t the first ones. Picked today, July 23, 2019.

My seeds are from Svetik. This variety amazed me, shocked me, and made me fall completely in love! Tall, though not super aggressive vine, more of a medium build. Tomatoes are massive, beautiful, and sooooo delicious! Very!

Originally seeds were from Royal Seeds. It’s a domestic company but they repack US seeds. Now I’m using my own saved seed. Massive, incredibly tall vine. This year it set four trusses without dropping a single blossom. All tomatoes are huge, four per truss. Pruned to two stems. Buttery flesh, spectacular taste.

Grew the oblate Orange Strawberry in the greenhouse in 2019 (seeds from Lena, thank you!).
Mid-to-late ripener, but we were already picking and eating ripe fruits by late August. Very tasty, sweet stunner. Large fruits. Vine is tall and aggressive.

My absolute favorite yellow-orange variety, been growing it since 2015. Last year I grew Orange Strawberry, German Orange Strawberry, Orange Heart (Fox Nose), and Orange Wild Strawberry (Zemlyanika from Yaroslavna, sent to me under that name) all side-by-side.
This is from 2019. Almost never produces anything under 7 oz (200g); usually 9-18 oz (250-500g). Regular Orange Strawberry remains my top favorite. Don’t have a photo of the German one, my camera broke and I only realized later. The German one looked similar, some fruits were slightly more elongated, but otherwise identical to regular Orange Strawberry.
The Zemlyanika from Yaroslavna is closer to Fox Nose: fruits have a drawn-out beak, but it’s juicier. Fox Nose turns out slightly drier/meatier for me.

Quote from tomatinka (2015):
Orange Strawberry is growing this year. Fruits are oblate…

Vera, could you tell me where you bought the seeds for your oblate Orange Strawberry? I grew it in 2019 but mine had heart-shaped fruits and extremely wimpy vines. I’m looking specifically for the oblate one with the aggressive vine.

Quote from Nadine:
My absolute favorite yellow-orange variety…

Nadezhda! Orange Strawberry was in my very first seed order from you after I registered on the forum. I’ve planted it every year since. Yes, it’s a mid-season ripener, but that’s a good thing—productive, tasty, great shelf life! It’s the absolute favorite of my daughter-in-law and son-in-law, they prefer yellow tomatoes (my actual son and daughter won’t eat fresh tomatoes 😃). Thank you, I always think of you! 🙏

Quote from T@tk@:
Vera, could you tell me where you bought the seeds for your oblate Orange Strawberry?

Didn’t see this message, sorry! Someone sent them to me. To my shame, I don’t remember who.

Growing it for the first time this year, oblate version. Thanks to Anatoly @Astero for the seeds.
Massive vine, large fruits, tasty, buttery. The texture and color look just like a mango. Husband and I devoured it in one sitting. Usually he couldn’t care less about yellow/orange tomatoes, only eats red ones, but with this one he asked, “Is there more? Don’t eat it without me!” 🙂

Orange Strawberry (oblate and heart-shaped). My favorite among orange tomatoes, I repeat it almost every year. Gives the largest fruits out of any similar variety, yield is superb, and enough has been said about the taste 😋
The vine in the photo managed to set 28 fruits in a year where terrible weather made many other varieties drop their blossoms.

My absolute favorite variety. Original seeds from Svetikk 🙏, I’ve been saving seeds and replanting it for about 5 years!

Orange Strawberry oblate, seeds from Svetikk. Grew it outdoors in open ground, pruned to 2 stems, tied to a 6.5ft (2m) rebar stake. Even in this abnormally hot summer, it turned out quite productive: the vine had 7 perfectly uniform, bright orange fruits weighing around 14-18 oz (400-500g). Tasty, meaty, few seeds. Mid-season ripener, all of them ripened on the vine. A rare combo for a large orange beefsteak—uniform large fruits plus high yield. Didn’t catch a single disease. Super variety! Svetlana, thanks for the seeds 🙏

OS 2021 update. Grew 1 “model” plant, original seeds from Lidiya Ganzen, repeating it for the 3rd or 4th year. I have 2 variations of OS. One is from Lidiya: extremely tall, weeping/wispy habit with long thin leaves. Fruits are always strict pointed hearts or blunt hearts. The second is from Olya Zolushka: much sturdier, aggressive vine with thick regular foliage. First trusses are oblate, upper trusses are elongated hearts like Fox Nose.
In 2021, I only grew the “model” version. We are in our second summer of insane heat, so there was massive blossom drop, but OS sized up the ones that stuck to massive proportions. I didn’t get a single fruit under 1.1 lbs (500g) all year! Didn’t have a ton of them—counted 10 at first, turned out to be 12. But they were heavy. Taste, as expected, is phenomenal. Nothing in town compares. Gave almost all of them away as gifts so people could taste what a real tomato is supposed to be like.

Pretty sure I saved seeds from that 1.5 lb (673g) one, liked its shape better.

My absolute favorite among orange varieties. Got it in my very first seed mail from dear Svetikk, plant it at least every 2 years now. Planted Svetikk’s original seeds again this year since I gave all my saved ones away.

By the way, Orange Berry is a different variety.

This variety completely disappointed me. Productive, but absolutely tasteless. Just totally bland. Juiced the whole batch and called it a day. 🤷‍♀️

Excellent variety, especially if you give the seeds to a rookie gardener ))))) They are guaranteed to be blown away by the size, color, and taste! 🙂
Grew outdoors in the ground. Result on the scale:

Gorgeous!!

Quote from Olgazve:
Productive, but absolutely tasteless. Just totally bland…

Maybe the weather messed it up?

Quote from NatalyaG:
Maybe the weather messed it up?

Probably did. I had very few tasty tomatoes this year. Out of the yellow ones, practically nothing turned out good. 😞

Quote from Olgazve:
Probably did. I had very few tasty tomatoes this year. Out of the yellow ones, practically nothing turned out good. 😞

OS is one of the most sun-dependent varieties out there. You really have to plant it in full, blasting sun. At the same time, it hates extreme heat (drops blossoms and taste suffers). But since it’s mid-late/late, usually by the time it’s coloring up and building sugars, the crazy 90F-100F (32-38C) heatwaves are over, so mostly you just lose yield when it tries to set fruit mid-summer. It easily makes up for the lower count with massive fruit sizes.
Also, OS demands potassium when it’s building sugar (loves potassium-magnesium sulfate). If it was cloudy where you are, it just didn’t get enough solar calories and ended up bland.One more thing: let OS fully COLOR UP on the vine! It’s Orange Strawberry, not yellow. Just because it blushes doesn’t mean it’s ripe. If it’s colored but hasn’t reached that deep, intense neon orange with a slightly translucent skin (like a ripe persimmon), it can be completely bland. I rushed my very first fruit in 2019 like that and was super disappointed. Then I waited to pick one that looked “overripe” to me but still felt firm. It was a masterpiece! Unbelievable texture, no seeds. Since then, I always gently squeeze OS and check the color before picking.

My favorite! Permanent resident in the garden! Keeping me happy for the third season now.
Seeds from natusya64, originally from Svetikk.
I only had two plants across two greenhouses, and they are literally still ripening today. (Photo posted in December).

Of course, in the summer they were massive!

Quote from Olgazve:
Productive, but absolutely tasteless. Just totally bland…

If the flavor is lacking sugar, first and foremost it’s about how much sun the plant got. Then, those sugars need to be shipped from the leaves into the fruits. That requires cooler nights (so the assimilates go into the fruit instead of being burned off via respiration). You also need plenty of potassium, since that’s what transports the sugar. And lastly, during the ripening phase, you have to strictly rein in your watering (crop steering)—otherwise you pump the fruit full of water and dilute whatever sugar is there. As someone correctly pointed out above, OS should never be unsweet. If potassium levels are right and everything else is dialed in, you’ll know from slicing it: there will be practically zero white, tasteless hard cores inside.