Growers’ Notes and Photos
Mid-season variety. The vine got to about 2.3 ft (0.7 m) tall outdoors. Very low-maintenance, grew right in the middle of the bed in heavy shade. It was a heavy yielder, didn’t drop a single blossom truss, and produced large pink-raspberry oxhearts. The flavor fluctuated from pretty bland to just a standard tomato taste.
Continued.
Lena, maybe if you hit it with some heavy fertilizer, the flavor would get richer 😛 Got your seeds from Kulik, right? I was browsing his site today and this one really caught my eye 👍
Lyudmila, that’s entirely possible. The catalog claims it has a sweet flavor. But the fact that my vine barely saw any sun and grew almost in total darkness probably played a huge part too. I literally had to chop the leaves off the plants in front of it just to get a picture 🤐 😂
Overall, the variety is an absolute workhorse and super low-maintenance. I could easily send you some seeds, but speaking from experience, anyone who goes digging into that catalog is a goner 😛 I spent two hours down that rabbit hole myself yesterday morning 📝 📝 📝 😂
ElenaN said:
Overall, the variety is an absolute workhorse and super low-maintenance…
Did you have to prune the suckers on this one, or can you just let it go wild?
Irish, I definitely pruned mine. The fruits are large and really heavy, so pruning to two stems is probably the sweet spot for this variety.
Bland flavor, definitely won’t be growing it again. Took forever to ripen.
Grew this one outdoors. Ended up being a really low yielder during our cold summer, only pulled about 4 tomatoes off it, but they were pretty large. Flavor was just standard for oxhearts.
My 2015 harvest.
Lana said:
My 2015 harvest.
Such a brief description! ))) I’m always looking for reports on flavor, yields, disease resistance… Could you share a bit more detail on what you thought of the variety?
It’s an average yielder, hit about 5 ft (1.5 m) tall. The fruits are large, beautiful, meaty oxhearts. Hard to judge the taste since our summer was so rainy and cool, but I’d call it a classic tomato flavor, maybe just a little washed out and bland.
Thanks! Did you grow it outdoors or in the greenhouse? How many stems did you prune it to? If it was just a bit bland, that means it definitely has the potential to get sweet with better weather )))
Pruned the vine to two stems, grew it in a glass greenhouse. I think the variety definitely has potential. Since the seed line comes from Ukraine, it probably just didn’t get enough sunshine up here to sweeten up. 🙂
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste, and Pruning
- 🌿 Plant Habit: A mid-season indeterminate that thrives when pruned to two stems. Height varies wildly depending on the environment—it can stay as short as 2.3 ft (0.7 m) outdoors but easily pushes 5 ft (1.5 m) inside a greenhouse. Despite the heavy fruits, it is considered a rugged, low-maintenance workhorse.
- 📈 Yield & Appearance: Produces large, beautiful, meaty pink/raspberry oxhearts. The yield depends heavily on the summer conditions. In decent weather, it holds its blossoms and produces heavily even in the shade, but during cold, wet northern summers, production drops off sharply and it takes much longer to ripen.
- 👅 Taste: Flavor is the biggest variable with this variety. Because it originates from warmer, sunnier climates (Ukraine), it requires intense summer sun to unlock its promised sweetness. Grown in shade or during cloudy, rainy summers, the flavor consistently reverts to being bland and washed out.
