Quick Summary of Raiskie Svechi (Paradise Candles)
- 🌍 Origin: A beautiful variety popularized by Ukrainian breeder Alexey Kulik. The name translates to “Paradise Candles”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Determinate, early season. It grows up to about 1 meter (3.3 ft) tall. A key characteristic is its extremely delicate, drooping, and “wispy” foliage. It is highly shade-tolerant—many growers successfully plant it at the base of tall indeterminate varieties.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Stunningly beautiful, delicate pink elongated cherry/plum tomatoes (icicles) covered with golden stripes. They are small, typically weighing around 25-30 grams (about 1 oz).
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: Exceptional! The flesh is dense, and the flavor is incredibly sweet and harmonious. Many growers refer to them as “pink candies”.
- ✂️ Growing Tips: Due to its flimsy build, growers recommend tying the whole plant up as a “heap” and avoiding heavy pruning. Leaving the suckers allows for a massive yield. The plant is very tough and doesn’t drop blossoms even in bad weather.
A determinate, early-season, beautiful variety. The bush is up to 1 meter (3.3 ft) tall. The structure of the bush is very flimsy/wispy. It tolerates shade very well (it grew in the exact same planting hole with a massive indeterminate variety). The fruits are very delicate pink plums with golden stripes, absolutely beautiful, weighing about 30 grams (1 oz), with very good taste.
It is a highly productive, unfussy variety. The bush did not drop any blossoms despite bad weather conditions. It grew outdoors in open ground.
I will definitely repeat it next year; I will plant it at the “feet” (base) of a tall indet. It’s better to leave more suckers on it—I was harvesting the last fruits from those suckers in September.
The photo was taken right after the rain, so the fruits have water droplets on them.
Continuation:
👍 Whom did you get the seeds from?
Elena! The seeds are from Alexey Kulik. Here is the description from his catalog:
Raiskie Svechi (Paradise Candles)
(early / 1.0m / 30g)
Super-beautiful elongated cone-shaped fruits, mountains of pink striped tomatoes, tasty. A favorite.
I grew Raiskie Svechi last year in a greenhouse… the bush was slightly over 1 meter (3.3 ft), I let it grow into 5 stems, which didn’t stop it from producing full trusses…
The fruits are indeed the most delicate pink plums with a very pleasant, harmonious taste… the flesh is dense, sweet, sweet… 👍
Whenever my grandson walked into the greenhouse, the first thing he did was pinch these pink “candies” off the vine 🙂
My Raiskie Svechi:
I grew 2 plants outdoors. The leaves are drooping, and for some reason, there were a lot of yellow ones at first.
The fruits are beautiful. I expected them to be pure pink, but they turned out to be striped, almost like little “Blushes” (Editor’s note: referring to the famous Artisan Blush Tiger tomato). The weight is about half of what was stated.
Elena, thank you!
Is this a cherry tomato?
Grew outdoors.
The bushes are indeed very flimsy — I hardly pruned the suckers at all, I just set up an arch made of rebar and tied the bushes to it in a “heap” 😆
The tomatoes are sweet and tasty, though they were a bit hard to detach from the stem… weight 25-30g (~1 oz).
