Quick Summary of Pastel Orange Heart (Pastelno-oranzhevoye Serdtse)
- 🌍 Origin: A Russian commercial heirloom known for its breathtaking aesthetic appeal. The name translates exactly to “Pastel Orange Heart”.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall), reaching over 1.8m (6 ft). The vines are vigorous and well-leafed, not spindly like some other oxheart varieties. Yields are generally very good, though it can suffer from blossom drop in extreme heat.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, chubby, blunt-nosed oxhearts. Weight ranges from 150g up to a massive 600g (5.3–21 oz). The color is a unique, almost translucent pastel orange or delicate peach (very similar to the original Hawaiian Pineapple). It is a solid color, not a bicolor.
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: The flesh is dense, meaty, and sweet. However, its flavor is highly dependent on weather and soil chemistry! In good conditions, it is perfectly balanced and very sweet. In poor conditions (or specific soils), some growers report a strange “metallic” or “medicinal/iodine” aftertaste.
- ⏳ Maturity: Often praised as one of the earliest ripening large oxhearts in the garden.
Growing it for the first time, seeds from V. Redko. Couldn’t find a photo on the bush (though I thought I took one). Indeterminate, elegant bush, decent yield. Growing in the greenhouse. The fruits are heart-shaped, caramel-orange, almost translucent looking, very beautiful, weighing 150-300g (5.3-10.5 oz).
I debated the taste with myself for a long time. I wouldn’t say it’s bad. It’s meaty, aromatic, with a touch of sweetness, but it lacked a bit of brightness and juiciness for me. I have another bush growing outdoors in open ground that got hit by hail, it’s not ripening yet. If the taste changes, I’ll write an update. Of course, these are just my personal taste perceptions. I will repeat this variety one more time, maybe the taste will improve—it’s a real beauty, though.
Can you show a general photo of the bush with the tomatoes? It looks so much like my Podarochnyy (Gift) variety, only the shape is slightly different… especially inside.
It looks very similar to Orange Russian 117. Mine looks just like this this year.
tomatinka wrote:
It looks very similar to Orange Russian 117. Mine looks just like this this year.
I’ve been growing Orange Russian 117 for a long time, and it’s definitely not similar. This tomato is not a bicolor. It has no pink or red splashes, the base color is different, and so is the fruit shape. Honestly, I haven’t come across any varieties similar to it. The color is like the original Hawaiian Pineapple (the non-bicolor one, anyone who grew it knows). You can’t confuse this color with anything else, it’s caramel-orange or peach-orange.
Sofiya 27 wrote:
The color is like the original Hawaiian Pineapple… it’s caramel-orange or peach-orange.
Interesting color. And what variety does it resemble in taste?
Alisa wrote:
Interesting color. And what variety does it resemble in taste?
I thought and thought, but couldn’t recall what variety this heart tastes like. Maybe because it just didn’t seem tasty enough to me, and you usually only remember the exceptionally good or exceptionally bad ones.
I had seeds from Popenko. I really liked the tomato; large, beautiful hearts of a pastel-orange color. The taste is a solid 4 out of 5, like the majority of oxheart varieties. I will plant it again, it didn’t disappoint. Trained it to two stems.
I tested the variety in the greenhouse, planted 2 bushes. They are tall, well-leafed, and I trained them to 2 stems. The first trusses produced quite large fruits that were maybe not perfectly heart-shaped, 3-4 fruits per truss… Later fruits had a much more even, beautiful shape.
Yes, Sofiya is absolutely right, the color of the fruits is the same as the original Hawaiian Pineapple—a delicate peach! You can’t mistake it for anything else…
The flesh is thick, aromatic, with a very worthy taste. Good balance of acidity and sweetness… By the end of August, the taste noticeably improved and became richer and sweeter. I keep records for every variety, so this taste rating is purely my perception…
I want to add that towards the end of the season, the taste of these beauties changed. The bush in open ground wasn’t particularly productive, but the last fruits amazed me with a rich, perfectly balanced taste and pronounced sweetness.
Grew two bushes in the greenhouse. Thanks to Lidiya for the seeds.
Surprisingly, it was one of the earliest ripening varieties for me in 2017 (if we can even talk about “early ripening” in the terrible season we just had). The bushes were over 1.8m (6 ft) tall. Quite vigorous, not flimsy. Yield was very good. Fruits ranged from 200g up to about 600g (7 to 21 oz).
The taste was weird at first. It had some sort of metallic aftertaste. Over time, it got sweeter, but the metallic aftertaste never went away. It’s a shame the photo isn’t great, it doesn’t capture the true color. The tomatoes are not yellow, they are a delicate peach color.
One of the very first to ripen this year, seeds from Popenko.
To me, it looked very similar to Fox Nose (Liskin Nos). Visually I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart, the difference is only in the taste and the amount of seeds.
Actually, Fox Nose has a much sharper, pointier beak, whereas Pastel Orange Hearts are chubby and blunt-nosed.
Growing it for the second year. Last year it was more productive, but this year everything yielded less for me—almost all varieties dropped their blossoms without exception. But on the bright side, this Heart turned out much tastier this season.
Inn@ wrote:
But on the bright side, this Heart turned out much tastier this season.
Tastier compared to last year’s taste, or tastier than Fox Nose?
Tastier than last year. I wrote above that last year it had some sort of metallic or iodine aftertaste. This year there’s nothing like that, and there’s much more sweetness.
I will never grow this one again. Seeds from Natalya Dryzhakova (2016). It’s beautiful. But it tasted like some kind of chemicals 🤢. I haven’t even figured out what kind exactly. My husband spat it out.
We tried the largest, most beautiful one today. Unbelievably disgusting. I’m hoping the ones on the upper trusses towards the end of the season will be tastier. The second truss ripened first (where the large tomatoes are), they were soft and ripe. On the first truss, 1 tomato ripened—just as tasteless. So far, this is the most disgusting tomato of the season for me.
Seeds from Elena Danko. This is a repeat for me because it was a fail in 2017. Grew in the greenhouse. I liked it; the flesh is thick, and the taste is good.
