Pera Naranja (Orange Pear) Cherry Tomato Review & Photos

Slava shared these seeds with me under the code name “Pear Orange” (Grushevyi Apelsin).

Superb variety! Early maturity, pale green foliage, with slender, graceful stems and delicate leaves. The fruits are more like finger-shaped or teardrop cherries, bright orange, firm, sweet, with thin but durable skin, weighing up to 0.7 oz (20 g). Trusses vary from simple long ropes to multi-branched mega-clusters depending on nutrition and cultural conditions.

Despite its delicate appearance, this plant loves to feed on nitrogen. Yet in three years of growing it, I have never once seen it go purely vegetative; instead, the trusses just become a total sight to behold! Not overly dependent on heavy potassium either, keeping its rich flavor through summer right into late autumn, though it can drop flowers in extreme heatwaves. Zero issues with blossom end rot, cracking, or leaf mold. It is still growing in my greenhouse right now, lush green, blooming, setting, and ripening. 👍

Edited March 31, 2017 by Pomidoroved

In Spanish, “naranja” is acting as an adjective here. So the proper translation is simply “Orange Pear.”

Can’t find documentation on this variety anywhere, whether it officially exists in catalogs or not! But that is the name it came with.

Grew it outdoors in the open dirt: indeterminate vine, regular foliage, bright orange pear-shaped fruits weighing around 0.35 oz (10 g). The flavor is straight-up pure liquid honey! 😋

Folks, how many stems do you prune this wonderful tomato to?

Oksana-pepper said:
Folks, how many stems do you prune this wonderful tomato to?

Definitely 4 to 5 leaders minimum.

Ninulia said:
Definitely 4 to 5 leaders minimum.

Nina, I was planning to plant it outdoors in open ground. Does that mean I should give it extra wide spacing between plants?

Oksana-pepper said:
Does that mean I should give it extra wide spacing between plants?

Oksana, don’t give it too much space; it has a very light, airy, lace-like canopy. Not sure how scorching your summer sun gets, but you don’t want the fruits to get sunscalded without enough cover.

Oksana-pepper said:
Does that mean I should give it extra wide spacing between plants?

I grew mine in the greenhouse at standard spacing. As it branched, I just wove the stems outward through neighboring tomato vines. It isn’t heavily foliaged and doesn’t bully its neighbors, so they got along fine.

Agnija said:
In Spanish, “naranja” is acting as an adjective here. So the proper translation is simply “Orange Pear.”

Wholeheartedly agree, the thread title should reflect the accurate name.

Our summer sun is brutal, especially late June through mid-July. I already plan on shading my oxhearts with cloth, and now I will probably drape shade fabric over this one too.

Got it noted down! Everyone’s photos look so stunning. I have 4 seedlings started and was wondering if that was overkill!

Pera Naranja turned out not just to be the sweetest tomato of the past season, but honestly the sweetest tomato across all my years of gardening! And the 2016 summer in the Leningrad region was completely sunless, cold, and drowning in rain.

Unbelievably sweet cherries weighing 0.4 to 0.45 oz (12-13 g) with a dense, springy sweet wall and seed cavities bursting with pure sugary juice. Pop one into your mouth, close your eyes, and gently bite down until it bursts with sweet juice, and you will understand why I fell head-over-heels for it.

Slava also has a variety named “Little Lightbulb” (Lampochka). Is that the same one as Orange Pear?

Lora_27 said:
Slava also has a variety named “Little Lightbulb”… Is that the same one?

Slava’s Lampochka looks more like Medovaya Kaplya (Honey Drop). Orange Pear is kept under its own name in his stock.

Grew it this past summer from Slava’s seeds. There wasn’t a single day this summer where I didn’t silently thank him! 💐

Ran just one vine, and it was completely smothered in intensely sweet tomatoes. Huge harvests, and they kept exceptionally well on the counter.

Now firmly planted on my top favorites list for cherry tomatoes! Description matches Polina’s opening post down to the letter. Absolute perfection 👍, delicious 😋, with pleasantly firm flesh.

Grew in the greenhouse corner. Started training it to 6 stems, then gave up on suckering altogether. Mid-September, and the entire vine was still smothered in flowers and ripe fruit.

Stunning variety! How does it hold up in storage? Can it keep for a couple of months?

Yainna said:
Can it keep for a couple of months?

Green fruit picked in early October ripened indoors and, although slightly wrinkled now, we are still snacking on them through mid-winter!

Nothing to add to Polina and Svetlana’s logs. Hands down the best cherry tomato in all my years of growing. Demands regular fertilizer. Best given at least some pruning. Sowed in late March, started setting in late July, and produced non-stop until October.

Mama Antona said:
Hands down the best cherry tomato in all my years of growing…

May the moderators forgive me, but that endorsement convinced me! Adding to the wish list immediately!

Pera Naranja is the single best cherry tomato of my entire gardening life too! Unmatched yield, delicious, sugary, and gorgeous. The final harvest picked green finished ripening on the counter, and we still have a handful left.

Ran 2 vines unpruned and fed them well. By August they were already over 8 ft (2.5 m) tall and formed a complete archway over the central bed!

Is it worth planting two starts into a single planting hole?

Inn@ said:
Is it worth planting two starts into a single planting hole?

First time running it this year, so no direct trial yet. But I wouldn’t do it. These vines are heavy feeders as it is.

My seedlings came out so tiny and slender, which is why I thought about pairing them up in one spot. Or is that wispy, delicate habit just typical for this variety indoors?

Inn@ said:
Or is that wispy, delicate habit just typical for this variety indoors?

Yes, as a seedling it is very slender and delicate! It keeps those thin, flexible stems even out in the garden beds. I never plant two to a hole, so I can’t advise on that. In my greenhouse, I barely pruned the vine; it grew quite bushy, though not overly tall.

Mine are already blooming indoors, though the flower truss is simple so far, only 7 buds. Hoping they throw complex multi-branching trusses once planted out into garden beds.

Potted them up into deep 2-liter rose pots to bury the stems deeper and promote root growth. Already 2 ft (60 cm) tall and gained good strength. Looks like I will be hauling 3-foot monsters to the dacha again! 😄

Edited May 4, 2019 by sofochkamai

Ran my favorite cherry again in the exact same southwest greenhouse corner where it shone last season. Did not prune it at all. The stems are slender and leaves are small, so I simply bundled the entire airy plant together like a sheaf of wheat, staked the base, and tied the canopy to the rafters.

The yields you can pull off an unpruned plant are unbelievable! But you definitely have to feed it regularly. Attached is my third harvest bucket off this single vine. 🙂

Here is how Pera Naranja turned out for me. Pruned it until mid-August, which is probably why the vine grew quite tall. Didn’t hit that astronomical yield, but solid production nonetheless.

Cherries are wonderfully sweet with great density. Not tough or thick-skinned at all, contrary to a few reviews, just a very pleasant, crisp crunch when you bite into them.

Svetlana (Svetikk), huge thanks for the seeds!

Edited September 19, 2019 by Inn@

I was honestly disappointed. Yes, pretty and productive, but such tiny fruits! Harvesting was tedious, the branches snapped easily, and the vine collapsed no matter how I tied it up. Decided to skip cherries altogether next year, too much fuss for too little substance. Just my personal take! 😄

Orange Pear is superb! 👍 Dense without being tough, intensely sweet, pumped out fruit non-stop for months, and definitely NOT tiny in my patch! Seeds from Svetlana (Mama Antona), thank you!

Grew Pera Naranja in the greenhouse from Svetikk’s seeds. Firm, delicious, sweet, and loads of them! Started out slender and delicate indoors, then turned into an absolute monster once planted out.

Pruned suckers early on, then let it go wild. Tied the stems up like a wheat sheaf and lowered the vine multiple times because it kept slamming into the greenhouse roof.

Elena, how does it compare to Summer Sun?

Edited February 7, 2020 by Drosera

FLOKSA said:
Elena, how does it compare to Summer Sun?

For my palate, Summer Sun is still #1.

Have three plants of Pera Naranja in the polycarb greenhouse. One threw round fruits that are 3 to 4 times larger than the characteristic pear shape, even though all three vines look identical in growth habit.

I mistakenly pruned them down to just two stems. Can I release them now to throw suckers, or keep them to two?

Edited June 27, 2020 by Tatka

Cluster of true Pera Naranja compared with the round off-type cluster: identical vines, completely different fruit.

Tatka said:
Can I release them now to throw suckers, or keep them to two?

If they have hit the roof and there is no room to train them horizontally, and late blight is still weeks away, definitely let 1 or 2 new suckers run.

Could someone share Slava’s contact link? Want to check out what his Lampochka looks like.

Third straight year growing Orange Pear in its favorite corner bed. It handled every single weather disaster this season like a champ. I don’t prune it at all anymore, just tie the massive sheaf of stems together and stake it up.

It sets every flower that blooms, and the number of flower trusses is endless! Hard to believe that a variety that starts out so fragile and thin indoors can erupt into such an unstoppable harvest machine.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Svetikk

Orange Pear, gifted by Svetikk, kept in a bag all the way into February! Southwest corner of my greenhouse is officially reserved for this cherry in 2021. Huge thanks to Svetikk as always.

Could someone tell me if Datlo is the exact same variety as Orange Pear? Has anyone grown both to compare?

Super productive, delicious, and ideal for whole-jar canning. Picked the final clusters in November while the vine was still trying to bloom!

This is my very first year growing tomatoes. Reading above that this variety needs regular feeding. What fertilizer should I use, and how often? After transplanting it showed nitrogen deficiency, so I fed it with a high-nitrogen starter. Thanks in advance!

Curious how your harvest turned out in the end?

Super variety! One of the absolute finest cherry tomatoes. Delicious, crazy productive, and so slender and airy that it barely casts any shade at all, meaning you can easily plant it in the front row and space them very tight. Recommend it a million times over!