Growers’ Notes, Flesh Texture Debates and Photos (USDA Zone 4 Experience)
Superb variety, a textbook example of classic red heirloom beefsteaks! 👍
Indeterminate, vigorous vine that delivers a massive harvest to match. The fruits are handsome, meaty, smooth, flat-round beefsteaks with wonderful rich flavor 😋 and great aroma. Low seed count, with individual heavyweights tipping the scales up to 28 oz (800 g).
Requires serious trellising and tying, generous sunlight, and plenty of elbow room to showcase its true genetic potential. Grew it in the greenhouse trained to 2 main stems. Seeds came from Elena Danko! 💐
Edited September 25, 2019 by Svetikk
Echoing Svetlana: a very worthy variety. Mine grew in the far corner of the greenhouse, tucked in as an afterthought because I sowed the seed at the very last second. Even in that cramped spot, fruit weights were hovering right around 17.6 oz (500 g).
Svetikk said:
The fruits are handsome, meaty, smooth, flat-round beefsteaks… Low seed count, with individual heavyweights tipping the scales up to 28 oz (800 g).
Murka said:
Mine grew in the far corner… fruit weights were hovering right around 17.6 oz (500 g).
Folks, what is the internal flesh texture like?
Redko’s catalog describes it as having ‘watermelon-grainy’ meat, but I really dislike mealy, crumbly textures. Looking at Svetlana’s sliced cross-section, it does not look grainy at all; it appears quite dense and firm.
Svetlana, does the flavor compare to your Slastyona? Which one wins on taste? And Masha, if you have run Slastyona too, how do they compare?
Tatyana, I would definitely not describe the meat as watermelon-type. It is pure solid flesh, dense and juicy. Flavor-wise, it might actually lean the opposite of what you are looking for: to my palate it was delicious, but you know how much I love intense sweetness.
Haven’t grown Slastyona myself.
Tatka said:
Folks, what is the internal flesh texture like? At Redko’s description it says watermelon-grainy, but I don’t like that…
Potimar produces dense, juicy, very heavy fruits. Both of my vines were actively trying to collapse and slide right down the stakes under the sheer weight of the crop!
Classic, well-balanced old-school flavor: rich aroma with just the right proportions of sugar and acidity. Watermelon texture implies that crumbly, mealy grain you can pull apart with your bare hands. No way, Potimar isn’t like that at all: you need a sharp chef’s knife to slice through this one!
Can’t remember who shared these seeds with me, but they definitely weren’t from last year. I am thoroughly delighted with this variety!
This is exactly the kind of tomato I cherish: pure flavor harmony with sweetness backed by that authentic tomato tang. Slices, fresh salads, gourmet juice, sauce, it excels wherever you put it.
Cracked a bit this year, but our extreme summer heat swings made splitting almost unavoidable across the board. The one on the scale isn’t even the biggest; every fruit on the vine was an absolute chunker. No hard white veins inside either, just a dry, corky patch at the stem end that made it look even more like a little heirloom pumpkin!
Full Summary: Plant Stature, Flesh Texture, Yield and Culinary Profile
- 🌿 Plant Architecture & Trellising: Massive, vigorous indeterminate vine. Produces heavy structural foliage and thick stems that carry extreme weight loads. Demands heavy-duty staking and overhead support; under-supported vines risk sliding or snapping under massive beefsteak clusters. Prunes best to 2 stems.
- 📈 Yield & Fruit Sizing: Prodigious producer of giant, oblate red slicers. Fruits routinely start at 17.6 oz (500 g) and climb up to 28 oz (800 g), maintaining high sizing even when planted in greenhouse corners.
- 👅 Flesh Anatomy & Flavor Truth: Contrary to catalog descriptions labeling it as crumbly “watermelon” flesh, growers confirm Potimar has dense, solid, sliceable meat with very small seed locules and zero white core fibers. Flavor is classic heirloom: deeply aromatic, balancing high sugars with a bold, refreshing tomato acidity.
- 🎃 Visual Trait: Features a flat-round, lightly fluted profile with a corky russeted stem scar, giving it a strong visual resemblance to a miniature French potimarron pumpkin.
- 🌎 Who Reviewed It: Extensively trialed across USDA Zone 4 conditions (Moscow Region, Nizhny Novgorod, Pskov, and Tatarstan).
