Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 3-6 Experience)
Description from the packet: Mid-season salad-type hybrid. 110-116 days from emergence to ripe fruit. Tomatoes are red, meaty, extremely large, weighing 1.1-1.5 lbs (500-700 g), and multi-locular. Intended for growing in the dirt or tied up in hoop houses. Good for fresh eating and processing.
Photo credits: IrinaA, Tusico, elsa30
I grew this in 2013. Very tasty tomato, I actually forgot it was an F1 and saved the seeds anyway. Curious if any of y’all grew this from saved seeds? It got extremely tall in the greenhouse. Loaded with fruit. All the tomatoes were perfectly uniform, one right after another. But they were smaller than what the packet claimed.
I just bought a pack from the Russian Garden seed company, but they didn’t list the average weight, just a note that individual fruits can reach 3.7 lbs (1700 g).
What sucks about Russian Garden is they never write what the actual yield per plant or square meter is.
What should I expect to get out of this?
Marina, you know yourself that yield depends on your conditions and growing technique. It’s genetically a large-fruited variety. If you prune it to a single vine and thin the clusters, they’ll hit 1.1 lbs (500 g). To get them even bigger in your zone, you pinch off the blossoms on the first cluster, and leave just 2 growing fruits on the second and third clusters.
But if you let it turn into a jungle around it, you won’t get a high yield.
I bought a packet of Right Size seeds from Sibsad. The description matches, but the classification doesn’t – mine says it’s an heirloom/open-pollinated variety and that I can save seeds… what’s the catch here? Has anyone grown it? Please show some pics!
Asking one more time about this tomato. Can anyone chime in who grew the exact one in my photo? It’s not a hybrid. I bought it, already reserved garden space for it, but I couldn’t find a single review… I’d really love to see a photo of it on the vine.
I bought these seeds from Russian Garden the other day. It says it’s a hybrid on there. Really curious what’s gonna grow out of it.
I’m honestly in shock… Seems like they can just slap an F1 label on any open-pollinated variety they want.
I grew Right Size from Russian Garden among others. The vine had 10-15 tomatoes on it, each weighing 14-17 oz (400-500 g). Perfectly matches the description in the first post.
I have good reason to believe this is actually an open-pollinated variety.
The seeds were from Russian Garden, but getting fifty seeds in a pack for 15 rubles doesn’t exactly scream ‘hybrid’ to me.
I’ve planted it three times. I’ll skip the first time, could blame the 2017 weather, but honestly it was partially my own screw-up.
But in 2018 in the greenhouse, it gave me 13.4 lbs (6.1 kg) across 35 fruits, with the biggest being 14 oz (395 g). I ran it to 2.5 stems, and it got up to 6.5 feet (2 m) before I topped the vines.
This year I planted my own saved seeds from the “hybrid” out in the dirt (under an awning).
The vine was an exact copy of the original. Plant structure, yield, and fruit shape were all identical.
My harvest was 13.2 lbs (6.0 kg) across 22 fruits, max weight 1.2 lbs (555 g) on a 2-stem plant, topped at 6 feet (180 cm).
I’m not a huge fan of giant beefsteaks, but I really liked the structure of this one.
Could only find a full-length shot from July 15 (vine in the center).
Adding some shots from this year.
This was my record-breaker for yield this season – 18.7 lbs (8.5 kg).
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Storage
- 🌿 Plant: Indeterminate, vigorous vines capable of reaching 6.5 feet (2 m) tall. Mid-season maturity. It performs exceptionally well when pruned to 1, 2, or even 2.5 stems, thriving both outdoors under awnings and in hoop houses.
- 📈 Yield: Exceptionally high. Dedicated growers report consistent harvests between 13 lbs to nearly 19 lbs (6 – 8.5 kg) per plant, heavily loaded with uniform clusters.
- 👅 Taste: A classic, highly praised old-fashioned tomato flavor. Meaty and solid, making it great for both fresh slicing and sauces.
- 📦 Texture/Usage: Giant red multi-locular beefsteaks. Standard fruit weights sit at an impressive 1.1-1.5 lbs (500-700 g), but thinning the clusters can easily produce giants pushing toward 3.7 lbs (1700 g). Fantastic slicing and processing characteristics.
The original Russian name for this variety is Nuzhniy Razmer, meaning “Required Size” or “Right Size”. There is an ongoing debate among gardeners about whether this is a true F1 hybrid. While large seed companies like Russian Garden market it heavily as a hybrid, others like Sibsad sell identical plants labeled as open-pollinated. Furthermore, multiple growers report successfully saving seeds from “F1” packets and getting plants that grow perfectly true to type with zero segregation, strongly suggesting that Right Size is actually a stable heirloom slapped with a hybrid label for commercial reasons.
