Quick Summary of Russo Sicilian Togetta
- 🌍 Origin: A beautiful traditional heirloom variety, highly prized for its deeply ruffled, classic Italian appearance.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (vining). Highly productive in a greenhouse when pruned to 2 stems, but also demonstrates extreme resilience when grown outdoors in harsh conditions.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Bright red, oblate (flattened), and heavily ribbed fruits. Typically weighing up to 150 g (5.3 oz). They are very crack-resistant.
- 👅 Flavor & Usage: Classic, traditional tomato flavor. Pro Tip for Canning: If you plan to preserve them whole in jars, pick them slightly underripe. Fully ripe fruits tend to become a bit too soft for canning.
- 🛡️ Extreme Resilience: Outstanding survivor! Growers report this variety powering through miserable weather—including frost damage, heavy rains, and severe Late Blight (Phytophthora) outbreaks—without rotting, cracking, or turning black.
A very beautiful variety! :yep: It is indeterminate, grew in my greenhouse pruned to 2 stems, and was very highly productive.
The fruits are oblate, heavily ribbed, and red, weighing up to 150 g (5.3 oz). The taste is your standard, classic tomato flavor. If you are going to put them in canning jars, it’s better to pick them slightly underripe—the fully ripe fruits get a bit too soft.
(Seeds originally from Valentin54 :thx:)
Unfortunately, I can’t add photos right now… just leaving a review.
This year was absolutely terrible for my tomatoes….. Calling it a “bad harvest” is putting it mildly. First, the seedlings got sick. Then, after I planted them outdoors in the open ground, all the bushes suffered from frost damage. After that, we got flooded with heavy rains, and as a result, Late Blight (Phytophthora) went completely wild in the garden…
And yet, these Russo Sicilian Togetta tomatoes still survived! They gave me a whole bowl of harvest. Despite everything, not a single tomato cracked, and none of them turned black from blight. Every single fruit that managed to set flowers fully ripened! :mail2:
I got 8 fruits, each weighing about 70-90 g (2.5-3.2 oz). Because of the awful weather, they naturally didn’t reach their full genetic size, but still—I consider this an excellent indicator of the plant’s vigor. The high potential is obvious. I will definitely be planting it again!!!