Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
🍅 Quick take: Novichok Pink (Newbie Pink) is a highly productive, mid-early determinate bush variety prized for processing. The compact plants produce an abundance of firm, pink, oval-shaped tomatoes weighing 2.5-5 oz (73-150 g). Thanks to their dense flesh and low moisture content, they are widely considered top-tier for whole-fruit canning, sun-drying, and long-term storage. … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Morkovnyi (Carrot) is an early-season, determinate bush variety famous for its striking, finely cut, carrot-like foliage. Staying compact at around 20-32 inches (50-80 cm), it is an excellent choice for outdoor growing and early harvests. The fruits are medium-sized, red, slightly ribbed, and usually weigh around 5-9 oz (150-250 g). While everyone … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Marusya is an early, highly productive determinate paste tomato from Russia. Producing incredibly dense, meaty, and dry red plum/egg-shaped fruits in the 2.5-3.5 oz (70-100 g) range, it is an absolute favorite for whole-peeled canning and making thick sauces. The bushes stay compact at around 20-32 inches (50-80 cm), require minimal pruning, … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lyolya F1 is a semi-determinate commercial hybrid from the seed company Aelita. It produces beautifully uniform, firm red tomatoes weighing 4.5-5.5 oz (130-160 g) that are absolutely perfect for processing and canning. The flavor is a standard, classic tomato taste. Growers should be careful when purchasing seeds, as another company sells a … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lyana Rozovaya (Pink Lyana) is a very early, determinate pink tomato designed for outdoor growing. The compact bush stays around 2-3 feet (60-90 cm) tall and produces uniform, meaty, 3-3.5 oz (90-100 g) fruits that are perfect for whole-fruit canning. While the seed packet claims it needs zero pruning, most growers highly … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Layner (Liner) is a mid-season, indeterminate pink tomato from Russian breeder Petrov. It produces highly versatile, barrel-to-plum-shaped fruits, making it an excellent choice for paste and canning. The vine is notable for its compact, narrow footprint and shorter regular-leaf foliage, making it easy to manage. Growers praise its solid yields and reliability, … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Ledenets (which translates to “Lollipop” or “Hard Candy”) is an early-season, very low-maintenance small plum tomato originally from the Russian seed company Biotekhnika. It produces massive amounts of 1.5-1.8 oz (40-50 g) elongated red fruits. Outdoors in cold climates, it behaves like a compact 20-inch (50 cm) bush, but under cover, it … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lyon-1 (Flax-1) is a mid-season, indeterminate red tomato praised heavily for its commercial qualities. Reaching over 6 feet in a greenhouse, it produces very dense, crack-resistant fruits weighing 5-10.5 oz (150-300 g). Growers love its incredible productivity, noting it sets fruit beautifully without dropping blossoms. While the flavor is described as a … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lya-lya-fa F1 is a highly reliable mid-early hybrid from Russia. Growers absolutely love it for its incredible resistance to leaf mold, heavy yields, and long storage life (up to 2 months post-harvest). While the flavor is described as a “standard, slightly bland” tomato taste, its rock-solid dependability and crack-resistant, 4-5 oz (120-140 … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lampa (The Lamp) is an indeterminate, mid-season orange tomato distributed by the Russian seed company Gavrish. It’s supposed to produce 3.5-5 oz (100-140 g) pear-shaped fruits in massive clusters. Growers report a great sweet flavor with a slight tang, making it perfect for canning and dehydrating. However, the commercial seed packets seem … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lemon 2 (Limon 2) is a moderately vigorous indeterminate vine that produces large, orange-yellow plum tomatoes. Often distributed as a bonus seed packet by vendor Alexey Kulik, this variety has won growers over as an absolute workhorse. It delivers a heavy, concentrated harvest of juicy, buttery-fleshed paste tomatoes that are perfect for … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Limbo is a mid-season determinate bush variety known for producing heavy yields of elongated, somewhat triangular red paste tomatoes weighing 2.8-4.2 oz (80-120 g). While the seedlings can be notoriously spindly and leggy indoors, the mature plants stay under 3 feet (90 cm) and are highly praised as a bulletproof, long-storing canning … Read more