Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
🍅 Quick take: Raspberry Rhapsody (Malinovaya Rapsodiya) is an excellent compact (semi-determinate) variety from the Russian seed company Aelita. It stays short—around 2.5 ft (80 cm) in a greenhouse—but produces impressive yields of beautiful, medium-to-large pink beefsteaks averaging 7-10.5 oz (200-300g). It is highly disease-resistant, starts producing early for its size class, and delivers a … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Minusinskie Yablochnye (Minusinsk Apple) is a massive, indeterminate pink beefsteak hailing from the legendary Minusinsk region of Siberia. Mid-season. The fruits are oblate or slightly apple-shaped, frequently reaching 1-2.2 lbs (500-1000 g). The vine is stout with long, wispy, drooping foliage. Growers rave about its “classic pink” flavor profile, which is incredibly … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Leningrad Giant is an early-season, determinate beefsteak tomato bred specifically to produce massive slicers in short, cool northern summers. The compact bush stays under 3 feet (80 cm) but manages to pump out heavy yields of pink fruits averaging 10.5 oz (300 g), with some growers pulling 1.5 lb (685 g) whoppers. … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lyubov Irana (Love of Iran) is a mid-late season, indeterminate pink beefsteak tomato. It is known for producing massive, uniform slicers weighing anywhere from 10.5 oz to over 2 lbs (300 g to 1 kg) with a rich, classic tomato flavor. While most growers report huge yields and beautiful fruit with no … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lopatinskie is a highly productive, large-fruited variety that is the subject of a massive seed-source split in the gardening community. Growers buying commercial packets (usually from Siberian Garden / SibSad) often get a short determinate bush producing red fruits. Meanwhile, seeds passed around by private collectors usually result in a tall indeterminate … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Lilac Giant is a highly productive indeterminate variety that produces perfectly uniform, oblate dark pink slicers weighing 7-14 oz (200-400 g). Growers praise it as practically flawless, highlighting its exceptional fruit set, rich sweet flavor, and complete lack of misshapen fruits or catfacing. It is highly versatile and boasts a very decent … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Krasavets Myasistyi (Meaty Beauty) is a vigorous indeterminate pink tomato from the Russian seed company SeDeK. However, growers in this thread report wildly different results—one got the massive, meaty pink slicers described on the packet, while the other ended up with a multiflora plant producing small barrel-shaped canning tomatoes. Both versions yielded … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Korneevsky Pink (Korneevskiy Rozovyi) is a vigorous, indeterminate heirloom producing heavy yields of large, dark pink, oblate (flat-round) beefsteaks weighing up to 14 oz (400 g). Highly praised for its sugary, meaty, and tender flesh, it is a fantastic mid-season fresh-eating slicer. Its genetics are so respected that Russian agricultural institutes have … Read more
📌 Quick Summary: Kartofelnyi Malinovyi (Potato Raspberry) 🌍 Origin: A commercial heirloom variety distributed by Siberian Garden (SibSad). The name perfectly describes it: it has “potato” style leaves and produces “raspberry” pink fruit. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). Reaches about 5.2 feet (1.6 m) in height. Features highly distinctive Potato Leaf (PL) foliage that lacks … Read more
📌 Quick Summary: Caspian Pink 🌍 Origin: A legendary heirloom originally sourced from Russia/Kazakhstan. It gained massive fame in North America for reportedly beating the famous Brandywine in taste tests. Russian seed vendors later re-imported it, marketing it heavily as the “Queen of all Pink Tomatoes.” 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall) and naturally bushy. It … Read more
📌 Quick Summary: Kazakhstansky Domashniy (Kazakhstani Home) 🌍 Origin: A treasured family heirloom from Kazakhstan, popularized in seed collector circles by Russian breeder Gusev. The family selected seeds from the biggest, tastiest, and most productive fruits for decades before releasing it. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). Despite producing massive beefsteaks, it is a surprisingly early … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Kristina Vatcheva 🌍 Origin: A fantastic family heirloom originating from Bulgaria. It gained worldwide popularity in the heirloom community after the grower, Kristina Vatcheva, shared her seeds with collectors in the United States. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall) and highly vigorous. Typically reaches about 5.5 feet (1.7 m) in a greenhouse … Read more