Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
🍅 Quick take: Mrs. Schlaubaugh’s Famous Strawberry is a legendary indeterminate Amish heirloom originating in Iowa. The vine features delicate, wispy oxheart foliage and climbs vigorously under cover. It produces hefty, blunt, strawberry-shaped raspberry-pink hearts weighing 7-14 oz (200-400 g). While bottom clusters can taste bland early on, the flavor does a complete 180 on … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Kozula 126 Czarny Lagodny is a mid-late Polish dark tomato from Anna Kozula’s breeding lines. The plants stay relatively short, around 3 ft (1 m). The original strain produces heavy trusses of very firm, meaty, and sweet dark fruits weighing up to 8.8 oz (250 g). Growers note that it produces very … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Ilka is a rare, indeterminate, mid-season yellow oxheart with classic wispy foliage. It produces large, barrel-shaped hearts weighing 8.8-10.5 oz (250-300 g) and often much more. Growers praise it for its dense, meaty, almost seedless flesh, sweet old-fashioned flavor, and reliable fruit set in both heat and cold. Full summary ↓ Growers’ … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Grosse Serge is an indeterminate, mid-season red beefsteak known for producing incredibly massive, hefty fruits. Growers rave about its perfectly balanced, sweet flavor and very meaty, deep-oblate fruits that contain almost no seeds. While yields are generally solid despite the sheer size of the tomatoes, the exceptional taste and long harvest window … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Konfetka Bez Kostochek (Sweet Seedless) is a genetically unstable variety that has caused major confusion among Russian growers. While it is sold as a short, early, seedless determinate bush, most growers end up with run-of-the-mill, heavily-seeded red tomatoes that taste incredibly bland. The root of the problem? The original “Sweet Seedless” was … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Korolevskoe Serdtse (Royal Heart) 🌍 Origin: A stunning Russian heirloom. The name perfectly translates to “Royal Heart”. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). An absolute workhorse that performs exceptionally well, especially in greenhouse setups. 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, beautiful oxheart-shaped fruits. The skin is a glowing orange with striking pink marbling. They … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Calcutta (Kalkutta) 🌍 Origin: Sourced and popularized by Russian seed collector V. Redko. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall), reaching over 8 feet (2.5 m) in a greenhouse. Like many heart and paste varieties, it has long, droopy, “wispy” foliage that often looks wilted even when perfectly watered. It handles heat well … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Ivanovskie 🌍 Origin: A regional “folk” heirloom from Russia. The name simply means it originated from or is associated with the Ivanovo region. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall), but on the shorter side, usually topping out around 5 feet (1.5 m). Great for greenhouses or open ground. 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Verace 🌍 Origin: Heirloom from Italy. It is famously grown there specifically to make a traditional, extremely thick sauce of the exact same name. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indet. A very tall and vigorous vine that easily reaches 6.5 feet (2 m) and keeps climbing. 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Massive crimson-red beefsteaks. These … Read more
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📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Zheltyi Klyuv (Yellow Beak) 🌍 Origin: A beautiful Russian heirloom. The name translates to “Yellow Beak,” perfectly describing the distinct, elongated pointy tip on the bottom of the fruit. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). Performs exceptionally well in greenhouses (reaching over 6 ft) and does well outdoors (around 5 ft / … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Da Chilo 🌍 Origin: A massive heirloom variety from Italy. The name “Da Chilo” translates to “Weighing a kilo” (2.2 lbs), which perfectly describes its size potential! 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. A highly vigorous, tall plant that thrives in a greenhouse environment when pruned to two main stems. Mid-season maturity. 🍅 … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Dynnye (Melon) 🌍 The Heirloom Mystery: “Dynnye” translates to “Melon” or “Melon-like”. However, as this thread perfectly illustrates, there are at least three completely different tomatoes circulating in the seed-trading world under this exact name. 🍅 Variant 1 (The Determinate Beefsteak): A determinate (bush) plant producing light-yellow oblate (flattened) beefsteaks up … Read more