Heirloom Tomato Varieties & Reviews | Tomat-Pomidor
Honest reviews of global tomato varieties from a 15-year-old growers community.
🍅 Quick take: Lampochki (which translates to “Lightbulbs”) is an early-season, indeterminate potato leaf (PL) cherry tomato. It produces gorgeous clusters of sweet, meaty yellow pear-shaped cherries. It was grown side-by-side with the famous commercial variety “Honey Drop” to see if it was just a renamed clone, but proved to be vastly superior—ripening earlier, tasting … Read more
At a Glance 🍅 Quick take: Gajo de Melon is a late-season, aggressively growing indeterminate cherry tomato. The vine easily tops 6.5 feet (2 m) and has a massive, sprawling footprint that requires strict pruning to keep it from turning into a jungle. While the yields are only average due to smaller clusters, the flavor … Read more
🍅 Quick take: Summer Sun F1 is a legendary, patented Israeli commercial hybrid bred by Hazera Genetics, famous for once selling at a wholesale price of $350,000 per kilogram of seed. It is an incredibly vigorous indeterminate vine that produces glowing, amber-yellow cherry tomatoes with off-the-charts sugar levels. In this mega-thread, growers not only review … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Golden Sweet 🌍 Origin: A popular commercial yellow grape/cherry tomato variety widely grown for its reliability and sweetness. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall/vine). A vigorous grower that requires tall staking or a trellis. Known to be highly productive even in less-than-ideal outdoor conditions. 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Bright yellow-gold, oval or grape-shaped … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Green Pear 🌍 Origin: An heirloom variety that frequently suffers from a translation/naming error in Eastern European seed catalogs, where it is often mistakenly sold as “Green Pearl”. 🌿 Plant Habit: Generally described as indeterminate, though growers report it acts more like a compact semi-determinate, rarely exceeding 3.3 feet (1 m) … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Viola-1 Cherry 🌍 Origin: A rare cherry variety circulating in Eastern Europe. In this thread, seeds were sourced from Tamara Yashchenko, a highly respected Russian tomato collector from the Altai region. 🌿 Plant Habit: Determinate (short bush). Out in the open ground, it stays very compact, reaching only about 32 inches … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Volshebny Kaskad F1 (Magic Cascade) 🌍 Origin: A Russian commercial F1 hybrid cherry tomato. The name beautifully translates to “Magic Cascade”, referring to its long, cascading trusses of red cherries. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate and incredibly vigorous. Growers warn that this plant turns into a massive “space hog” and will easily … Read more
📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Candy Sweet Icicle 🌍 Origin: Created by Brad Gates at Wild Boar Farms in California. Note: Growers report that two distinct color lines are currently circulating: a pearly pink/red version with yellow stripes, and a dark chocolate/brick-red version with green stripes (which is closer to the original release). 🌿 Plant Habit: … Read more
Quick Summary of Sweet Cream 🌍 Origin: An artisan elongated cherry/plum variety, closely related in genetics and appearance to famous varieties like Blush and Candy Sweet Icicle. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. In a greenhouse, it typically reaches 1.5 to 2 meters (5 to 6.5 ft) and can be pruned to multiple stems. The plant has … Read more
Quick Summary of Märchenzauber (Fairy Tale Magic) 🌍 Origin: A beautiful modern variety originating from Germany. The name translates directly to “Fairy Tale Magic.” 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall vining) and early ripening. It produces lovely, cascading trusses. 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large cherry or small plum tomatoes weighing up to 50 g (1.7 oz). They … Read more
Quick Summary of Sweet as Linda (Sweet Linda) 🌍 Origin: A fantastic cherry tomato bred in the USA by M. Murdock. It is a stabilized cross between the legendary Marianna’s Peace and Sungold F1. He named the resulting variety in honor of his wife. 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate, vigorous, and tall (growing up to 2 … Read more