📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Gibrid Tarasenko No. 7 (Tarasenko Hybrid 7)
- 🌍 Origin: Bred by the legendary Soviet/Ukrainian breeder Feodosiy Tarasenko. Crucial Note: Despite having “Hybrid” in its name, this is a fully stabilized, open-pollinated (OP) heirloom variety. You absolutely can (and should!) save seeds from it.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Determinate (bush). It grows very compact and relatively short, topping out around 2.6 ft (0.8 m) in open ground. Perfect for small spaces, windy outdoor plots, or large containers.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Red, slightly elongated plum/paste tomatoes. They are very dense, meaty, and have very few seeds. Average weight is around 2.5-2.8 oz (70-80 g).
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Sweet and flavorful. Known for having an exceptionally long shelf life (lasting 2+ weeks indoors without rotting) and retaining its good flavor even when picked green and ripened indoors. Excellent for canning or fresh eating.
- 🛡️ Resilience: An absolute workhorse. Growers report it reliably sets fruit through both near-freezing cold snaps and intense blossom-dropping heatwaves.
Determinate mid-season variety. The bush isn’t wide, quite compact; outdoors in open ground it reached a height of 2.6 ft (0.8 m).
The fruits are slightly elongated red plums weighing 2.5-2.8 oz (70-80 g), very dense, meaty, with few seeds, and have a very good flavor with a nice sweetness. The flavor stays good even on counter-ripened fruits. The ripe little tomatoes kept for at least 2 weeks without losing any quality for me.
Yield is very good, even though the summer of 2016 was highly unfavorable for outdoor tomatoes – in early June the temperature dropped close to freezing (32°F / 0°C), and in July-August we had a heatwave that fried the blossoms and entire trusses on many other varieties. I liked the variety. Seeds were from V. Redko.
Two very important things stand out in Elena’s review.
First: Don’t let the word “Hybrid” scare you away from seed saving! In the West, “F1 Hybrid” means the seed is a first-generation cross and will not grow true to type. However, legendary Soviet breeder Feodosiy Tarasenko simply named his varieties “Hybrids” because he originally created them via cross-pollination. He stabilized them over many years before releasing them, meaning they are now true Open Pollinated (OP) heirlooms!
Second: Elena mentions that “counter-ripened” fruits (tomatoes picked green to save them from frost, which then ripen indoors on the kitchen counter) retained excellent flavor and lasted over two weeks. This incredible shelf-life and post-harvest ripening ability is a massive advantage for Northern growers facing short seasons and early frosts!
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