Varvara Tomato: Grower Reviews, Photos & Canning Tips

Seeds from the GISOK company. A mid-early, all-purpose variety (good for fresh salads and canning).

The plant grew 5.2–6 ft (1.6-1.8 m) tall. In the greenhouse, I pruned it to 2 stems. The fruits are pink-raspberry colored, cylindrical with a pointy little nose, weighing 2.5–3 oz (70-90g). The flesh is medium-dense, very tasty, and definitely on the sweet side! 😋 I really liked it, the yield was excellent. 👍

I agree with Sveta, the variety is indeed very high-yielding, even though I grew mine outdoors. However, mine had some hollow cavities inside… maybe they lacked some nutrients in my soil. 😳 They looked beautiful and all went straight into canning jars. Thanks Svetikk for sharing the seeds!!! 🌺🌺🌺

I really liked this variety, both tasty and productive! 👍

Here is the official description from the seed packet:

“A mid-early all-purpose variety. Plant height 1.6-1.8m, producing clusters of 8-10 uniform elongated cylindrical fruits with a pointed tip, pink-raspberry color, weighing 70-90g. Recommended for heated and unheated greenhouses, tunnels, and outdoor growing. Prune to a single stem and tie to a trellis. Features: firm fruit consistency, excellent flavor, high lycopene content, highly crack-resistant on the vine, excellent commercial quality. One of the best varieties for canning. Mildly susceptible to late blight.”

That’s quite an ode from the breeder! Patent holder is GISOK-AGRO, added to the State Register in 2001.

My experience: The bush has very sparse, wispy foliage—it’s practically “transparent”. I grew it outdoors, and despite the intense heat, it set fruit without dropping any blossoms. The internodes are quite long, and the trusses are a bit loose. I had 5-6 fruits per cluster, but there were up to 9 flowers, so the potential is there.

The fruits are long, pink paste tomatoes. Two seed chambers, thick walls, very juicy with no hollow voids. Excellent for pickling/canning. The taste isn’t bland, but it’s low in acid. They store for a very long time.

I grew this wonderful variety again. Excellent flavor and it looks a lot like the Pink Icicle variety. It has a very long, drawn-out fruiting period, and great yields when pruned to 3 stems in the greenhouse. The very last fruits, which I picked green in October, ripened perfectly on my balcony and lasted all the way until December.

I absolutely loved this variety, it was the discovery of the season for me.

When doing water bath canning, it actually performed even better than De Barao. With De Barao, you have to pick them at exactly the right time, otherwise, they split and crack inside the jars. Varvara never cracks in the jar, even if you accidentally let them get a bit overripe on the vine. (Seeds from Svetikk).

This variety is like the Cinderella of my garden. I was just looking through my photos, and I realized I only took pictures of it twice all summer. But it is already on my must-grow list for 2020 because:
1) It has superior qualities for canning.
2) Out of all the varieties we grew, my husband liked the flavor of this one the best.

Varvara. A beautiful Russian name, and an excellent tomato variety for whole-fruit canning. I also used it for sun-drying.

A completely hassle-free variety. Good fruit set, the clusters ripen gradually, and it fruits for a long time. The fruits are pink “icicles” weighing just under 3.5 oz (100g). Great flavor, long shelf life, firm, but at the same time pleasantly juicy.

Medium-sized bush, mid-season maturity. A very worthy variety, highly recommended.

Good variety, productive, but definitely better suited for a cooler and more humid climate than ours. Very frail/wispy plant structure. The flavor was definitely a “pickling” type flavor.

I really liked the tomatoes. Ideal for canning. However, it struggled to set fruit in the extreme heat, but to be fair, so did all my other varieties.

In my seedling tray, two of the sprouts have Regular Leaves (RL), but one has Potato Leaves (PL). Which one is the correct phenotype?

stounns said:
…two of the sprouts have Regular Leaves (RL), but one has Potato Leaves (PL). Which one is the correct phenotype?

Regular Leaf (RL) is correct. Look at Svetikk’s very first post, there are detailed photos of the bush.

stounns said:
Which one is the correct phenotype?

The correct leaf type is Regular Leaf (RL)!

Svetikk said:
The correct leaf type is Regular Leaf (RL)!

Thank you! Do you think I should keep the Potato Leaf (PL) sprout just to see what happens, or should I cull it?

stounns said:
Do you think I should keep the Potato Leaf (PL) sprout just to see what happens, or should I cull it?

Of course you should keep it just to see! Potato Leaf segregations are always considered more “elite” and rare. If it actually turns out to be a PL Varvara, I’ll be first in line to beg you for seeds!

A strictly processing/canning variety, pink icicles/plums. Fruit set was great, they grew outdoors under a shade cloth.

The photo of the truss on the vine shows them a bit unripe, but for some reason, I couldn’t find any other photos of them on the plant.

It’s a mid-late variety. It starts fruiting in mid-August and keeps going until you pull the plants in the fall. The skin is dense, the flesh is sweet and juicy. It doesn’t lose its juiciness or sweetness in storage, you just have to let it ripen fully to a deep crimson-red color.

Highly productive, no cracking whatsoever. I liked it.

Grew it outdoors, up to 5 ft (1.5 m) tall. Dense consistency, excellent taste, high lycopene content. They absolutely do not crack on the vine, commercial quality is extremely high. One of the very best varieties for canning.