Quick Summary of Finik (Date) Tomato Series
- 🌍 Origin: A hugely popular Russian commercial series (which includes Yellow, Orange, Red, and Striped variants), commonly sold by “Russian Ogorod” (often as an F1 hybrid) and heirloom vendors like “Batatovy Kusty”. The name “Finik” translates to “Date”, referencing their shape and intended sweetness.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate and very tall, easily reaching over 2.2m (7.2 ft). They are widely praised for their outstanding disease resistance, often shrugging off late blight when neighboring plants succumb.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Small, elongated grape or date-shaped cherry tomatoes. They are famous for having incredibly firm, thick skins. This gives them an astounding shelf life—growers report keeping them at room temperature until November or hanging whole clusters in the kitchen for months without them shriveling.
- 👅 Flavor: Highly polarizing! When grown in ideal conditions, they are intensely sweet like candy. However, some growers find the skin too tough (“hard as a bullet”) and the flavor bland, making them better suited for canning, pickling, or sun-drying.
- ⏳ Yield: Exceptionally high-yielding. The trusses branch out like a splayed hand, heavily loaded with fruit.
A variety from Russian Ogorod, we’ve had it for a long time and grow it every year. Sweet, stores for a long time thanks to clean separation from the stem and the firmness of the fruit; the taste doesn’t fade. I already wrote how last year my granddaughter ran from the garage with tears in her eyes in November, unable to find any more FINIK among the ripening tomatoes.
I planted Finik Yellow F1 from Russian Ogorod this year. It grew outdoors in open ground without any covers. Wasn’t impressed… Yes, it’s prolific, yes, beautiful and low-maintenance, but I can’t say it’s sweet. An ordinary tomato. A few that ripened completely on the bush were sweet, but not exactly sugar. I’ll can them in jars. Maybe it will perform better in a greenhouse, I need to try.
I planted the orange one. Grew in a greenhouse. Very productive, sweet. Didn’t get sick (large-fruited varieties nearby were hit by late blight). Fruited for a long time. Pulled it out in October.
Edited January 17, 2016 by Drosera
Planted it outdoors for several years – a good variety, always turned out very sweet, firm, with great shelf life. The downsides for me are that it’s not early, and the yield outdoors wasn’t very high. I don’t plant it anymore because Blush surpassed it in all parameters.
This year the orange date is growing in the greenhouse. It started ripening among the very first. The taste is bright, sweet and sour. Liked it a lot.
Orange Date from Russian Ogorod is absolutely stellar! 🤩
Not prone to diseases, productive (and that’s this summer outdoors!!!), ideal for open ground. For comparison, I planted 1 bush in the greenhouse, no, it’s not the same. Lots of fruit set outdoors. The fruits are firm, not sour, with a sugary sweetness. Very tasty. Stores well. Medovaya Kaplya (Honey Drop) doesn’t even come close. Amazing variety, I recommend it to everyone.
In this photo are Orange Date and Tsygan (Gypsy).
Mirabelle wrote:
Orange Date from Russian Ogorod is absolutely stellar! 🤩
Somehow it doesn’t look like a date at all… A lucky off-type (cross)?
My yellow date turned out quite late, started ripening in August, although I sowed on 02/22/16. My yield on it was small, firm, laid around until October at room temperature, didn’t spoil. The skin is thick. Sweet, but not like honey to my taste. Grew in a greenhouse, I already pulled out all the other tomatoes, and it just kept setting fruit. So I harvested two-thirds of them green.
Things are not entirely clear with the dates this season for me. 🤷♀️
I planted two types of dates – Variegated (Striped) and Orange (both from Batatovy Kusty).
The Orange one turned out to really be date-shaped:
Liked it a lot – productive, didn’t get sick with anything, set trusses well. I used it mostly in assorted pickles and for sun-drying.
But with the Variegated (striped) dates – it’s not all clear.
I planted three bushes. One turned out to be short, with oblong fruits, as promised in the photo from the BK catalog, more of a bicolor than striped.
The other two bushes (in the greenhouse and outdoors) turned out to be very powerful, hung with round striped ones:
Here they are side by side on a tray – the oblong one and the round one (in the blue oval).
Personally, I liked the round one better, but it doesn’t look like a date (in shape) at all…
Is the Orange Date really such a rich orange color?
Elena 62 wrote:
Is the Orange Date really such a rich orange color?
Lena, mine turned out exactly the color as in the photo. Clusters cut in mid-July and hung in the kitchen are still hanging, not even withering:
I just took this photo now.
I planted the yellow date and the red one. In the packet of the yellow one grew bushes with orange and light yellow fruits. The red one was the sweetest. The light yellow was sour. Shaped like a real date. When pickled, as some write, they pop in your mouth like a drink, but they are small. The truss is shaped like a human hand – splayed out. Lots of fruits, store well. Height 2.2 m (7.2 ft).
Apparently, the dates are degenerating. My yellow one in the greenhouses is very productive and very tasteless, hard as a bullet, the taste is quite mediocre. No one ate these little things fresh, not even me… I made a couple of jars of lightly salted ones, tossed them into tomato prep, half the harvest went nowhere 😞 throwing away the seeds from Russian Ogorod…
