📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Zheltaya Mishen (Yellow Target)
- 🌍 Origin: A unique collector’s variety. Some growers report sourcing it from Chinese seed banks, while others got it from famous Russian collectors like V. Redko.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). Despite some early descriptions calling it mid-sized, it is a highly vigorous, sprawling vine that easily reaches the greenhouse roof at 6.5 ft (2 m) tall.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Light yellow cocktail-sized globes weighing 1.4-3.5 oz (40-100 g), often developing a pink blush on the bottom when ripe. Standout Feature: The skin is slightly fuzzy/pubescent, feeling like a fresh apricot or peach!
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: Sweet and fruity. The fruits have very thick walls but are extremely tender and juicy. Note: They soften very quickly after picking and have a short shelf life.
Seeds are from V. Redko. A mid-sized plant, sets fruit perfectly without dropping any blossoms, a very high-yielding variety. The tomatoes are light yellow with a pinkish tint at the bottom, thick-walled, slightly fuzzy, very tender, with a sweet taste and fruity notes. A very delicious variety! The weight is fairly small, mine were about 2.1-2.8 oz (60-80 g).
Edited January 29, 2015 by Drosera
I’ll add that on the first (bottom) truss, the tomatoes were around 3.5 oz (100 g), but higher up the vine, the trusses branch out more and the fruits get smaller, just like Elena’s.
Seeds from V. Redko. I thought the variety was mid-sized, so I left about 5-6 main stems on it. Holy cow, it turned into a massive bush 6.5 ft (2 meters) tall and eventually just hit the greenhouse roof 🙈 But the yield was absolutely off the charts 😲
Clusters of yellow, slightly fuzzy little globes weighing 1.4-3.2 oz (40-90 g). When fully ripe, some developed a pink blush on the side. They are tender, juicy, and velvety – it actually feels like you are holding apricots in your hands! Very tasty, though they just lacked that tiny extra bit of sweetness to truly taste like a real apricot 😄
I liked the variety. It’s tall, vigorous, and the fruits are delicious and very beautiful. However, mine got attacked by spider mites in August. They didn’t do a ton of damage, but the foliage did dry up and wither.
Look at how different we all are! I actually didn’t like this variety at all. 😳 It got soft way too quickly: it has zero shelf life, and despite being the absolute perfect size for canning, it couldn’t be canned because it was too soft.
I grew Golden Ozarowski (Zloty Ozarowski) right next to it, which I got from the Moscow seed swap, and at the exact same fruit size, it beat Yellow Target in every single parameter.
But, as they say, different strokes for different folks….
My seeds came from China. Very productive, tasty, and beautiful.
I really loved this variety. Mainly for its thick walls (not to be confused with thick skin). I absolutely adore tomatoes like this. Loved the yield, the fully loaded trusses, and the flavor.
- Fuzzy/Angora Tomatoes: Multiple growers mention that the skin of this tomato is “slightly fuzzy” and feels like an apricot or peach. In tomato genetics, this is caused by the pubescent or Angora gene, which produces tiny fine hairs on the skin (and often on the plant’s leaves as well). Varieties like Garden Peach or Elberta Girl share this trait, giving them a unique matte, velvety texture.
- Thick Walls vs. Thick Skin: Vera makes an excellent point distinguishing between the two. “Thick skin” is often a negative trait (tough to chew), while “thick walls” means the actual meat (pericarp) of the tomato beneath the skin is very dense and thick, which is highly desirable for both eating quality and processing!
