📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Zheltye Torbochki (Yellow Pouches)
- 🌍 Origin: A highly popular Russian forum variety. The name “Yellow Pouches” is a conditional/working title given by forum members, but it became so popular that it permanently stuck in the heirloom community.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). An absolute workhorse of a plant with extremely high yield potential and a long fruiting season.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Beautiful, heavily pleated/ribbed yellow-orange pear shapes (resembling tied pouches or bags). Size varies wildly on the same plant, from small canning sizes up to 1.1 lbs (500 g).
- 👅 Flavor & Texture: Highly debated among growers! The flesh is uniquely dense, buttery, and dry (almost no juice or seeds). In good, sunny weather, it is very sweet with zero acidity. In cold or rainy weather, it can become completely bland.
- ❄️ Best Uses: Because it is so meaty and lacks watery gel, it is considered an elite variety for sun-drying, canning, and even freezing whole or sliced.
The name is conditional, but the variety is excellent – originally from Galka68 🙏. It actively spread among our forum members, so I decided to officially add it to our catalog.
Indet, potential yield is very high, the bushes grew in the greenhouse pruned to 2 main stems, with a long fruiting period. The fruits are meaty, beautiful, pleated/gathered yellow-orange pears. They are not overly dry and have a very good taste. Fruit weight varies greatly, from small canning size up to 1.1 lbs (500 grams).
Photos from 2018 and 2019:
Edited September 18, 2019 by Svetikk
A super variety, I completely fell in love with it! Beautiful, tasty, and extremely productive! At first, I kept it pruned to two stems, but then I just let it grow however it wanted to, and it set a ton of fruit right up under the greenhouse roof.
A gorgeous variety. Meaty, sweet, and a heavy yielder.
elja1968 wrote:
A super variety, I completely fell in love with it! Beautiful, tasty, and extremely productive!
Elya, what is its ripening season like? And what kind of location does it prefer? Full sun, I assume?
Edited April 4, 2020 by Drosera
T@tk@ wrote:
Elya, what is its ripening season like? And what kind of location does it prefer? Full sun, I assume?
It turned out to be quite late for me, I tasted the first fruits in the second half of August. We had a cold and rainy summer. I transplanted it into the greenhouse after May 15th. It grew in a very sunny spot.
One of the few varieties that is setting fruit quite well for me this year. Even though all the nights have been cold so far, around 39-46°F (4-8°C) (my greenhouse is unheated). I hope it will please me with its flavor too. It’s a shame I accidentally snapped the second stem off.
elja1968 wrote:
It turned out to be quite late for me, I tasted the first fruits in the second half of August.
Elya, did you plant it again this year? How is it doing for you? Our weather is pretty much identical right now.
T@tk@ wrote:
How is it doing for you? Our weather is pretty much identical right now.
Tanya, nothing much happening yet… 😔 Fruit set is pretty poor for all my tomatoes this year.
elja1968 wrote:
Tanya, nothing much happening yet… 😔 Fruit set is pretty poor for all my tomatoes this year.
Elya, try doing a foliar spray on the flower buds with MKP* and micronutrients. I really liked the results I got from doing that.
T@tk@ wrote:
One of the few varieties that is setting fruit quite well for me this year
It set fruit very well for me too, the first one is already ripening. God willing, we’ll be tasting it tomorrow or the day after.
Deleting off-topic chatter. Please remember this is the variety catalog section.
Well, the flavor turned out to be absolutely nothing special for me. Completely bland. 😭
T@tk@ wrote:
Well, the flavor turned out to be absolutely nothing special for me. Completely bland. 😭
Look at that yield, though! You can use them for other purposes (dehydrating, sun-drying, canning?). Or maybe the fruits from the second and third trusses will taste better?
Alisa wrote:
You can use them for other purposes (dehydrating, sun-drying, canning?)
Thanks, Alisa. Maybe they will get tastier later on, but I also don’t really like their texture; they are a bit too soft, they lack density. I’ll try them for pickling/canning. I don’t know how to sun-dry tomatoes yet)). And I don’t make tomato juice.
For me, Yellow Pouches turned out sooooo delicious this year. And their flesh is so wonderfully buttery))). The yield was average.
My Yellow Pouches tomato.
I think this is probably the driest tomato I have ever seen in my garden. There is practically no juice in it, and very few seeds. It’s just solid, buttery meat. The flavor… is strictly for fans of yellow-fruited tomatoes, as there is almost no acidity. The yield turned out average for me.
Edited August 15, 2020 by Shelkovnica
Opinions were divided on this variety last year; some praised it, while others were indifferent. I was eager to see what would grow for me. I planted 2 bushes from different seed sources. Both made me very happy. The variety is very productive and low-maintenance. It set fruit without skipping a single truss right up to the roof. The fruits are beautiful, bright orange. Very meaty, but at the same time, juicy.
Thank you so much for the seeds!
I am also very happy with Yellow Pouches. Delicious tomatoes. I will plant them again next year.
Meaty, slightly buttery flesh, sweet.
A favorite variety of mine. Thanks @galka68. Many say it isn’t super sweet. But I wouldn’t call it bland either. Simply put – I like it. Not hollow, and rock-solid reliable in terms of yield.
I grew two bushes of my Pouches this year – one in the shade and one in full sun. The sunny one turned out to have much larger fruits and was more productive. It’s a prolific yielder, mid-season ripening, it ripened later than Sgt. Pepper for me. I pruned it to 2 stems, but you can easily leave more. The fruits varied widely in size. The flesh is dense. Very pleasant texture to the fruits, but it had absolutely no taste. Just a bland tomato.
However, I decided to grow it again next year, because it is absolutely perfect for freezing; it doesn’t leak any juice when thawed. And it’s good for late autumn salads when flavor is a bit less critical. We are still eating it right now.
- Foliar Feeding for Blossom Drop: In this thread, Zulfiya advises Elya to spray her tomato blossoms with *MKP (Monopotassium Phosphate)* and micronutrients to fix poor fruit set. This is a common and highly effective trick among Eastern European growers. A light foliar spray of phosphorus and potassium directly on the flower trusses during cold or heavily overcast weather gives the plant the exact mobile nutrients it needs to successfully set fruit instead of aborting the blossoms.
- The “Bland Yellow” Phenomenon: Notice the intense debate about flavor in this thread? Yellow/orange heirloom tomatoes are naturally low in acid. If they are grown in poor conditions (too much rain, too little sun, or low temperatures), they don’t produce enough sugar to compensate for the lack of acid, resulting in a tomato that tastes like water or cardboard. Give them heat and full sun, and they turn into sweet, buttery candy!
- Freezing Tomatoes: Yulia mentions that this variety is perfect for freezing because it “doesn’t leak.” Most slicing tomatoes turn into a watery, mushy mess when thawed because their seed gel bursts the cell walls. Extremely dense, dry paste tomatoes like Zheltye Torbochki can be sliced and frozen raw, and they will hold their shape beautifully for winter cooking!
