📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Zolotoy Klyk (Golden Fang)
- 🌍 Origin: A Russian heirloom tomato sourced and popularized by seed collector Valya Redko. The name translates to “Golden Fang”, which perfectly describes its shape and color.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate (tall). Mid-season. It has the classic “wispy” foliage often seen on oxhearts and large paste varieties. The leaves are long and naturally droop downwards.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large, yellow-orange elongated paste tomatoes. Growers describe the shape as “rockets” or “torpedoes”. They usually weigh between 3.5 and 10.5 oz (100-300 g). The plant frequently produces fused, double fruits from megablooms.
- 👅 Flavor: The flesh has a dry, meaty, and slightly granular/grainy texture. While it can be a bit bland for fresh eating, its dense structure makes it a top-tier choice for canning, making sauces, and pickling whole.
🍅 Grown this variety? Click here to add your own photos and review below!
Seeds are from Redko’s collection. Indeterminate, mid-season. It has long, droopy, wispy foliage. A very heavy yielder. The fruits are large “torpedoes” weighing around 3.5 to 10.5 oz (100-300 g). I had a few fused, double fruits pop up. The taste was a bit on the bland side, and the flesh has a grainy, meaty texture.
Tatiana, would this one be good for canning?
Quote from ElenaPr: Tatiana, would this one be good for canning?
You bet it is! 🙂
The fruits varied a little bit in shape for me. Some were wider, while others were more elongated. Both the taste and the yield were very good.
👨🌾 Editor’s Note: Fused Fruits & Megablooms
In the very first post, Tatiana mentions that her Golden Fang plant produced some “fused, double fruits”. In the heirloom tomato world, these are caused by megablooms, which happen when two or more blossoms fuse together on the truss due to genetics or early-season cold snaps. This trait is incredibly common on large paste tomatoes and oxhearts! The resulting fruits look a bit mangled and blocky, but they still taste fantastic.
In the very first post, Tatiana mentions that her Golden Fang plant produced some “fused, double fruits”. In the heirloom tomato world, these are caused by megablooms, which happen when two or more blossoms fuse together on the truss due to genetics or early-season cold snaps. This trait is incredibly common on large paste tomatoes and oxhearts! The resulting fruits look a bit mangled and blocky, but they still taste fantastic.
