First one ripened faster than I expected and had my first tomato sandwich of the year today courtesy of Ukranian Heart! It was delicious.

This is Ukranian Heart. How the heck am I ever going to get enough seeds to do anything with? One of the lowest seeded tomatoes I have ever grown!

Ukrainian Heart by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/152340683@N05/]

Makes a great, meaty tomato sandwich though! Not too watery at all.

@Sue_CT I hope it's productive for you. I think that you can only collect about 60 seeds per fruit if that.

It is productive so far, quite a few fruit on it that have yet to ripen. Have never tried fermented so few seeds at one time before. I usually have at least an inch of seed and pulp in the bottom of a jar to start. I am waiting until I have a few ripe at the same time to start.

Sue_CT wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:25 am It is productive so far, quite a few fruit on it that have yet to ripen. Have never tried fermented so few seeds at one time before. I usually have at least an inch of seed and pulp in the bottom of a jar to start. I am waiting until I have a few ripe at the same time to start.

If you feel that you want to start sooner, you can always use the juice from another variety. Just be very sure to strain it so that no foreign seeds end up in your cup.

My first Ukie this summer has been Koroleva Rynka.

It's like a number of other earlies; glad to have it, but when the first indeterminates come on it's easy to overlook. The second was Legenda Tarasenko.

This one will definitely be given an "every year" status. Not quite as early as the Kotlas/Imur Prior Beta/Kimberley/etc family, but the flavor is sweet yet tangy/tomatoey
Very pleased to have 3 of them in the garden.

I have a hard time growing melons here in Virginia 7A - too many bugs and disease so the vines suffer just as they are getting going with fruit. So I was really pleased to get my first Collective Farm Woman melon yesterday. It was really delicious and I was happy to see a good bunch of plump seeds to save. I don't think anyone has any melons close to me at the community garden so although I didn't bag the blooms I'm hopeful they'll be true. These were a very welcome surprise in my MMMM packet this year.

Too bad I wasn't able to find seeds for my favourite variety this year - Tarasenko Rozevyi (Pink). They are packed away somewhere... But I have other Ukrainian varieties, including some strawberries.
It is somewhat debatable if Tarasenko varieties are, strictly speaking, Ukrainian or just Soviet... back in the day, there were no real distinctions. The same applies for many of the black varieties... I don't even bother to try to figure out why Black from Tula is called Ukrainan, and whether Black Krim is Ukrainian or Russian... just shows how absurd this war and the whole situation is..

Just praying for people on both sides.. yes, I know Ukrainians are the victims.

I believed the tales of a Ukrainian breeder named Fyodor Tarasenko who shared a large number of his projects via outlets like the Seed Saver's Exchange.

Are the stories true? Well, I saw it on the intertubes and I liked most of the tomatoes I've tried with that name...proving nothing.

A post or two above, I reported that Koroleva Rynka was an early producer in my garden.

That was incorrect. KR is a midseason indet, and a couple are beginning to color up, but none ready to pick.

I had it mixed up with a variety labelled "Ocharovnie Komnentnyi"... which might or might not be Ukrainian, or Russian. I have found very little about it, but what I seem to have gotten was a very small (but not rugose leafed dwarf) plant similar to the "subarctic" and "polar" types from the far north.

Hooray - found my lost seeds..!

So, next year I'll put Tarasenko Rozhevyi on my list. Also Purple Ukrainian will be on it..
As well as one called Crimean Rose - Krimskaya Roza - .. It was purchased from Nikitovka seeds, so I take it to be Ukrainian enough..

I also found cucumber seeds, still in the commercial seeds packet, an Ukrainian called White Angel.. very pretty looking.

I was wondering how everyone's grow outs are going for this swap.

I'm growing Korichnevyy Rebristyy (Brown Ribbed) from seeds that Heide shared with me. The fruits are badly catfaced. I understand this is likely from an environmental cause though none of the other varieties that I'm growing are catfaced. I'm still collecting seeds from every fruit in case it's still OK to share them.

This was the first fruit I harvested just last week. You can see the green fruits in the background.

Mine are mostly coming along well. I grew the Citrus Garden (Tsitrusovyy Sad), Heart of Ashgabat, Yellow Marmalade (Marmelad žëltyj) and Pink Giant Ukrainian (Rozovyj gigant Ukrainskij). I tried the Plum Bendrika Yellow, but it didn't do that well.

Citrus Garden is a nice snacker. My daughter would sit down with a bowl of them and just munch.

Heart of Ashgabat is very good for paste. It has a nice tomato flavor, but nothing spectacular. I expected something more, I guess. But it's very meaty and makes great sauce.

Yellow Marmalade was quite early and is mild and juicy. It produced very well until about a week ago, when it took a breather. It's got a bunch of green ones getting ready for the next flush, though.

Pink Giant Ukrainian is huge, many of them over a pound, and sweet. I really like the taste of this one. It's also meaty enough to be good in sauce. It just started ripening about 10 days ago.

Sounds great, @Acer Rubrum .

I planned to grow Black Sea Man for this swap but the seeds didn't germinate until way too late so I won't have them for this swap.

Wow, those Brown Ribbed are really ribbed..!

@NarnianGarden, I was surprised by how pronounced the ribs are considering that the few photos I found of it when Googling for information didn't show Korichnevyy Rebristyy (Brown Ribbed) this ribbed. Though what I have does fit its name better than the photos I found, especially since the fruits I'm harvesting now are more brown and less pink/red than that first one.

Acer Rubrum wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 5:02 pm Mine are mostly coming along well. I grew the Citrus Garden (Tsitrusovyy Sad), Heart of Ashgabat, Yellow Marmalade (Marmelad žëltyj) and Pink Giant Ukrainian (Rozovyj gigant Ukrainskij). I tried the Plum Bendrika Yellow, but it didn't do that well.

Citrus Garden is a nice snacker. My daughter would sit down with a bowl of them and just munch.

Heart of Ashgabat is very good for paste. It has a nice tomato flavor, but nothing spectacular. I expected something more, I guess. But it's very meaty and makes great sauce.

Yellow Marmalade was quite early and is mild and juicy. It produced very well until about a week ago, when it took a breather. It's got a bunch of green ones getting ready for the next flush, though.

Pink Giant Ukrainian is huge, many of them over a pound, and sweet. I really like the taste of this one. It's also meaty enough to be good in sauce. It just started ripening about 10 days ago.

Interesting to hear about Tsitrusovyy Sad. I have seen it offered on-line in several web sites.. however. the reviews I gathered made it seem really bland.. and so I wasn't ever that keen.

My daughter, who has better taste buds than me, says it's a bit fruity. I think it tastes like a general purpose mild tomato.

I sadly have to report that my seed for Amplissimo Victoria Ukrainskaya was crossed. I noticed some greenish ones when I grew this two years ago, and found a couple of obvious crosses which I separated from them at the time - one was a snow pea (quite a good one I might add, but when I grew them the next year they were obviously segregating) and one had speckled seeds. But I wasn't sure if the greenish ones were just immature. This season though, I found nearly all of the seeds are positively green. Some are pale green, others darker, some have a yellow hilum (like St Hubert and some other 'grey' soup peas), and some are really small as well. Overall the problem is, I could only find about 20 seeds that actually are the right color and size to be true to the named variety. So these seem to be pretty seriously crossed up. I didn't realize it earlier in the season because they all had white flowers. I would like to grow AVU again, with seed from another seller instead.
I'm definitely planning to grow something from Ukraine again next season.

Awww. Sorry to hear this, Bower. You must be so disappointed.