Our store offers a huge selection of tomatoes from all over the world. Today we will take a look at three exotic varieties from Belgium, Poland, and Serbia. We begin our story with heirloom tomato varieties that immigrants brought to America. While some carried treasures and jewelry to the United States, others brought seeds of vegetables cultivated in their homelands for generations. This is how wonderful tomato varieties ended up across the ocean.
BELGIAN GIANT
The Belgian Giant tomato is so sweet that tomato wine is made from it!
Later, their new homeland became the United States of America. This is how the Belgian Giant tomato arrived in America, in the state of Ohio, in the mid-1930s, in the luggage of Belgian immigrants. It came to find a new home and begin its triumphant journey around the world from the U.S.
The Belgian Giant, also known as Belgian Pink, is famous for its enormous fruits and excellent flavor. It will surely appeal to fans of sweet, meaty tomatoes. The beautiful dark pink fruits have a delicate aroma, are packed with sugar and low in acidity — so much so that people make tomato wine from them. Imagine that!
Strong plants grow up to 2 meters tall. You can grow them in one stem, regularly feed and prune them to get giant fruits weighing more than 2 kg. If records don’t interest you, you can grow the variety in 2–3 stems and enjoy meaty, juicy tomatoes weighing 400–800 g with an exquisite old-fashioned tomato taste.
This is a mid-season variety. The fruits are beefsteak-type, beautiful, pearlescent pink, low in seeds, and do not crack even after a week of heavy rains. Of course, the superb flavor and incredible aroma are characteristic of this magnificent old variety! You too can try this heirloom that traveled far to finally arrive in your Summer Garden collection from another continent.
YUGOSLAVIAN YASHA
Today we continue our story of traveling tomatoes — tomato immigrants that journeyed halfway across the world to find a second homeland. These are usually heirloom varieties carefully cultivated and preserved by generations of one family. Such is the rare pink-fruited variety — Yugoslavian Yasha.
Yasha Yugoslavian is a variety with a story. It originated in Yugoslavia, but after long travels and adventures, it ended up in the United States, where it took root so deeply that America is still considered its second homeland.
This is a tall, mid-season indeterminate variety with strong bushes that require tying and pruning — otherwise, they won’t withstand the heavy harvest. Yasha is a cluster-type tomato that bears fruit from the base to the top. It’s best grown in 2 stems. The fruits are luxurious pink-raspberry hearts weighing 300–600 g.
The flesh is very tasty, dense, sugary on the cut, with few seeds (which makes it rare). Yasha (as tomato growers affectionately call it) has one quirk: on the same plant, fruits of different shapes may grow — round ones below, heart-shaped above. But it doesn’t affect the taste or yield.
Another outstanding quality of this rare and delicious variety: even in the worst years for late blight — cold and rainy — it stays clean. This has been noted by many experienced collectors and trial growers of new varieties! We hope that the worthy collectible variety Yasha Yugoslavian will win your heart and remain in your Summer Garden collection for a long time!
ECKERT POLISH
We continue to expand our Summer Garden seed collection with new, exciting varieties. Today, let’s return to the topic of tomato immigrants and introduce you to another traveler that came to the United States in the luggage of Polish immigrants. It took root there and began its journey around the world, honoring both its historical homeland (Poland) and its new one (USA).
This happened in the late 1990s, and now the wonderful Eckert Polish tomato variety is successfully grown not only in Europe but also in Russia. It is a tall, mid-season, high-yielding variety with pink-raspberry meaty fruits weighing 300–400 g. The taste is amazing — rich and sweet. The flesh is raspberry-colored, juicy, and buttery when cut.
And of course, the bright tomato aroma is also characteristic of this excellent variety! Eckert Polish is for true gourmets and fans of large-fruited pink tomatoes — it leaves no one indifferent! The bushes are strong and vigorous and can be grown in 2–3 stems. It produces continuous clusters with 3–4 large pink-raspberry fruits per cluster.
We recommend Eckert Polish for fresh consumption, gourmet salads, excellent sauces, and juices. In southern regions, it yields great harvests in open ground; in more temperate climates — in greenhouses. You can buy seeds of this remarkable variety and more in our online store.
