Story:
From Tatiana’s TOMATObase:
- Russian commercial variety introduced in 2006 by Russian commercial vendor 'Sibirskiy Sad'.
- Tatiana's note: Some Russian non-commercial sources say it is a pink tomato with heart-shaped fruits, but it is certainly not true, as I grew mine from the original commercial seed packet and got oblate red beefsteaks.
Russian name: Сахарный Пудовичок
Tatiana's note:
- The closest direct translation I can come up with is 'Sugar Pounder' or 'Sugar Pood'. I am not quite sure how 'Pudovichok' translates into English ('Pud', from which 'pudovichok' word was derived, is an old and now obsolete Russian measure of weight which is equal to 40 pounds). Another possible translation is 'Ton of Sugar', that assumes that 'Pud' is an equivalent of English 'ton' used in phrases like 'this box weighs a ton'.
Tania was the person to introduce this variety as she received seeds from her mother in Russia. Here is her story:
I received the seed in the original commercial packet from my Mom in South Urals Russia in 2006, and had trouble to grow it out in 2008 (which was a horrible year for tomatoes), and in 2009 I got 0% germination. So I was not hoping for much when I planted the remaining 6 seeds in 2010. Only 1 seed sprouted... and then the plant got stem rot and I had to take a cutting and root it to save the plant, which set it back quite a bit compared to other tomato seedlings I had in spring 2010. Anyway, the short story is I had real trouble getting this variety going with my seed stock! Much to my surprise, this only seedling grew very fast into a vigorous bushy plant in a 5 gal container, and was the first to set quite a few fruit in the cool and wet spring 2010. It was also the first to produce 1 lb red fruits, which were simply wonderful.Tania
