I selected this variety due to Amy Goldman’s glowing recommendation in her book. Of the few oxheart types she covers, she declares this variety to be the earliest, most productive and tastiest of all the oxhearts. That made it a winner in my eyes and I had high expectations.
These tomatoes had cracking on the shoulders. Size/weight were decent--this one is 12 oz.
The Description from where I got my seed:
This is an outstanding pink oxheart variety that distinguishes itself with extra high yields and richer flavor than most other pink oxhearts. Fruit weighs at least 10 ounces and may grow up to 1 lb. or more. Shaped like a heart, these tomatoes are very juicy and flavorful while being meaty with few seeds. Expect fern-like foliage that is typical of oxheart varieties. Indeterminate. 85-90 days
I apologize for this crappy photo--my camera is on the fritz, but you can at least see the heart shape of the tomato.
First Impressions:
This might be the only pink variety I’m growing this year, huh! No, wait I’m doing Giant Belgium too. But this is the first ripe pink of the year. I forgot what tomato pink looked like: it’s really pretty 😉
I’m not sure why my first tomato has so many cracks! It could have been due to the heavy rains and irregular watering schedule, but my other tomatoes haven’t done this so I’m not sure if it’s a variety thing. The oxheart shape is certainly unique and fun looking, but limits the sandwich-sized slices you can get from one.
Japanese oxheart makes a meaty tomato slice.
Sliced, the true meatiness is revealed. There’s so much meat there’s hardly any room at all for seeds or gel. Saving seeds from this type would be a real challenge as it’s practically seedless! The slices are very juicy too, even with the low amount of gel.
My taste review:
Don’t hate me when I say this tastes kinda watered down. Sure it’s a balanced taste with real tomato goodness (the gel isn’t even necessary to get a deliciously sweet tomato flavor) there just isn’t enough of it! The skin is thick.
On a sandwich: Darn. Even with two slices on my turkey-BLT this tomato doesn’t add anything to the sandwich. It just tastes too watered down to contribute much flavor. It was also very juicy, leaking water all over my bib-napkin and plate (yes I wear a bib: I’m 9 months pregnant at the moment).
Other uses: We diced the leftover slices as a topping for our spicy tacos. They were very good in this application, providing a great cold, mild counterpoint to the hot spicy meat. So these might have redeeming value as fresh salsa tomatoes.
Plant Growth & Health:
I grew just one of these due to losing two of them soon after transplanting. I was really looking forward to seeing the ferny foliage but was disappointed. It honestly looks just like any other regular leafed plant but with smaller leaves.
Health was just average, and this plant didn’t get very tall. Fruit set was lower than expected, but the size of the fruits is decent.
Will I grow again?
I don’t know yet. This might make a good sauce tomato if production was better, cause the skin can come off almost without blanching first. And few seeds mean you could skip straining sauce if you don’t like seeds (I personally don’t mind seeds, but leaving the skin on is a mistake I won’t be repeating in the future).
The tomato pictured is the ONLY tomato of this type to escape getting eaten by critters. For some reason the Japanese oxheart was my only variety to get eaten and they ate large bites out of all of the other tomatoes: some were reduced to mere skins and calyxes. I don’t know what ate them, but I guess they were tasty!
Earth Outlet by Petalfuzz 