PlantFiles: Tomato
Lycopersicon lycopersicum 'Caspian Pink'

Caspian Pink does really well for me down here, no disease problems and pretty low acid too (which I like). I always grow one plant every spring, and its productive too.

Caspian Pinks range from large to huge, and have a nice, sweet tomatoey flavor. They are late season but prolific. One of my favorites.

I have grown Caspian Pink for years. If I get them in early enough, I get a few by the end of the season. Our growing season here is very short but these tomatoes sometimes make it. I have not have any disease problems with them but sometimes have to console myself with large green ones. They are huge tomatoes, sometimes not perfect in appearance, but always fabulous in taste. I never get Brandywines, but I usually get Caspian Pinks. Perhaps someday I will get Brandywines and learn how they compare.
Great for high desert, short growing seasons if you get them in the ground early enough.

This is a fantastic tomato! It got started late for us, and really didn't begin to produce ripened fruit until mid to late July. Now it's producing armloads of what my wife and I like to call "Caspian Footballs."

It's not necessarily shaped like a football. But they are huge tomatoes and are excellent in salads, sliced for turkey burgers, ground and chopped for salsa (they roast extremely well), or blended and boiled into an excellent tomato sauce.

This was our first year for growing heirloom tomatoes. I am sold on this one and will grow it for years to come. While there is some cracking due to the intense size of this tomato, it's very easy to overlook. Most are pure beauties!

'Caspian Pink' is one of the many varieties that I have tried on the basis of an appealing description. In three successive years of planting, I have yet to get a plant to the stage of even setting tomatoes. It is very disease susceptible, especially to nematodes.

I have found that 'Caspian Pink' is prone to cracking and incomplete ripening but this is by far the BEST tasting tomato I've ever grown. The seed is from McKenzie (Select Series)

I've grown 'Caspian Pink' for many years. In Russia, the variety is called 'Caspinski Rosovije' and the variety is from the general vicinity of Taganrog city on the coast of the Caspian Sea.

I've grown Caspians of many different strains and presently keep only a Russian strain a friend sent us. This variety will rival Brandywine.

On the other hand, there are many seed sellers who sell so-called 'Caspian Pink' that comes out with potato leaves. These are NOT 'Caspian Pink', but obviously some sort of cross to Brandywine.

REAL 'Caspian Pink' is always indeterminate and regular leafed.

I've grown 'Caspian Pink' for the last couple years, here in central Ohio (U.S.) They turn out about as big around as a piece of bread, just right for one slice on a sandwich. One slice way overlaps on a hamburger bun! The flavor is delicious, the fruit nice and juicy - my family and I had our own blind taste contest, including 'Caspian Pink', 'Goliath', 'Better Boy', 'Early Girl', 'Maya Plum', and 'Yellow Pear' tomatoes. (Ok, so not the who's who of the tomato world, but that's what was in the garden that year!) At any rate, 'Caspian' was the winner, hands down. ('Yellow Pear' was a close second.)

I haven't had problems with the fruits cracking, or blossom end rot, but I also mulch my tomatoes with straw, to keep their water supply a bit more even. It seems to work great, and keeps the weeds down, too.

Biggest tomatoes I have ever grown, some more than 3 lbs. Concave shaped-fruit ripens very unevenly making it necessary to pick before ripe to allow to finish ripening off vine.

Some people prefer the taste of this tomato to 'Brandywine'.

Plants are not disease-resistant; fruit cracks very badly.

Plant stems lack strength and sturdiness to support fruit even when tiny; they must be allowed to sprawl on the ground. Sprawling on bare earth allows stems to form extra roots, enabling the plant to grow even bigger fruit, against customary practice of the biggest fruit being the first to develop.