About Opalka
Family heirloom from Poland, brought to Amsterdam, NY in the 1900s by the Opalka family. Carolyn Male got the seeds from her co-worker, Carl Swidorski, whose wife was from the Opalka family and introduced the seeds through the SSE Yearbook in the 1990s. Indeterminate, regular leaf plant with wispy foliage produce some of the best tasting, red, paste tomatoes with 5-inch long fruit shaped like a banana pepper with a pronounced tip on the bottom. Fruit has very few seeds, is extremely meaty and loaded with rich sweet flavors lending to its sauce appeal. The taste is so profound that this is also a good tomato for eating fresh.
- Culinary Use
- Paste / Sauce / Canner / Salad
- Flavor Profile
- Sweet
- Flesh Color
- Red
- Fruit Color
- Red
- Fruit Shape
- Elongated / Plum/Pear/Piriform
- Fruit Size
- Medium
- Leaf Type
- Regular / Wispy
- Maturity
- Mid-season
- Plant Type
- Indeterminate
- Variety
- Heirloom / Open Pollinated
Reader Comments
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I grew these last year for the first time. Got them at Chili Plants. We fertilized heavily with horse manure. My plants did very well—would not call them wispy—and the harvest was abundant. Many 14 – 16 oz. I dehydrated them for pasta dishes. This will be the first year I’ll have enough to carry me through the winter.