Mushroom Basket

This heirloom tomato traces back to Russia and produces bright pink, tangy fruit that immediately stands out from ordinary slicers. Plants set enormous 8- to 16-ounce fruits with a heavily ribbed, deeply lobed shape that gives each tomato a fluted, stacked appearance likened to a basket of mushrooms. Skin colour is a vivid watermelon-pink flecked with cream speckles that catch the light, while the fruit itself stays remarkably uniform despite its pronounced pleating. Some specimens reach a full pound, with firm, meaty flesh, very few seeds, and a flavour reported as both sweet and mild by some growers and tangy by others.

Its beefsteak size, running up to a pound per fruit, makes Mushroom Basket well suited to thick slicing for salads and sandwiches. The same dense, low-seed flesh cooks down easily into sauce and holds up well as a stuffing tomato, with enough bulk in a single fruit to serve as a stuffed meal for two. Smaller specimens are also used simply as a garnish tomato.

Mushroom Basket grows on vigorous, indeterminate vines that carry a heavy fruit load through the season. Because individual fruits can weigh up to a pound, the plants need sturdy staking or caging to keep vines and branches from breaking under the weight. Growers consistently note that trellising is not optional here but necessary to bring in a full harvest intact.