By Nik Crawley, founder of GardenTrack · Updated July 22, 2026
✓ In your garden
Early Girl is the reliable hybrid that gets you a full-size tomato weeks ahead of everything else — roughly 50–60 days to the first ripe fruit. It's a medium red slicer on a productive indeterminate vine, with built-in wilt resistance and dependable crops all season. The honest trade: it's grown for earliness and reliability, not gourmet flavor — so grow one to beat the season, and let the heirlooms take over later.
it's yours — saved right here, no account
ripe home-grown Early Girl tomatoes — medium, round, classic-red slicers · Photo: Mika Matsuzaki
(CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
· source
IndeterminateHybrid (F1)Early slicer
“The reliable head start — a full-size red slicer weeks before the heirlooms wake up.”
Days to first ripe50–60 daysone of the earliest full-size tomatoes
Plant5–7 ft vineindeterminate — stake it
Fruit~4–6 oz red globemedium all-purpose slicer
EarlinessFirst in 5/5
One of the quickest full-size tomatoes there is — ripe fruit in roughly 50–60 days, weeks ahead of the heirlooms.
FlavorGood, not gourmet 3/5
A solid, balanced red — pleasant and reliable, but grown for speed and dependability more than peak flavor.
Flavor vs heirloomsFine, not a knockout 3/5
It won't out-taste a Cherokee Purple or Brandywine — it beats them to the table instead.
It's a hybridDon't save seed 3/5
An F1 hybrid, so saved seed won't come true. The upside is built-in vigor and Verticillium/Fusarium wilt resistance.
How well it storesEat it soon 2/5
A fresh slicer — best within a few days, like any garden tomato.
You trade a little flavor for weeks of head start and dependable, disease-resistant crops.
BalancedClassic redReliableMild-tart
✓ Beats the season — first ripe tomato~ Grown for speed, not gourmet flavor✗ Not for seed-saving or sauce
Numbers from university growing guides. Ratings are our take, judged against all tomatoes. Tap a meter to see why.
Growing basics — shared by every tomato
Early Girl grows like any other tomato. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Tomato page so it's maintained in one place.
Greenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around mid Jun, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
Start seeds indoors
mid Feb – early Mar
Toughen up outside
mid Apr – late Apr
Move plants outside
late Apr – early May
Growing
early May – mid Jun
Picking
mid Jun until frost (~late Oct)
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
What to plant near Early Girl — and what to keep away
✓ Good neighbors
BasilTrialed
Basil can cut thrips numbers on tomatoes, and a modest yield gain shows up when it is planted at good density. They also want the same heat and water, so the bed suits both.
French marigoldTrialed
Grown thick and turned into the soil, they suppress root-knot nematodes. A couple between plants mostly just look nice.
Sweet alyssumTrialed
Its flowers feed hoverflies, and hoverfly larvae eat aphids. Commercial lettuce growers interplant it for that exact job.
LettucePractical
A tall tomato throws exactly the shade lettuce wants once summer heat makes it flower and turn bitter (bolt).
CarrotsTraditional
'Carrots Love Tomatoes' is a book title, not a trial. They coexist fine — just expect the tomato to shade them by August.
Onions & garlicTraditional
Chart canon says onions and garlic make good tomato neighbors. No trials to point at, no conflict either.
✗ Keep apart
Black walnutPractical
Walnut roots release juglone, and tomatoes are on every sensitivity list. Keep beds well clear of the canopy.
FennelPractical
Fennel foliage and seed are rich in trans-anethole, and extracts of them held back germination and seedling growth across a range of species in testing. Whole-plant effects at garden spacing are milder than the "fennel kills everything" reputation, but the chemistry is real — give it its own pot.
PotatoesPractical
Same family, same late blight. One sick bed infects the other.
Sweet cornPractical
Corn earworm and tomato fruitworm are the same moth. Side by side, you're setting its table twice.
Cabbage familyTraditional
Flagged on the classic charts, mechanism murky. Skip the pairing if you've got the space.
The badge is the honesty.Trialed = a published field trial · Practical = a real mechanism · Traditional = companion-chart lore. These pairings hold for every tomato.
Pairings compiled from University of Minnesota Extension, USDA Agricultural Research Service (Salinas, CA), West Virginia University Extension, Penn State Extension, El-Kenany & El-Darier.
Growing Early Girl — the things that trip people up
Its whole point is speed — ripe fruit in roughly 50–60 days, weeks ahead of most tomatoes. Plant one to be eating homegrown while your heirlooms are still green.
It's an F1 hybrid, so saved seed won't come true — but that hybrid breeding gives it real vigor and built-in resistance to Verticillium and Fusarium wilt.
Being indeterminate, it keeps producing all season after that early start. Stake or cage it tall at planting and keep the water even.
From university growing guides (see Sources).
What Early Girl is for
Early Girl earns its spot on one promise: it's fast. It's a hybrid bred for earliness, giving you a full-size red tomato in roughly 50–60 days — weeks before the heirlooms and beefsteaks come in. For anyone impatient in June, or gardening in a short season, that head start is the whole appeal.
It's not a flavor legend and doesn't pretend to be. Think of it as the opening act: the tomato you're eating in early summer while the Cherokee Purple and Brandywine are still ripening.
What it tastes like — and what it's for
The flavor is good, honest, classic tomato — balanced, mildly tart, dependable. It won't out-taste a great heirloom, but it's a real garden tomato and miles beyond anything from a store, especially that early in the year.
It's an all-purpose medium slicer: sandwiches, salads, salsa, everyday cooking. A nice bit of trivia — dry-farmed Early Girl (grown with little irrigation, common in California) concentrates the flavor and has a cult following, proof the variety has more in it than its reputation suggests.
When and how to harvest tomatoes · Kellogg Garden
Growing Early Girl
Grow it like any tomato — full sun, steady water, regular feeding. It's an indeterminate, so despite the 'early' name it keeps producing all season, not just once; give it a tall cage or stake at planting.
The hybrid breeding is a real advantage: Early Girl carries resistance to Verticillium and Fusarium wilt, two soil diseases that flatten a lot of heirlooms, so it's a forgiving, productive plant. The one catch is that it's an F1 hybrid — saved seed won't come back true, so buy fresh seed or plants each year. Set your zone on the tomato page and the calendar pins your start-and-plant-out dates.
Early Girl vs the heirlooms
This isn't really a competition — it's a relay. Early Girl gets you eating homegrown tomatoes in early summer; the flavor heirlooms take the baton later. Plant one Early Girl for the head start and a Cherokee Purple or Brandywine for the peak-summer flavor, and you're covered from first ripe to frost.
If you only have room for one plant and flavor matters most, grow a heirloom and be patient. If you want to be eating tomatoes as soon as possible — or your season is short — Early Girl is the pick.
When is it ripe?
This is the easy part. Unlike the green-shouldered heirlooms, Early Girl ripens to a full, even red with no guesswork — what you see is what you get.
Pick when the fruit is uniformly red and gives slightly to a gentle squeeze. It's a fresh slicer, so eat it within a few days; there's no need to let it sit.
Getting the earliest possible start
Early Girl's whole value is speed, so a few habits squeeze the season even further. Start seeds indoors about 6 weeks before your last frost, and don't rush transplants into cold ground — tomatoes sulk below about 50°F and lose the head start you paid for.
Warm the soil first with black plastic or a cloche, and protect the first transplants with a wall-of-water or row cover if a late chill threatens. Plant deep, burying two-thirds of the stem so it roots along the buried section, and you'll have a strong, fast plant. Set your zone on the tomato page and the calendar pins your dates.
Early Girl tomato at a glance
Early Girl Tomato — at a glance
Type
Slicer (all-purpose)
Days to ripe
60 days after you plant it outside
Color
Red
Best for
All-purpose slicing
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
Watch: growing Early Girl
The complete guide to growing tomatoes · MIgardenerTransplanting tomatoes 101 · Epic Gardening
Embedded from their creators on YouTube — full credit and views go to the channel.
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Common questions about Early Girl
How early is Early Girl?
One of the earliest full-size tomatoes — roughly 50–60 days from transplant to the first ripe fruit, weeks ahead of most heirlooms and beefsteaks. It's grown specifically for that head start.
Is Early Girl determinate or indeterminate?
Indeterminate — despite the 'early' name, it keeps growing and producing all season, not just in one early flush. It needs a tall cage or stake set at planting.
Does Early Girl taste good?
It's a good, balanced, classic red tomato — pleasant and reliable, and far better than a store tomato. It won't out-taste a great heirloom, though; it's grown for earliness and dependability rather than gourmet flavor.
Can I save seed from Early Girl?
No — it's an F1 hybrid, so saved seed won't come true to type. Buy fresh seed or plants each year. The upside of the hybrid breeding is strong vigor and built-in resistance to Verticillium and Fusarium wilt.
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