The Early Girl is an early fruiting, warm-season, high yielding and popular tomato variety. It is a hybrid indeterminate tomato which matures within 50 to 60 days after transplanting.
This bright red tomato variety has a well rounded shape. It grows to the size of a tennis ball and weighs up to 230g. It is one of the most commonly available tomato varieties in grocery stores.
Get Early Girl seeds to grow here
Furthermore, Early Girl is used in many kitchens today due to its wide availability and nice looks. It is known as the slicing tomato – the tomato that produces beautiful slices that look good on burgers, in salads and other culinary recipes. The thicker skin that Early Girl has, compared to other varieties, helps the tomato produce the nice slices.
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Early Girl – What’s in a name?
The scientific name of Early Girl is Lycopersicon lycopersicum. It became Early Girl tomato as christened by Joe Howland, a horticulturist, who later became Chairman at Pan American Seeds in the United States. Early Girl is originally from France. The indeterminate variety had its debut in the United States in 1975 targeting the home gardening market.
Howland intentionally chose to name the tomato Early Girl. This was to complement another variety called Better Boy that was already being distributed by W. Atlee Burpee, another American seed company. Better Boy is still grown in the United States to this day and is also popular with home growers.
Early Girl Tomato Characteristics
The Early Girl is a hybrid tomato variety designed to ripen within a short time. This short-season characteristic addressed the green tomato problem that Howland faced in Reno, Navada.
Growers in Reno struggled to harvest ripened tomatoes. The fluctuating temperatures prevented tomato fruit from ripening in time. They resigned to their fate and focused on developing green tomato recipes before the discovery of the Early Girl.
The Early Girl short-season variety takes as little as 50 days to produce ripened fruit. Furthermore, the bush can produce as many as 300 good quality rounded tomatoes. It is thus a renowned high yield tomato variety.
This tomato belongs to the indeterminate variety. It is also referred to as the vining kind. The plant requires a trellis for support as it grows. The Early Girl can grow as high as 2m (6.5 feet). This is because indeterminate tomato plants continue to grow all season until cold weather arrives. However, they can stop producing mid-season due to disease.
The Early Girl variety has resistance to diseases such as Verticillium Wilt and Fusarium Wilt. These fungal diseases also commonly affect potatoes. The short time the variety needs to ripen minimizes its exposure to diseases and pests before the first fruiting.
Table summarizing Early Girl characteristics
The table below summarizes some of the main characteristics of Early Girl tomato.
| Item | Characteristic |
|---|---|
| Color when ripe | Bight red |
| Shape | Attractive, well rounded |
| Weight | Up to 230g per tomato |
| Taste | Rich tomatoey flavour, packed with flavor |
| Selling Points | Quick ripening, slicing tomato, colorful |
| Type | Indeterminate, hybrid |
| Origin | France, introduced to US in early 70s |
| Grow Area | Small gardens, containers |
| Mature Height | 2 meters |
| Mature Width | 1.2 meters |
| Home Growing Difficulty | Easy |
| Season | Short-season (50-60 days) |
| Yield | High yield |
| Disease Resistance | Verticillium Wilt, Fusarium Wilt |
How to grow Early Girl Tomato
Growing through propagation
The Early Girl variety can be grown from seed or through propagation. Growing through propagation involves cutting off a sucker. The sucker is trimmed off of any lower leaves and placed in a glass jar with water.
The jar is set aside in a bright spot without direct sunlight. Once roots emerge, the sucker is transplanted into some soil. It then grows to maturity just as tomatoes grow from seed.
Growing from seed
When grown from seed, the seeds are started in soil up to 8 weeks before the end of winter. The seeds germinate within 5 to 10 days of being planted in warm soil. The seeds should be planted at a depth of 6mm (0.25 inch) and well centered in the tray.
After germination, the weak seedlings are thinned out leaving only the strong ones. The seedlings are watered and kept indoors until the end of winter.
At the end of winter as it gets warm, the seedlings are placed outdoors in direct sunlight for hardening. They remain outdoors in this state for about a week. After a week they are transplanted into the garden soil or pots.
Watering, soil and other conditions
The Early Girl tomato is not highly demanding of watering. Medium to low watering will suffice. Some growers opt for dryland farming as a way of inducing the plant to produce highly flavourful fruit. Dryland farming makes this variety suitable for production in arid and semiarid regions.
Favorable soil type for Early Girl growing is loamy, moist but well-drained soil. Furthermore, soil pH should be acidic or neutral. In any case the plant will do well at a pH of between 5.5 and 7.0. Rich, nutrient-dense soils are ideal as growing medium to support high yields and a healthy plant.
Just as all tomatoes do, the Early Girl tomato thrives in full sun. Six to eight hours of sun will be adequate for this variety.
It is common to grow the Early Girl in pots and containers. However, as mentioned, the variety is a vining variety that will require a trellis for support.
Pruning Early Girl Tomato
The tomato plant should be pruned up to 20 cm up the plant from the ground. All branches and offshots are removed. This is done to concentrate energy and food in fruit production. Suckers which grow in between the upper branches must also be removed.
This is ongoing plant care as suckers naturally continue coming out from branches. The plant must be guided on how it spends its energy to do so efficiently for maximum yield. Left unpruned, the Early Girl tomato will explode into an unrecognizable and space demanding bush.
What to do with Early Girl tomatoes
As slicing tomatoes, Early Girl tomatoes have a variety of culinary applications. The tomato slices are used in burgers, sandwiches and bagels. When cut in quarters they can also be added to a variety of salads. The bright red color brings appetizing color to salads over and above the great flavour.
Early Girl tomatoes can also be used in soups and sauces. There are a variety of recipes for making Early Girl Tomato Sauce, some of which involve minced garlic, sugar and balsamic vinegar.
This tomato variety can also be canned using simple steps that can be followed at home. This is a great way of preparing for the winter season when the tomatoes can’t be successfully grown.
How to prune Early Girl tomatoes (Video)
This video demonstrates when and how to prune tomatoes for maximum yield and plant health. Although presented in general terms, it applies to pruning the Early Girl tomato.
Go to our in-depth feature on Indeterminate Tomatoes
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