Earliest Tomato Zone 5B

[Garlic#1]

Catering to restaurant trade, "early bird gets the worm."

For my zone, starting indoors/greenhouse what are the earliest cherry and salad tomato? Looking/planning for next year.

Looking for the unusual.

Thanks

[Labradors2]

Stupice, Matina and Bloody Butcher are some of the traditional early varieties.

I like to start Maglia Rosa in mid-February and get tomatoes by mid-June. They are beautiful pearly pink bullets that are very tasty, and the plants are compact . (Seeds available from Artisan Seeds).

Linda

[Tormato]

I set my own personal record this year of 73 days from sown seed to ripened fruit.

This translates to 28 days of growing the seedling from sowing (not emerging), transplanting, and harvesting 45 days later. The variety is Cole, a small red saladette, too big to be a cherry. It's very meaty for that size of a tomato. Flavor was typical for a very early variety.

One year I transplanted Cole after only 23 days of growing. That's another record for me, that I haven't broken.

[Labradors2]

Wow Tormato! That must be some kind of record! I will have to try growing Cole.

BTW, I looked up Maglia Rosa, and it's 55 DTM, which is pretty good, but cannot rival Cole!

Linda

[zipcode]

Stupice and BB are early, but their aspect (not uniform shape, also prone to green shoulder) and varied sizes probably makes them not so suitable to sell (not sure about restaurants, but I guess also there aspect matters).
That would leave cherries and determinates. My default recommendation for something that will put a good crop very early is Golden Nugget.

[hl2601]

This year my first larger to ripen tomato was Pervaya Lyobov. It ripened before July 4 after being planted out May 18. It will be in Caroltn's tribute.

[bower]

It's hard to beat Sungold for earliness in a cherry. They are an easy sell as well, but seed expensive. Peacevine is a nice early red cherry that duked it out with Sungold for first ripe.

Purple Bumblebee is early and exotic looking. Possibly some other Bumblebees are as early.


There are so many good cherries out there but other tasty ones I can remember were not as early, so if it makes a difference to be ten days ahead, they wouldn't fit your market plan.

[NewWestGardener]

EM Champion was early, as well as Rebel Yell. Both are quite productive. Revel Yell has always been a good producer and perfect pink fruit that also taste great.

My best harvest and earliest is the one in the picture that I have no idea what it is. I think it is a crossed seed from my past planting (do you see Indian Stripe? this one is regular leaf though), it is just loaded with big clusters of fruit, more than double of any of my best producer, an oddity. Multi-floral? These are two of the clusters and there are multiples of those clusters on the same plant, every two or three leaves. Maybe it is not that usual for more experienced growers, but I have never grown any that is this productive.
Earlier fruit tasted watery, but they are wonderful now.

[nathan125]

Originally Posted by NewWestGardener

EM Champion was early, as well as Rebel Yell. Both are quite productive. Revel Yell has always been a good producer and perfect pink fruit that also taste great.

My best harvest and earliest is the one in the picture that I have no idea what it is. I think it is a crossed seed from my past planting (do you see Indian Stripe? this one is regular leaf though), it is just loaded with big clusters of fruit, more than double of any of my best producer, an oddity. Multi-floral? These are two of the clusters and there are multiples of those clusters on the same plant, every two or three leaves. Maybe it is not that usual for more experienced growers, but I have never grown any that is this productive.
Earlier fruit tasted watery, but they are wonderful now.

Looks awesome . Always weird how some tomatoes start out tasting bad and improve while some are crap from start to finish
Care to share some seed from your early mystery?

[KarenO]

Depending what you are looking for, you might want to try some of the KARMA series. For a large tomato, Zena’s gift is the earliest very large tomatoes I have personally grown
KarenO