How to have the first ripe red tomatoes on the block

Choosing the Right Tomato Variety

The first ripe tomatoes of summer are a joy to eat--and some gardeners, even in the North, are able to grow and harvest sun-ripened tomatoes by the Fourth of July, and sometimes earlier. How do they do it? They start by choosing the right tomato variety for their geographic location, garden size and desired harvest time.

Northern gardeners have a shorter growing season, or days between the last spring frost and the first fall frost. If you want to pick tomatoes early in the season, look for early varieties or those that average about 60 days to maturity. For tomato plants, the days to maturity is the time it takes from planting six-week old tomato plants into warm garden soil until the first tomatoes ripen. For smaller, cold-hardy varieties, this can be in as little as 60 days. For larger, beefsteak varieties, this can be 90 or even 100 days. Gardeners in the hot, humid climates of zones 9-11, should look for tomatoes, like Heatmaster Hybrid Tomatoes, that thrive in really hot weather.

When selecting what tomatoes to grow, also consider your available space. Indeterminate tomatoes can grow quite large, sometimes reaching heights of 8 ft. or taller. Determinate tomatoe plants, or bush types, can grow 3-4 ft. tall and are often the best choice for gardeners with limited space or those growing tomato plants in containers.

Finally, consider your desired harvest time. Some gardeners want to have the first ripe tomatoes on the block. Others are content harvesting the best-tasting beefsteak tomatoes in late August or September. Many gardeners what to pick tomatoes for several months in the summer and fall and plant both early and late ripening varieties.

When to Plant Tomatoes?

Tomato plants should be planted when the soil temperatures are 65-70 degrees F. and all danger of spring frost has passed. In the more northern grow zones, this may not be until June 1.

If you want to harvest tomatoes earlier in the season, you can do things to warm the soil and to protect the plants from late season frosts. For example, you can place clear plastic over the soil in a raised garden bed about one week before you plan to plant tomatoes. Row covers and tunnels can provide a little protection from late season frosts. Individual plant protectors are also available.

Another way to get a jump-start when you harvest tomatoes is to transplant larger plants in the garden. To do this, you may have to start your own seeds and transplant the seedlings to larger pots.

When to Pick Tomatoes?

Pick tomatoes when they are ripe or almost ripe. For early tomato varieties, you can harvest tomatoes as soon as 60 days after planting. Indeterminate tomato plants will keep producing fruits until the first frost, allowing you to harvest tomatoes for months. If a fall frost is approaching, many gardeners will pick ripe and green tomatoes and allow the green or unripe tomatoes to ripen indoors.

When do Tomatoes Ripen?

Tomatoes ripen at various times throughout the summer. Some early tomatoes ripen by the Fourth of July. Others, like beefsteak tomatoes, ripen in mid August or later.

Here are some ways to tell if your tomatoes are ripe. With red tomato varieties, color is the best indicator. The ripe fruits will have a nice uniform red color. You can also tell if tomatoes are ripe by the feel of the fruits. Unripe tomatoes feel firm while overly ripe tomatoes are soft. For the best-flavored tomatoes, pick the tomatoes when they are almost or completely ripe. Overripe fruit is not as flavorful.

How to Harvest Tomatoes?

Harvesting tomatoes can be done by hand or with a set of pruners. Some tomatoes will come loose from the vine easily when ripe. Those are the best for hand picking. Others may cling to the plant and should be cut off with pruners. Often cherry or grape tomatoes are cut from the vine in clusters.

Getting the First Ripe Tomatoes - Expert Advice

Last week, Jim "near Chicago" asked about the earliest fruits he could grow. We named strawberries, honeyberries and Serviceberries as the earliest maturing true (as in sweet) fruits, but then thought, 'what if he means fruiting plants, like tomatoes?' So we promised a follow up this week—although I teased the answer by saying "Start the plants indoors under bright lights two months before you're going to plant them out, use season extending devices to put them out early in the season, choose varieties labeled 'early' or 'cold hardy' and you can pick tasty little tomatoes by the fourth of July."

Really. Even near Chicago. And this topic also touches on the reason a huge number of people contact us every year freaking out because "all their tomatoes are still green" in August.

Without even asking, I always know that it's because they're growing the 'wrong' varieties. Now, that's not 'wrong' in the 'great tomato' category—in fact they're often growing the absolute hands-down best-tasting varieties. The issue is that those varieties are generally big heirlooms with the longest possible 'days to maturity'.

Let's use brandywine as an example. It's considered by many to be the best-tasting heirloom, but it's a big tomato that is famously slow to ripen, with an average 'days to maturity' rating of about 85 days. (I got that number by averaging the dates from four or five different catalogs; nobody had the same number, and many used a ten day range.) And that's not 85 days from seed; with tomatoes, peppers and other pre-started crops, 'days to maturity' are from when healthy six week old plants are tucked into warm soil after nighttime temps are reliably above 50 degrees F.

So let's put our Chicago Brandywines out on May 15th—when we still might need a season-extending device as insurance. (I am an avowed planting coward and would wait until June 1st to put out unprotected plants in that area. I often wait until then to plant in MY area, which is not quite as chill.) Anyway, the earliest we could reasonably expect the first ripe tomato would be around August 15th, and September 1st would not be unusual.

And Brandywine is not the latest-maturing variety. Not by a long shot; some equally-treasured heirlooms are rated at 100 days! Ah, but grow Brandywine and other big tasty heirlooms you should, weedhopper; their size and complex flavors are legendary. But for ripeness by (or yes, before) the 4th of July you need to look to smaller, hardier tomatoes, whose DNA often hails from places like Eastern Europe, where the complete growing season may only be 60 days.

Siberian tomatoes? Absolutely. And tomatoes in the 'sub-Arctic' series, which was developed in chilly Alberta. And other legendary cold-hardy varieties like 'Oregon Spring' from OSU. But don't get hung up on finding these or other specific varieties. Essentially you want tomatoes whose descriptions include words like "early" and "cold hardy" with days to maturity around or under the number 60. And you want to grow several of these varieties, as they're all going to act a little different in the specific Spring weather you'll get.

Now, the big question: Do you HAVE to start your own plants from seed?

The answer: If you want to try for tomatoes in June, yes. You'd start them ten weeks early instead of six; pot them up into progressively bigger containers at least twice during that time so they can develop deep roots; feed them several times while they're still indoors; and keep them under lights. No half-measures here; only strong, sturdy, stocky plants will survive a really early planting. (Read a few of our seed starting articles for the deep details.)

And if you can't do all that, find a source that can supply you with good-sized starts of a few different early varieties as early as possible in the season.

Then follow the same basic plan whether you personally started or bought the plants: Warm the soil in a raised bed by covering it with clear plastic for a week in advance. Harden the plants off by leaving them outside for progressively longer periods of time each day for that week. Then leave the plastic on the bed, cut holes in it, and plant the tomatoes deeply, just as we always instruct. (See this previous Question of the Week for details.)

Then provide some sort of season extension protection. Row covers on hoops or other types of insulated tunnels will gain you an extra week or two--especially if you're not really pushing it and/or the weather leans your way. But most of the people who win 'first tomato' contests in the North protect their plants with individual devices that look like upside-down plastic teepees composed of a series of hollow tubes arranged in a circle. You fill the tubes with water; the water heats up during the day and radiates heat back to the plants at night. The originals were called "Walls o' Water", and many variations are now available.

The tops of these devices are always open so the plants can't overheat on a sunny day. And yes, that means that the tops of the plants might get a little chill at night, but studies show that plants react more to cold in the soil than the air. Keeping your soil-warming plastic on the soil keeps the roots warm, and any season extending device will reinforce that bottom heat.

So: How early can people who do all this realistically expect to eat their first ripe tomato?

Master Gardener Andrea Ray Chandler wrote about early tomatoes in the very first issue of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine that I edited—back in 1991; some of our advice comes from that very story. Growing in chilly USDA Zone 5—just like Chicago Jim, who got us started on this topic—Andrea reported that she had picked her first ripe tomato on May 30th of the previous year.

Now, she's a Master Gardener with many years of experience who devotes a lot of time and energy to this and you're not going to match her achievement without at least several years of experimentation and experience, which is why we're talking the 4th of July as a reasonable goal. (And yes, earlier if you are experienced and/or live in a more forgiving clime.)

Promised timing bonus! We didn't have time for this on the show, but I promised I would provide it as an exclusive extra here at Gardens Alive; my 'back of the envelope' calculator for starting your own plants from seed!:

Let's be aggressive and call June 1st Tomato Day One, and say you're in USDA Zone 5 or 6. April + May = the 60 growing days the earliest tomatoes require. Let's say you're putting out six-week old starts. I like to allow two weeks for germination (because it makes the math easy)—that's another 60 days, or all of February (a short month anyway) and March.

So if you start seeds of the right variety on the 1st of February (which is soon; get those seeds in hand!), and do it right you should have nice big plants to put out at the beginning of April, when the odds are mostly good that season extending devices and some common sense will carry you through chilly nights. (But there's a reason April has been called 'the cruelest month'—so don't put them out in a snowstorm; another week or two indoors is much better than planting during a polar vortex!)

If you're content with shooting for the 4th of July (and I'm with you, not the June Swooners), start on the 1st of March. That's March and April to grow inside, a May 1st planting goal (maybe it won't snow!) and May and June for growing.