Early Girl tomatoes

Early Girl tomatoes, August 2015

Early Girls are the best performing, most reliable, and best tasting tomatoes I have grown in my current garden. This is a red saladette tomato with smallish fruit that is sweet and tangy. It always bears well for me, which is no small feat in my region.

Pam Peirce (Golden Gate Gardening) recommends ‘Oregon Spring’ and ‘Stupice’ for our area, with its cool (though irregularly so) dry summers. I haven’t tried ‘Oregon Spring,’ but for me ‘Early Girl’ has consistently outperformed ‘Stupice.’

I give mine a little crab meal and worm castings.

Last year we didn’t get any tomatoes at all, because the deer ate the plants down to the ground. This year I put wire fencing around the plants, to the deer’s frustration and my delight. I have learned that physical barriers are the only thing that stop deer — don’t waste your time and money on any other efforts.

tomatoes in deer fence

Early Girl tomatoes inside a deer fence