kajakiki/Getty Images
Any way you slice or peel them, we love tomatoes. After all, who can resist a fresh-out-of-the-oven tomato pie? When tomatoes are ripe for the picking, there are endless ways to use our bounty, from tomato jam to a delicious tomato soup. If you're new to tomato gardening or looking to see yields fast, there are a few easy varieties that will grow in your home garden quickly so you can start cooking in no time.
What are these quick growing plants? We tapped gardener and plant expert Ben Gordon of Metropolitan Garden Designs to unearth the answers.
"A fast-growing tomato could bear fruit as early as 40 to 50 days from being planted in the ground," shares Gordon. To ensure a healthy crop, he recommends starting all plant seeds in a plastic tray. Transport them to the soil once they've reached 12 inches in height. "This should protect them from the early spring pests. A gardener can easily grow tomatoes from seeds in plastic trays or pick some up already started from their local nursery," he recommends.
Ready to plant? Here are some of the best fast-growing tomato varieties for home growers.
Cherry Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes not only look adorable on top of your lunch salad, but they are also easy to grow. Known for being hardy, if kept watered, you should have cherry tomatoes within 50 to 60 days of planting. Popular cherry tomatoes to plant are Sun Gold, Edox, and Sungreen.
Glacier Tomatoes
Within 56 days, give or take, gardeners should have a peck of Glacier Tomatoes. Gordon shares that this variety has excellent flavor and is often abundant in the crop it produces. "If you live in a climate with a shorter warm summer this can be a great choice." he says.
Bush Early Girl
Bush Early Girl Tomatoes may have a funny name, but they're a quick turn-around crop to plant. Gordon shares that tomatoes arrive within 59 days. "These tomatoes form dense plants which make them great for growing in smaller spaces like hoop houses," he says.
Sub Artic Party
If you're in a rush before freeze time, this plant variety is for you. Within 42 days, tomatoes can appear on this particular plant. The plant was developed in Alberta, Canada, and it is a true short-season tomato.
FAQs
Cherry Tomatoes are the easiest tomatoes for beginners to grow. They produce crop after crop and have very few problems!
Do cherry tomatoes grow faster than regular tomatoes? ›
Cherry tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) are fairly quick and easy to grow even if you are new to gardening. They need fewer days to mature than regular tomatoes.
What tomatoes produce the earliest? ›
The compact, potato-leafed plants are good in containers. Indeterminate. 'Subarctic': Dubbed "the world's earliest tomato," 'Subarctic' produces a harvest of 4-ounce red, round fruits about 42 days after planting. The tangy little tomatoes are good in salads or sliced onto sandwiches.
Are beefsteak tomatoes easy to grow? ›
These tomatoes have a delicious, dense texture, smaller seed cavities, and more juicy flesh than other types. 'Beefsteaks' are used for both slicing and canning tomatoes. They are popular on summer sandwiches, burgers, and Caprese salads. The plants are notably vigorous and very easy to grow.
What is the best producing determinate tomato? ›
What is the best producing determinate tomato? Grape and cherry determinate varieties always produce an abundance of fruit. Multi-use tomatoes for fresh eating or canning include Roma, Rutgers, Marglobe, and Oregon Spring. All are easy to grow with disease resistance and dependable yields.
What are the best sandwich tomatoes? ›
Some of the tomatoes that professional chefs and foodies prefer to use on sandwiches are:
- The Mortgage Lifter. Big sandwiches call for big tomatoes. ...
- The Brandywine Tomato. Another type of heirloom beefsteak tomato with a fantastic rich flavor is the Brandywine tomato. ...
- Big Boy Tomato. ...
- Black Krim Tomato.
High quality compost—material that is well-decomposed, dark in color, and crumbly—is the best tomato fertilizer to use regardless of the soil you're working with. Not only does an annual application of compost boost the nutrients available in the soil, but it also improves soil structure.
How do you get the highest yield on tomatoes? ›
INCREASE TOMATO PRODUCTION
- SUNLIGHT, SUNLIGHT, SUNLIGHT. Tomato plants need 10+ hours a day of direct sunlight. ...
- DON'T OVER WATER. One of the biggest issues people face when gardening is over watering. ...
- SUPPORT THE PLANT. ...
- TRIM LOWER BRANCHES. ...
- PINCH THE SUCKERS. ...
- FERTILIZE AT THE RIGHT TIME. ...
- "TICKLE" THE BLOOMS.
What is the fastest-growing tomato? That honor is a tie between Quedlinburger Frühe Liebe (an indeterminate type that matures in 40 days) and Sub-Arctic Plenty (sometimes marketed as Chilly Willie, a determinate type that matures in 42 days).
What is the most popular tomato in the US? ›
Better Boy tomato plants produce high yields of smooth-skinned, large fruit that have the perfect balance of acid and sugar for that classic tomato flavor. They are one of the most popular tomatoes grown in the U.S. and are the standard by which other home garden tomatoes are compared.
Globe: Big, round and oh, so red. These are the all-purpose tomatoes that most people think of for slicing. Tasty varieties like Beefsteak, Rutgers and Brandywine range from typical palm-size up to two pounds.
Do determinate tomatoes grow faster than indeterminate tomatoes? ›
The terms indeterminate and determinate relate to a tomato plant's growth habit. Indeterminate tomatoes continue growing until they die, producing new flowers and fruits along the way. Determinate tomatoes grow until they reach their maximum height and typically produce all their fruit within a few weeks.
What is the highest yield per plant of tomatoes? ›
Can you guess how much a single tomato plant will yield? Well, the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research's (IIHR) Arka Rakshak variety of tomato has yielded 19 kg per plant. This is the yield level recorded by IIHR scientists at a farmer's field under precision farming.
What tomatoes have short days to maturity? ›
'Sweet Olive' Tomato
'Sweet Olive' is a cordon, easy-to-grow variety that can mature in just under 60 days. It will produce a heavy crop in a pot or growing bag, even if you don't remove all the sideshoots.
What are the best tomatoes that produce all season? ›
Indeterminate tomatoes continue to grow for what seems like indefinitely. Depending on the variety, they can grow from 6′-20′ tall. This type continues to produce tomatoes all growing season until a hard frost hits and stops them in their tracks.
