Step aside, Early Girl, there’s a New Girl in town! One of the favorite tomatoes for a home gardener is the Early Girl because of, as the name implies, its early production. But, if you’re interested in a tomato that not only produces early but has better disease resistance, and lasts longer after harvesting, read on to learn more about the New Girl tomato.
Characteristics
Like its predecessor, Early Girl, the New Girl tomato is an early variety, and will be ready to pick about 62 days after planting.
A medium-sized tomato weighing in at 4-6oz, with bright red smooth skin, it is more disease-resistant than the Early Girl and resists over-ripening. This means it will last longer on your counter after picking.
New Girl tomatoes might be a little harder to find at your local farmer’s market or produce stand. So, the best way to enjoy them is to join the 86% of gardeners in the US who grow tomatoes, and grow your own.
Growing Your Own
Tomatoes do better when they’re started indoors, or purchased as a plant from a garden center, rather than direct-seeded. To start your own seeds, use a Deluxe Seed Starting Kit from Hoss that contains everything you need to give your New Girl tomatoes a great start.
Get your planting area set up and fill each cell of the tray with the included seed starting mix. Make an indentation with you finger in the top of the soil and plant two New Girl seeds. Cover over loosely with soil and water.
Place the included dome over your seeds until they start to germinate. The dome helps provide plenty of humidity. Just be sure to remove it, and thin your seeds to one per cell, after you see growth.
One of the advantages to this seed starting kit is that it includes a bottom watering tray that allows the water to be wicked up through the soil. This means less watering for you, and it helps prevent the soil from drying out.
Transplant
When it’s time to transplant your New Girl plants outside, if the weather isn’t exactly cooperating, don’t worry. You can easily move your plants into larger pots, or even Styrofoam cups, until the conditions outside improve.
Keep in mind that these tomatoes are a climbing variety, so will need plenty of room to stretch, as well as staking to grow tall. Be sure to leave 2′-3′ between your plants for better air circulation.
Using a horizontal trellis netting is a great way to support your plants. This will keep them off the ground and help prevent diseases and pests from ruining your crop.
Tomato plants need lots of sun and one to two inches of water per week. Placing mulch around your plants will also help keep the soil moist and weeds at bay.
Container Planting
If you don’t have the room, or simply don’t want to plant an entire garden, you can transplant your New Girl tomatoes to a container.
Be sure to use a pot that has a diameter of 18″ or more so your plants have plenty of room to grow, and provide stakes for support.
Companion Planting
When planning out your garden, try companion planting. This method is simply planting two plants close together for the benefit of one, or both, plants.
For instance, plant basil and parsley near your New Girl plants to help repel the dreaded hornworm and flies. Garlic will repel spider mites.
Planting borage near your plants will not only add color with their pretty blue, star-shaped flowers, but they’ll also repel hornworms. As a bonus, borage is an herb that can be dried and made into a tea.
You’ll want to avoid vegetables like cabbage, fennel, kale, kohlrabi, and brussels sprouts near your New Girl tomatoes. These vegetables simply don’t play well with tomatoes.
Diseases
The New Girl tomato is resistant to more diseases than the Early Girl, especially soil-borne fungal diseases like fusarium and verticillium.
However, all tomatoes are members of the nightshade family and therefore susceptible to blossom end rot, a calcium deficiency. Adding a gypsum soil conditioner to the soil before planting and when the blooms first appear will help keep blossom end rot at bay.
Taste and Size
You’ve planted your New Girl tomatoes, watered, weeded, added all the nutrients, and soon it will be time to harvest. About the size of a tennis ball, they’re the perfect size for someone who can’t eat a whole tomato in one sitting.
As for taste, the New Girl has been described as meaty, sweet-tart, and “tastes like a real tomato”.
Recipes
While you can certainly eat a New Girl tomato straight off the vine, or sliced on a thick juicy burger, sometimes you might want to switch it up a bit.
Try adding even more of the veggies harvested from your garden in this corn, sweet onion, and tomato salad to go along with that burger.
You can also use your New Girl tomatoes in a tomato cobbler. Yes, there is such a thing. Just don’t serve it as a dessert. It’s definitely a side dish.
Where to Buy New Girl Tomato Seeds
New Girl tomato seeds are a little more difficult to find, so chances are they won’t be at your local seed store. But, you can purchase them from Amazon and have them delivered to your door. This means not having to go out and search for seeds, which also means more time spent in your garden.
Add a New Girl to Your Garden
With its early production, outstanding flavor, and excellent disease resistance, it’s time to add New Girl tomatoes to your garden plans. You probably already know that tomatoes come in a variety of shapes and sizes. But did you know they even come in a variety of colors like purple, pink, and black? Check out our Tomato Page for more information on other varieties of tomatoes to plant in your garden this year.
- About the Author
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Melissa Goins is a wife, mom, grandma to three beautiful grandbabies, and a writer for Minneopa Orchards. She is a lifelong resident of Indiana and currently resides on a 15-acre homestead with her family where she enjoys gardening, canning, and running a produce stand that is known for its many varieties of tomatoes.
Growing up, her parents always had a large garden and Saturdays during the summer were spent preserving the harvest. Now, four generations work in the garden and preserve the harvest together.
Melissa loves trying new methods of growing and preservation, and varieties of fruits and vegetables in the garden — which is why she loves writing for Minneopa Orchards. From growing Cherokee Purple tomatoes to the best way to preserve carrots, there’s so much to learn, enjoy, and share while getting dirt under your fingernails.