Celebrity Tomato vs Early Girl Tomato

These two tomato cultivars have a lot in common. They both produce medium size bright red fruits with intense tomato flavor. You can use them for sandwiches, slicing, snacks, and salads. They are both resistant to common diseases and are easy to grow.

There are quite a few differences to discuss as well. Let’s get into more detail below.

Comparing Celebrity Tomato vs. Early Girl Tomato

Key Differences Between Celebrity Tomato vs. Early Girl Tomato

The key differences between celebrity tomatoes and early tomatoes are the plant size, size of fruit, amount of fruit, harvest times, and pruning.

Celebrity Tomato vs. Early Girl Tomato: Size of Plant

The main difference between these two tomatoes is in the fruit’s size and the plant’s size. A Celebrity tomato is a determinant tomato plant, which means it will stop growing when it reaches the pre-determined height of between three and four feet.

An Early Girl tomato is an indeterminant type and will continue growing until the frost kills off the plant. It will keep growing taller for an entire season unless you trim it. Some Early Girl tomato plants grow up to nine feet tall! Can you imagine what would happen if you moved it into a greenhouse at the end of the season?

Celebrity Tomato vs. Early Girl Tomato: Size of Fruit

Another difference is the size of the fruit. Celebrities produce tomatoes that are larger in diameter than a baseball, about four inches across. They each weigh eight ounces and have an excellent sweet tomato flavor.

The Early Girl tomatoes are more petite, three to four inches across and weighing between four to six ounces a piece. They also have a robust and sweet tomato flavor.

Celebrity Tomato vs. Early Girl Tomato: Amount of Fruit

Because Celebrity tomatoes only grow three or four feet high, they can produce a limited number of fruits. They usually provide 30-40 tomatoes per plant. The vines are strong and can hold as many as a dozen fruits per stem.

Early Girl grows much taller and for a longer time, so it has time to produce many more fruits. If conditions are ideal, Early Girl can provide you with as many as 300 tomatoes in one season.

Celebrity Tomato vs. Early Girl Tomato: Time to Harvest

You can plant a Celebrity tomato 6-8 weeks after the last frost date. The tomatoes will be ripe and ready to harvest 65 days later. You can plant Early Girl seeds simultaneously, but the fruit will be ready to eat 50 days after planting. The plant is named Early Girl for a good reason.

Celebrity Tomato vs. Early Girl Tomato: Pruning

These two types of tomatoes have very similar growing requirements. They both thrive in full sun and love nice hot summers. They both need nutrient-rich soil or fertilizer to produce fruit. They both require even watering at the base.

You can see a significant difference in the pruning department. Celebrity is a determinant tomato and does not require any pruning. You can cut off branches grazing the ground to help keep bugs and diseases at bay. Still, it will grow happily without this procedure.

Early Girl, however, requires pruning to grow to its best potential. First, you need to identify the main stem of the plant. You do not want to cut this off at any point in the pruning process.

You do want to trim off suckers; these grow between a leaf and the main stem, usually in a vertical direction. The sucker will have leaves and flowers and looks like a mini-tomato plant. In fact, it is a mini-tomato plant, and you can propagate them as a source of free tomato plants.

Remove all suckers from the ground level upwards to the first level of flower clusters. It is best to prune these when they are smaller in diameter than a pencil, as you don’t want a large gaping wound in your tomato for fungus to enter.

This surgery sounds complex, but once you get the hang of it, the reward is larger fruit. Pruning also gives the tomato plant better airflow, discouraging insects and diseases from living in the moist center of the plant. Give it a try; you won’t regret it.

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