Having grown many varieties of tomatoes over the past few years, Early Girl Tomatoes have been a standout in our Pacific Northwest climate and could very well be a winner in other climates too.
Why Are Early Girl Tomatoes Good For Hydroponics?
Early Girl Tomatoes have many positive results in hydroponics. The list below outlines many of the benefits.
- Healthy Growth
- Perfect Skin at Maturity(even outdoor plants without greenhouse look like greenhouse quality)
- Handle Blight Effectively
- Healthy Plants Are Bug Free
- Mature Fairly Early and Continue Until Frost Arrives
- Easy To Train In Vertical Gardens
- Limbs are Strong
- Taste Great
Healthy Growth
The leaves grow nice and green with drip feeding at intervals throughout the day.
Perfect Skin
The fruit grow like they are produced in an expensive hothouse. Compared to most other larger sized, common garden varieties like Beefsteak, this is a real deal breaker for the reason already explained.
Blight Fighter
In our climate, Blight seems to plague almost every home gardener growing tomatoes once the dew begins to arrive in late summer. Often, all tomatoes have the potential look rather pristine until this time.
But, when the dew hits, leaves and fruit can blight and blister. Even seasoned organic farmers growing tomatoes in a greenhouse show up at the market at this time of year with scabby produce as the battle gets them too.
But, that Early Girl does keep producing that great fruit.
Bug Free
For some reason, bugs can really target certain varieties of tomatoes. For example, in our Pacific Northwest climate, Sweet Million are one of those types that produce decent tomatoes, but they attract bugs, at least in our garden.
In fact, for two years in a row, we can see bugs flying around the Sweet Millions while nowhere else.
Early Maturity
The name sums it up, Early Girl. That name explains the earlier mature date around 55 days. Although that seems early, it is a good idea to start some plants under lights very early, like say 2 months before the frost free date in order to have a very early supply.
Easy to Train
In our vertical garden, we plant them high and let the limbs drop downwards.
Limbs Are Strong
They tend to grow well this way and handle the local strong winds in all growing seasons.
Tastes Great
We saved the best for last. Although they are a little thick skinned, they do taste great right off the vine. On top of that, the tomato is a great ingredient in a Greek Salad. They hold their shape well and the inner parts of the tomato stay intact, thus not only making a tasty addition, they make a very beautiful aesthetic addition too.
