Early Girl vs Better Boy
Early harvest or bigger fruit? The classic home-garden trade-off.
| Early Girl | Better Boy | |
|---|---|---|
| Breeding | F1 hybrid | F1 hybrid |
| Growth habit | Indeterminate | Indeterminate |
| Days to maturity | 57-60 | 70-75 |
| Fruit color | red | red |
| Fruit size class | medium | large |
| Typical weight | 4-6 oz | 10-16 oz |
| Primary uses | slicing | slicing |
| Introduced | - | - |
| Documented resistances | 2 | 3 |
| Saves true from seed | No (F1) | No (F1) |
Measured against each other
These two have never been grown in the same trial AMSeed holds. Every difference in the table above is a difference between what each variety's own sources say about it, which is not the same as a difference between the varieties. Two catalogs counting days from different starting points, or reporting fruit weight from different seasons and soils, can differ by more than the seed does.
Where head-to-head measurements do exist: the trial record · what else we do not know
Disease resistance
Early Girl
Better Boy
Traits
Both: F1 Hybrid, Indeterminate, Red, Medium Slicer, Slicing
Only Early Girl
- Early Season
Only Better Boy
- Mid Season
Origins
Early Girl
The early-season standard since the 1970s, introduced to America through Burpee. Famous twice over: as the first ripe tomato in millions of gardens, and as the dry-farmed signature crop of Northern California market farms.
Better Boy
The best-selling garden tomato in America for decades: the successor to Big Boy with a full VFN resistance package, from the Petoseed breeding lineage. A Guinness record for single-plant yield was set with it.
More: all comparisons · every tomato variety · filter the full database
Sources & References
Evidence: 4 sources, including 1 independent reference.
- Burpee catalog · W. Atlee Burpee & Co., Seed Catalog
- Tomato Growers Supply catalog · Tomato Growers Supply Company, Seed Catalog
- Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners · Cornell University Cooperative Extension, Community Collection
- Vegetable MD Online · Cornell University, Plant Pathology, University or Government