Big Beef Beat Out Early Girl In DTM - Who Would Have Thought??
 

Well at least in my garden, Big Beef is producing multiple ripe fruit far sooner than Early Girl:

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Early Girl as a comparison:

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Next year I am ditching Early Girl altogether and putting more Big Beef in their (former) homes.

Raybo:shock:

I have never found anything early about early girl.
KarenO

Early Girl F1 is early in name only. Good hybrid through, since it flavours up well in the dry conditions I deal with.

Those leaves on the EG look almost potato leafed??

EG I grow every year (F1) and it is always first to bear ripe fruit. As I mentioned in another thread, the blossoms swell almost immediately after fertilization and the fruit set rate is always close to 100%. It is my wife's favorite tomato, because she loves 'em tart! I'll have to try Jaune Flammee at some point as I hear they are very tart.

I have grown early girl the last 2 seasons and found them very tasty and near perfect in appearance.They also produced earlier than my other tomatoes such as Black Krim and Cherokee Purple.I never counted the days it took but am happy with the results.This year I have Early Girl and Better Boy,both are 70 to 80 days.We'll see how that goes but the rain we have had has really put a hurt on growth.Way to much rain and temps in the 70's in the day and 50's at night.:no:

I have always found early girl to be early and to produce until frost.

poor choice for a northern garden absolutely.
millions sold up here on name alone and does very poorly in cool or short season conditions.
Despite that, sells like hotcakes up here because people think it's early based on the name. would never grow it again. Additionally, I think there are a LOT of poor quality OP or "counterfeit" versions sold out there vs the original F1 hybrid.
KarenO

Yep, it's definitely better suited to the southern states. Taste-wise, it's subjective, and personally I don't care for the acidic bite. I love nothing more than a Brandywine, GGWT, or Rebel Yell to grace my sandwiches. But as the saying goes, if Momma ain't happy, nobody's happy :)