Your results with Bush Early Girl (BEG)?
 

I have not grown it in quite a few years, but thinking about trying it again next season. I seem to remember that the last time I grew it, BEG was destroyed by Septoria. (But at that time, I never sprayed.) If you have grown it, how did it do for you? Did you grow it in a container? Any BER issues?

Early Girl Bush is grown here every year to provide an early flush of tomatoes. They're usually the first ones out of the gate along with Red Siberian.

As of Jun 9, 2020:
[COLOR=unset][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/7gCabug.jpg[/IMG][/COLOR]

As of Jul 3, 2019:
[COLOR=unset][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/v2ySsuS.jpg[/IMG][/COLOR]

They are grown in 15 gallon pots. The only disease problem I've ever had with Early Girl Bush is the usual bout of Early Blight but that's mitigated by carefully paying attention to limbing up the plants at least 12" about the ground, heavy mulching of the soil surface and quick removal of affected foliage followed by a spraying of Serenade fungicide.

To prevent BER I spray all tomato plants with calcium choride (Stop Rot, et. al.) twice. Once when the plants are about 2' tall and again when they set flower buds. That usually prevents BER. Of course, there will always be one or two tomatoes here and there that refuse to get with the program. :lol:

Thanks for the reply! I'm cutting back on the number of varieties next year, but I do want an early hybrid in the group. I still plan to grow Dwarf Arctic Rose and BEG as early varieties. Dwarf Arctic Rose useful because it is such a small plant, so I can start it very early (say ~March 1st) without it outgrowing my cold frame. But it doesn't produce many tomatoes for me, so a relatively big producer like BEG should also be helpful. Nice photos, BTW.

[QUOTE=Greatgardens;760164]Thanks for the reply! I'm cutting back on the number of varieties next year, but I do want an early hybrid in the group. Nice photos, BTW.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the kind words. In case you're open to an early OP, Red Siberian (55 DTM) does well for me. This one was planted out on 4/28 (as was BEG) and this photo was taken 6/13:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/4Sc8OWm.jpg[/IMG]

Found one more of the BEG while looking for Red Siberian pic. This was taken 8/4 so BEG was still going strong:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/nwvVANW.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=Greatgardens;760164]...but I do want an early hybrid in the group.[/QUOTE]

Best early hybrid for me is Start S F1.
[url]http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Start_F1[/url]

I had not heard of that one. Do you know of a U.S. source? I'll look into the Czech sources, but with the pandemic, may be difficult.


I guess another question is how does it compare to Stupice in terms of plant size, fruit size, etc. (From the pics, it looks to have slightly larger tomatoes.) I've grown Stupice quite a few times, and against Burpee's Fourth of July in EarthBoxes. Both did well for me, but FOJ lasted a little longer against Septoria and was a little earlier.