Consider Anna Russian. It's a nice,tastyand productive variety.

Jim

There are very few early varieties I really like other than cherry types, but Moskvich is pretty good (around 60 DTM or so).

Extreme Bush is good for what it is. Two foot plants with a prolific set of 2-2.5 oz fruits, better than avg flavor for an early.

Also, Break O'Day was fairly early in my garden last year, under 70 days in a cool and cloudy spring. That may or may not be typical. Productive and tasty.

I reiterate the Anna Russian. It is a fabulous tomato - great taste, good size, meaty, can be used in a variety of ways (GREAT fresh eating tom)... And I think it's 70-75 days!!!! She's a love! If your looking for an 'early' heirloom she's got to be on your list.

Stupice is early but small but excellent flavor for sure. This is a must grow.

I second Stupice. Productive little bugger and tastes great. I think it's a must grow if not a must try!

Anna tastes great but production was low for me last year. Trying it again this year because it was so good.

greg

Stupice is a VERY early, little tomato - that was not productive in my garden. YES, I did have the first tomato in the 'neighborhood' BUT it was a bit of a thing - and I FOUND it to not be as productive (from what I understand is unusual). It does taste very good - and it is the first tomato to produce. Actually was starting it in the window in the house and the little buggers would set fruit in the house. I don't grow any 'early' tomatoes anymore - so may be I shouldn't be voicing my opinion... I just find the early-mids a few days later and better tasting. Just me, though...

But for an early-mid 'big' tom, I think Anna Russian is excellent - it is not a huge producer... but for an oxheart it's awesome. 70-75 days is nothing to sneeze at!

A couple of years ago, on a whim, I picked up a "Fourth Of July" in my local garden store becasue it was an early variety - 54 or 58 days. I grew it and liked it.....it was very productive all season long and had a great taste. (Fourth of July is a hybrid not a heirloom).

Then I discovered this site and all the other heirlooms out there and decided to try Kimberly and Silvery Fir Tree, both of which got some rave reivews.

In my personal taste tests, (standing in the garden, eating each one off the vine), I couldn't tell much of a difference in taste. In fact, they all tasted the same to me.

They came in within a few days of each other with Kimberly being the earliest by a day or two, but the production was vastly different. Slivery Fir Tree only produced for about a month before it shut down, Kimberly produced for most of the season, but tapered off a lot in the last month or two, but Fourth of July kept producing and producing right up until frost.

I'm going to grow them all again this year just to get a second data point, but if I had to grow only one, I'd grow Fourth Of July. But again, it's a hybrid, not an heirloom.

Bart

I would like to put in another vote for Stupice. For me it has been an early heavy producer with very good flavor

The earlies I'm growing this year are Stupice, Kimberly, Matina, Oregon Spring and Sophie's Choice. Around here it's a good idea to have a good choice of early tomatoes because we have the occaisional year where summer forgets to arrive. I'm also growing Marglobe because it's supposed to set fruit as low as 40 degrees and is considered an early.

Correction to my last post I was looking at the description for Siberian Red not Marglobe. As you can probably guess Siberian Red is the cool weather tom- Marglobe is mid-season.

Here is a link that might be useful: Description of Siberian Red

The best early I've tried so far is probably Matina IMO. Would New Big Dwarf be considered an early variety? I'm contemplating growing an early variety this year, but usually by the time the mid-season varieties ripen, the early varieties in my garden are forgoten, as they don't seem to taste as good as the later ones. Matina might be an exception. I hope to hear of more recommendations.

Howdee

I usually only grow early heirlooms. My season is really short. I never try to plant any tomato later than 80 days.

I like

Early wonder
Mountain gold
Grushovka
Buckbees
taxi
and of corse pale perfect purple 78 days in my area

I have to second the 4th of july's. It is the only hybrid I grow

Acres

I did Stupice for the first time last year, unfortunately I lost the first set of starts, but restarted some around the middle of April, and it was still one of the first ripe tomatoes.

The taste of the first ones was typical early tomato, but they produced all summer, and tasted better when it warmed up.

Stupice has good taste and is very early. They were starting to flower in MAY for goodness sakes, just a few weeks after I planted them. And I had ripe tomatoes by mid-July. Surprisingly my second plant to produce a ripe fruit was Black Krim, by the end of July. I also grew Siberian which is another early variety, but I didn't get the seedling until the end of June so I can't say how early it would have been if I would have planted it when I should have. It had good taste, too. I'm going to try starting them from saved seeds this year and compare them against the Stupice.

Mike

Thanks for the input so far, keep it coming!

One I have on my list to try is Bloody Butcher. Seems to rated pretty highly in the taste dept (at least among catalog writers).

azoychka....70 days...small yellow beefsteak...8 ozs...delicious!

jeri