Spear's Tennessee Green Tomato is a rare heirloom that has been quietly thriving in Tennessee gardens since the 1950s, preserved by the Spear family and rescued from obscurity by a dedicated local seed saver. Round fruits weighing 8 to 10 ounces ripen in 80 to 90 days from transplants, delivering the kind of old-fashioned tomato flavor that makes you understand why people grow tomatoes at all. This indeterminate variety needs full sun and moderate water to thrive, growing best in zones where nighttime temperatures stay between 75 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Its story alone makes it worth a place in your garden, but the taste will convince you to grow it year after year.
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Born in a Tennessee family garden and preserved through generations of careful seed saving, this heirloom carries genuine history in every fruit. The round, 8 to 10 ounce tomatoes taste like tomatoes from your grandmother's garden, with the kind of complex, satisfying flavor that commercial varieties simply don't offer. As an indeterminate vine, it will keep producing throughout the growing season, and at just 80 to 90 days to maturity from transplants, it strikes a genuine balance between heirloom character and reliable productivity. This is the kind of tomato that belongs in a seed-saving movement, not just a garden.
Like most traditional tomatoes, Spear's Tennessee Green works beautifully in fresh slicing, where its full flavor shines without competition. The round fruit shape and substantial 8 to 10 ounce size make it well-suited for sandwiches, salads, and any preparation where you want tomato flavor to be front and center. It will also preserve well through canning or cooking down into sauces, capturing that old-fashioned tomato character in preserved form.
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Start seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost date, at a soil temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Seeds will germinate reliably at this temperature, though they appreciate warmth to germinate faster. Transplants will be ready to move outdoors once they've developed true leaves and your nighttime temperatures consistently stay above 50 degrees.
Harden off transplants gradually over 7 to 10 days before moving them outdoors. Plant them out after your last frost date, once soil has warmed and nighttime temperatures stay above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Space plants 24 inches apart to give the indeterminate vines room to sprawl or be trellised.
Fruits are ready to pick when they reach full size (8 to 10 ounces) and show color change, typically 80 to 90 days from transplanting. Pick tomatoes when they yield slightly to gentle pressure and have a uniform color. You can harvest at the breaker stage (when color just begins to develop) and allow them to finish ripening on the counter, or wait until they're fully colored on the vine for maximum flavor. Harvest regularly throughout the season to encourage continued flowering and production on the indeterminate vines.
As an indeterminate variety, Spear's Tennessee Green will vine and branch freely throughout the season. Once the plant is established and beginning to vine, you can remove lower leaves (up to the first flower cluster) to improve air circulation and reduce the chance of soil-borne diseases splashing onto foliage. Pruning off the growing tip in late summer, 4 to 6 weeks before your first expected frost, will redirect energy from new vine growth to ripening the remaining fruit on the plant.
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“Spear's Tennessee Green Tomato has been grown by the Spear family of Tennessee since the 1950s, passed down through decades as a treasured heirloom. The variety remained largely unknown outside family gardens until a local customer who had been preserving it in his own garden brought seeds to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, recognizing its value and rarity. This act of stewardship rescued the variety from the obscurity that befalls so many regional heirlooms and ensured that new generations of gardeners could experience this authentic piece of Tennessee agricultural heritage. The story of this tomato is fundamentally a story of people: the Spear family's commitment to their particular plant, and a seed saver's decision that something rare and delicious deserved to be shared.”