These turn gardeners crazy during harvest time with their green color that just stays green! ‘Green Zebra’ tomatoes add a welcome touch of something different in the vegetable patch, and in the plate, too!
Discover how to grow this charming and unique variety.
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Its fruits are round, average sized at a little over 3 ounces (90 g). The plants itself grows quite tall, about 6 feet (180 cm) when fully grown. The skin of the tomatoes is smooth, and the base color is greenish-yellow with darker green stripes. When sliced in half, the flesh is bright green, a flashy neon green color. Within the flesh are a few seeds and lots of juice which will make for a refreshing taste.
As the fruit ripens, the pale background shifts from green to a warmer amber-yellow while the darker stripes stay put, so the zebra pattern remains visible on a ready fruit.
Most seed suppliers list it as indeterminate, with the main stem extending and setting new flower trusses, though some describe it as semi-determinate and fairly compact, reaching roughly three to five feet.
Do not mix it up with other green tomatoes: ‘Green Grape’ is a small cherry type and ‘Aunt Ruby’s German Green’ is a large beefsteak with no stripes.
This variety is often qualified as follows: juicy, sweet and with a tangy touch. This balance of flavor makes it a truly memorable experience. It pairs very well with other meaty tomatoes such as the ‘Beefsteak’ tomato. You’ll be deliciously surprised by its taste when cooking it as a gaspacho, jam, sauce and pie. Of course, it definitely deserves the honors of savoring it fresh from the garden, too: it’ll add a nice touch of green to your tomato salad.
Sauce and jam made from it come out green to golden, never red.
Fruit picked while still hard tends to taste tarter, so wait until it gives slightly under gentle pressure — a subtle softening rather than a full yield — for fuller sweetness.
This variety loves the sun, just like other tomato varieties. As for the soil, your best bet is rich substrate that’ll give the plant all the nutrients it needs to produce those much awaited fruits. Before the plant, remember to schedule a work session where you amend the soil with compost.
If you’ve purchased young seedlings in nursery pots, transplant them to the ground starting in mid-spring, once any risk of freezing is passed. Same thing for sowing directly in the ground: wait for freezing to have subsided. You can start seedlings in trays under cover as early as late winter. As soon as the seedlings have grown a few leaves, switch them out to individual nursery pots. Mid-spring is when they’re due to transfer to the growing bed.
From the first tray under cover to the last picking, this variety follows a straightforward calendar. Here is what happens when, and what you need to do at each point.
| Stage | When | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Sowing under cover | Late winter | Start seedlings in trays under cover, in the warm |
| Potting on | As soon as a few leaves have formed | Move each seedling to its own nursery pot |
| Planting out | Mid-spring, once frost risk has passed | Transplant nursery-pot seedlings into the bed, in the sun and sheltered from wind |
| Direct sowing | Mid-spring, after the last frost | Sow straight into the growing bed once the cold has gone |
| Harvest | Midsummer to mid-autumn | Pick by touch, four to five months after sowing |
Space the plants about 30 inches (80 cm) apart and stake them at planting, and the rest of the season is mostly watering.
This tomato needs a substrate that stays cool and moist, but not soggy. This means it shouldn’t dry out completely between two watering sessions. During the hot season, water daily or every two days – that’s how much it needs water. Of course, if it has rained, no need to water on top of that. What you can also do is add a layer of mulch to lock moisture in and stop weeds from sprouting.
A good tip to keep the water supply up even when you’re out for the week-end: fill a bottle with water and flip it up-side down, burying the neck in the soil. Keep the cap on the bottle, but drill or pierce a few small holes in it. Water will drip through slowly, very much like a drip-irrigation system.
→ Tomato plant care: watering, fertilizer, pruning guide
Remember to water your plant at its base: don’t shower it all over. A consequence of getting the leaves wet is that wet leaves are prone to fungal diseases such as downy mildew. Also remove leaves that touch the ground, this helps reduce the moist air “oasis” effect. As for the pruning, remember to remove suckers as they emerge. These are small stems pop out at the junction of secondary and main stems.
Label the stake: this fruit stays green, and helpers pick it as unripe.
Avoid handling or pruning the plants while the foliage is still wet, because your hands and tools carry spores from leaf to leaf.
How can we tell it’s ripe, since it stays green? Touch is the sense you have to use to determine whether a fruit is ripe or not. Once it’s ripe, it’s soft when you press it with your finger; it also easily breaks off from its stem. Harvest typically takes place between midsummer and mid-autumn, 4 to 5 months after sowing.
Alongside the softening, look for the yellowish or amber blush that creeps into the pale background colour, especially at the blossom end.
Check the plants every couple of days once picking starts, because ripe fruit softens quickly and splits after heavy rain.
Handle ripe fruit gently, cradling each one and supporting the vine as you pick rather than tugging, since careful harvesting limits damage to both the fruit and the plant.
