Hi Iris,

I have a dozen Better Boys going and just one Big Boy. The Big Boy is certainly the biggest plant, over 8' and probably still growing. One Better Boy is close in mass but still a foot shorter, the rest are all stout six foot plants. Yet every Better Boy has been delivering tomatoes regularly for a month (some going on two months of production) and I have harvested just one Big Boy. I was trying to keep records, but the oppressive heat and disappointing fruit quality curbed my enthusiasm. Still, every Better Boy has produced at least dozen 8 to 12 oz fruits that I think taste a little better than the one Big Boy I picked. Big Boy just isn't setting fruit in my climate (like many others).

No doubt these are both vigorous hybrids that have held up better than most, but I think next year I try Big Beef, which almost always gets better reviews, and Supersteak, because I have a hundred seeds.

Try Best Boy.

I found the "best" Boy is Brandy Boy(at least where size and taste is concerned).

@ mojavebob- Big Beef is definitely worth a try!

I dropped two Big Boy tomatoes into the garden this year. I have never tried them before. The production certainly is something to behold. A coupe have just started to break so I hope to have some ripe ones by the end of August. I don't know how long it takes for them to ripen once they do finally break, but I guess I will find out. I might try a Better Boy next year, but in the past I have been so happy with my heirlooms I kinda say why waste the space. For me, it is rare that any of the hybrid beefsteak tomatoes even come close to the heirloom varieties.

I will let you know how my taste buds say they compare.

Tom

Reimer seems to be the only seed vendor who mentions Big Girl, and they cite a crop failure, with no seeds available this year. So perhaps it will be easier to find seed next year.

http://www.reimerseeds.com/burpee-big-girl-tomato.aspx

I find it interesting that you find Big Boy F1 to be a larger plant than Better Boy F1. I didn't find that.

Both varieties have one parent in common, which is a large pink heirloom called Teddy Jones, which is from the midwest.

I started a project of dehybridizing Big Boy to get out as much as I could of TEddy Jones, but kind of abandoned that project. The person who gave me some advice on what to look for re Teddy Jones, which of course is not available commercially, was Dr. Oved Schifriss, who was the person who bred Big Boy. Better Boy was bred a few years later by John Peto when he left Burpee, took seeds of Teddy Jones with him and formed Petoseed.

Carolyn