Gardening Plants & Flowers Vegetables

What Are Determinate and Indeterminate Tomatoes?

Which Type of Tomato Should You Grow in the Garden?

tomatoes ripening

The Spruce / K. Dave

Indeterminate tomato varieties are vining plants that continue to grow longer and set fruit throughout the growing season. Determinate tomatoes reach their mature height, set all their fruit at once, and stop growing. The terms refer to the growth habit of tomato varieties, which can be bush (determinate) or vining (indeterminate)

All tomato plants are vines but indeterminate tomatoes grow much longer than determinate varieties. They need stakes, cages, and trellises to prevent them from becoming a damp, tangled mess on the soil, which will attract diseases and pests.

Beginner Info

  • Indeterminate tomatoes: These plants give you a slow and steady supply of tomatoes throughout the season. Cherry tomatoes are indeterminate.
  • Determinate tomatoes: These tomatoes quickly mature and then produce a single harvest. Tomatoes grown for making sauces are determinate.
  • Which to grow: Indeterminate tomatoes are good to grow if you have a long growing season and lots of space. Determinate tomatoes are great to grow if you have a short growing season and limited space.
  • Pruning: Indeterminate tomato plants need pruning; determinate tomato plants usually do not need to be pruned.

Indeterminate Tomatoes

Indeterminate tomatoes continue growing, flowering, and producing fruit throughout the growing season until the first fall frost kills the plant.

Providing Support

Indeterminate tomatoes can reach heights of up to 12 feet, although 6 feet is typical. They need large, sturdy stakes or caging for support but some varieties are so robust that ordinary or smaller tomato cages can't hold them.

Look for large cages at least 4 feet tall and reinforce them with wood or bamboo stakes. Other good support materials include wooden or metal rebar stakes with additional twine, or twist ties for support.

Pruning

Pinch back suckers on indeterminate tomatoes to prevent unmanageable growth. Never pinch out a sucker directly below a blossom because this causes uneven growth and reduces your harvest.

Trim back tomato plants with an abundance of leaves so the fruit can get enough sun to ripen.

How to Harvest Indeterminate Tomatoes

Indeterminate tomatoes give you a slow and steady supply of fruit but ripen a little later in the season than determinate varieties because they spend time growing tall.

Your plants may keep producing fruit late into the season, so watch the nightly temperatures. If there's any danger of frost, pick your tomatoes, even the green ones. You can always set them on a sunny windowsill or place them inside brown paper bags to ripen off the vine.

indeterminate tomatoes
​The Spruce / K. Dave 

Determinate Tomatoes

Determinate tomatoes ripen at the same time and the plant dies after harvest. These tomatoes grow to about 4 feet tall so they take up less garden space and make great container plants.

Most sauce tomato varieties are determinate. The entire crop ripens at once so you can make sauce, can, and jar in large batches.

Providing Support

You don't need to worry that much about staking determinate tomato plants. You may need to stake them once the plants become heavy with ripe fruit to prevent the branches from splitting.

Pruning

You don't need to prune and remove suckers because determinate tomatoes stop growing on their own.

How to Harvest Determinate Tomatoes

Determinate tomato plants ripen all their fruit in a short period (usually about two weeks). Once the fruit has ripened, the plant will begin to diminish in vigor and will set little to no new fruit.

determinate tomatoes
​The Spruce / K. Dave

Which Tomato Type Should I Plant?

Both determinate and indeterminate tomato varieties have pros and cons. Choose the type of tomato you want to grow based on how you'll use the tomatoes and the length of your growing season.

For example, grow determinate tomatoes for sauces because these fruits have fewer seeds and more meat. They are also great for short growing seasons that span a couple of months.

Grow indeterminate tomatoes so you can enjoy fresh fruits all season long. They are great if you have a longer growing season but there are also some short-season indeterminate types.

Recommended Determinate and Indeterminate Tomato Varieties

Consider these determinate and indeterminate tomatoes to grow in your garden.

Determinate Varieties

  • Celebrity: This semi-determinate hybrid globe tomato grows 3 to 4 feet tall. It produces fruit about 8 to 10 ounces in size 70 days from planting until frost.
  • San Marzano Nano: Unlike other San Marzano tomatoes, this plant stays at a manageable size. The Roma-style heirloom plum tomato is a juicy, flavorful cooking tomato.
  • Amish Paste: This medium-sized pear tomato is a sweet-tasting heirloom that weighs 8 to 12 ounces. It's excellent for cooking, canning, and slicing. Gather seeds after harvest for replanting the following season.
  • Marglobe: This heirloom ripens at 75 days with firm flesh that resists bruising and cracking.
  • Rutgers: Though this is a determinate tomato, the plant produces a large early crop of flavorful, disease-resistant fruit, followed by several more flushes during the season.

Indeterminate Varieties

Most tomato varieties available in the garden trade are indeterminate, including heirloomcherry, and dwarf tomato varieties. Some of the most popular indeterminate tomatoes, include 'Beefsteak', 'Big Boy', 'Brandywine', 'Sungold', and 'Sweet Million'.

Early producing varieties, such as 'Early Girl', are also indeterminate. This type matures and dies back earlier and is sometimes called semi-determinate.

Here are more indeterminate hybrids to consider growing:

  • Better Boy: This beefsteak tomato produces fruit 10 to 16 ounces in size about 75 days from planting.
  • Big Beef: Here's another beefsteak tomato that produces fruit 10 to 12 ounces in size about 73 days from planting.
  • Big Boy: This tomato produces fruit 10 to 16 ounces in size about 78 days after planting.
  • Early Girl: This globe tomato produces fruit about 8 ounces in size about 50 to 52 days after planting.
  • Juliet: An elongated cherry tomato, this hybrid produces 1-ounce fruit about 60 days after planting.
  • Sun Sugar: This cherry tomato produces 1-ounce yellow-orange fruit about 62 days after planting.
tomato harvest
​The Spruce / K. Dave 
FAQ
  • Which is better, a determinate or indeterminate tomato plant?

    A determinate tomato is better for sauces and an indeterminate tomato is best for fresh season-long snacking and slicing. The choice depends on how you plan to use the tomatoes and the length of your growing season.

  • What are the best-tasting indeterminate tomatoes?

    Some of the most popular indeterminate tomatoes to grow include the varieties 'Beefsteak', 'Big Boy', 'Brandywine', 'Sungold', and 'Sweet Million'.

  • Do you need to prune indeterminate tomatoes?

    Yes, you need to prune indeterminate tomato plants. These tomato plants grow over a long season and produce a lot of leaves. Pruning allows more energy to be directed to fruit production instead of leaves and allows more sunlight to ripen the fruits on the vine.

  • How tall should I allow my indeterminate tomatoes to grow?

    Some indeterminate tomatoes can grow as high as 10 feet or even taller. If they're hard to reach or manage, use your support structures to let them spread out a bit instead of growing upwards, You can also trim them at the top, but you will sacrifice some fruit.