Ripen in time, plant one of the shorter-season varieties, and you’re fine. In and around Minneapolis, tomatoes get roughly five and a half to six months between the last spring freeze and the first fall one, and every variety that finishes inside that stretch, with room left for a cold June, is a safe bet for your yard. Before you order seed, add the days-to-maturity on the packet to your transplant date and check that total against your area’s fall freeze range.
What this comes down to in Minnesota
Around Minneapolis, NOAA’s 1991-2020 climate normals put the last spring freeze between April 17 and April 30, and the first fall freeze between October 11 and October 23. That gives a frost-free season of roughly five and a half to six months in an average year at that location, and every variety below has to fit inside it. A cultivar’s days-to-maturity rating, counted from the transplant date rather than the sowing date, has to clear that window with margin to spare for a cool June or an early frost, because the number on the seed packet assumes conditions a Minnesota summer doesn’t always deliver.
This page assumes you’ve already sorted out hardening off and soil temperature. If you haven’t, growing tomatoes in Minnesota covers that ground first. What follows are nine varieties, ordered from shortest season to longest, so you can see exactly where the line falls for your own risk tolerance.
| Variety | Days from transplant | Type | First ripe (Minneapolis) | Days of margin before frost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sakura | 55 | Indeterminate cherry | Early July | 95 |
| Sun Gold | 57 | Indeterminate cherry | Early July | 93 |
| Supersweet 100 | 60 | Indeterminate cherry | Mid July | 90 |
| Jasper | 60 | Indeterminate cherry | Mid July | 90 |
| Amalfi | 68 | Determinate paste | Late July | 82 |
| Cherokee Purple | 72 | Indeterminate beefsteak | Late July | 78 |
| Big Beef Plus | 72 | Indeterminate beefsteak | Late July | 78 |
| San Marzano II | 78 | Indeterminate paste | Late July | 72 |
| Amish Paste | 85 | Indeterminate paste | Early August | 65 |
Sakura
Sakura reaches its first ripe fruit around 55 days from transplant, the shortest season on this list. It’s a red cherry tomato bred for steady cluster production rather than size, with resistance to nematodes, tomato mosaic virus and two races of fusarium wilt. With transplants going in early May to mid May, that 55-day clock leaves the widest margin of any variety here before an average Minneapolis fall freeze.
Sun Gold
Sun Gold matures in about 57 days from transplant and produces small, intensely sweet orange cherry tomatoes on long clusters. It resists tobacco mosaic virus and one race of fusarium wilt. Like Sakura, it clears the Minneapolis frost window with enormous room left over, which makes it a dependable pick even after a cold, late spring.
Supersweet 100
Supersweet 100 needs about 60 days from transplant and sets heavy clusters of small red cherry tomatoes, often dozens to a truss. It resists verticillium wilt and one race of fusarium wilt. At 60 days it still finishes with about three months to spare before the average Minneapolis fall freeze.
Jasper
Jasper also runs about 60 days from transplant, with small, glossy red cherry fruit on plants bred for disease pressure rather than fruit size. It carries high resistance to late blight and intermediate resistance to early blight, both diseases that build up in Minnesota’s humid Augusts. That combination makes it worth growing even where garden space for cherry tomatoes is tight.
Amalfi
Amalfi is a determinate paste tomato, ready around 68 days from transplant, with dense, blocky red fruit suited to sauce and canning rather than fresh eating. It carries intermediate resistance to both late blight and early blight. Because it’s determinate, the whole plant ripens over a shorter window, which suits a canning schedule better than a sprawling indeterminate paste type would.
Cherokee Purple
Cherokee Purple is an heirloom beefsteak at about 72 days from transplant, with large, flattened fruit in a dusky pink to purple shade and no listed disease resistance. It’s grown for flavor rather than durability, and in Minnesota that means full sun and even watering matter more than usual, since the plant has no built-in defense once the fungal pressure that shows up on Tomato Pests in Minnesota: Which Ones Actually Show Up Here starts building in a wet August.
Big Beef Plus
Big Beef Plus reaches about 72 days from transplant and produces large, red, slightly ribbed beefsteak fruit for slicing. It resists nematodes, gray leaf spot and tomato mosaic virus, which makes it a sturdier alternative to Cherokee Purple in a garden where disease has been a problem in past seasons.
San Marzano II
San Marzano II is an indeterminate paste tomato at about 78 days from transplant, producing long, narrow, deep red fruit with a pointed tip. It carries no listed disease resistance, and at 78 days it’s one of the longer-season plants on this page, so it needs the earliest end of the transplant window and a warm summer to bring its full crop home before frost.
Amish Paste
Amish Paste is the longest-season variety here, at about 85 days from transplant, with large, oxheart-shaped red fruit good for sauce. It has no listed disease resistance and the smallest built-in margin before an average Minneapolis fall freeze, which makes it the variety most likely to leave green fruit on the vine in a cool or late year.
Working it out for your own garden
The math is the same for any cultivar, whether it’s on this list or in a catalog you already own. Start from the transplant date your last-frost risk allows, then add the days-to-maturity number printed on the seed packet or plant tag. That figure is counted from the day you set out a transplant, not the day you sow seed indoors, so starting seed three weeks early doesn’t buy a three-week-earlier tomato.
A short-season example
Take Sun Gold. NOAA’s 1991-2020 normals put Minneapolis’s last spring freeze between April 17 and April 30, and transplants there typically wait until early May to mid May to let the soil warm past that risk. Add Sun Gold’s 57 days and the first ripe fruit lands in early July, which matches the catalog figure and the table above. Measured against Minneapolis’s first fall freeze of October 11 to October 23, that leaves on the order of 90 days of open season after the first tomato ripens, before the plant even slows down.
A longer-season example, and where it breaks
Now run the same math for Amish Paste, at 85 days from transplant. Setting out in that same early-to-mid-May window puts first ripe fruit in early August at Minneapolis, with roughly 65 days left before the average fall freeze there, which is comfortable in a typical year. That margin is not fixed. Push the transplant date back two weeks because of a cold, wet spring, and stack that against the two to three weeks that northern Minnesota runs tighter on both ends of the season, and an 85-day tomato can end up needing more season than it’s given. For the full week-by-week breakdown of that subtraction, Tomato Planting Dates in Minnesota: Counting Back From Your Frost Window walks through every step.
What changes across the state
Every figure on this page is anchored to Minneapolis, because that’s where the weather station behind NOAA’s 1991-2020 climate normals sits. Most of Minnesota does not share that climate. Northern counties run two to three weeks tighter at both ends of the season than the Minneapolis normals show, which erases most of the margin a variety like Amish Paste or San Marzano II carries and can leave almost none in a cool year.
USDA’s Plant Hardiness Zone Map places the state across zones 3a to 5a, with the milder end of that range concentrated in the south near Minneapolis and the coldest zone running along the Canadian border and the far northeast. A garden two zones colder than Minneapolis should treat every days-to-maturity figure on this page as running closer to its edge, not its middle.
Distance from Lake Superior moves things the other way close to shore, where the lake’s stored heat can delay both the spring warm-up and the first fall freeze compared with inland spots at the same latitude. Local hills, low frost pockets and open exposure to wind shift the practical frost date by a few more days on top of that, which is one reason the county-level check below matters more than any single number here.
The mistakes this state punishes
The single most common mistake is transplanting into cold soil because the air finally felt warm. A run of warm days in late April or early May doesn’t mean the ground has caught up, and a tomato set into cold soil stalls for a week or two rather than growing, which erases exactly the margin the variety was supposed to have.
The second mistake is picking a variety for its size or flavor without checking its season length against Minneapolis’s frost window, or your own county’s version of it. An 85-day paste tomato and a 55-day cherry tomato are not interchangeable choices in Minnesota, even though a seed rack in April lines them up with the same shelf tag. Save the longest-season varieties for the earliest end of the transplant window, and don’t gamble on a second long-season pick until the first has proven it finishes reliably in your own yard.
The third is losing a healthy, on-track crop to a pest that shows up at a fairly predictable point in the season, simply because nobody was watching for it. Tomato Pests in Minnesota: Which Ones Actually Show Up Here lays out what to expect and when, which matters more for a long-season variety still ripening fruit into September than for a cherry tomato that finished weeks earlier.
Checking this against your county
NOAA frames its 1991-2020 normals as a probability band for a reason: the actual last freeze in a given county in a given year lands somewhere inside that range, not on a single date. Check your own county’s typical frost dates before committing a long-season variety to the garden, rather than assuming the Minneapolis figures on this page apply exactly where you live. University of Minnesota Extension keeps county offices and a statewide tomato resource that adjust for local elevation, soil and lake effect, and that’s the better source for anything specific to your address.
Common questions
Can I grow Amish Paste or San Marzano II in northern Minnesota?
It’s riskier there than the Minneapolis figures on this page suggest. Northern Minnesota’s frost window runs two to three weeks tighter at both ends, which cuts hard into the 65 to 72 days of margin those two varieties carry at Minneapolis, and a cool summer can leave fruit unripe on the vine.
What’s the fastest tomato I can grow in Minnesota?
Of the varieties on this page, Sakura is the shortest at about 55 days from transplant, with Sun Gold close behind at 57. Both are cherry tomatoes rather than slicers, so if you want a fast-finishing tomato for sandwiches instead of salads, look for a short-season slicer separately.
Should I start seed indoors earlier to give a long-season variety more time?
Starting seed earlier only helps up to the point where the seedling is ready to go outside, and that date is set by soil temperature and frost risk, not by how big the plant has gotten in the tray. A tomato held too long indoors gets rootbound and stressed, which usually costs more time at transplant than the early start saved.
Do disease-resistant varieties ripen faster than others?
No, resistance and days-to-maturity are separate traits printed separately for a reason. A resistant variety like Big Beef Plus still ripens on its own schedule, and what the resistance buys is a healthier plant late in the season, which matters more in a wet Minnesota August than it does for the first fruit off the vine.