A Cherokee Purple planted three weeks late because the ground stayed too wet through May will still be green when the first hard frost hits Kansas City in late October — the plant had the days, but the calendar ran out before the fruit did. That’s the trap: growers blame the variety or blame the season, when the real miscalculation was matching transplant date to days-to-maturity. Get that pairing wrong once and you’ll remember it every October after.
What this comes down to in Missouri
Kansas City’s frost-free stretch, measured by NOAA’s 1991-2020 normals, runs from the mid-April window on one end to the late-October window on the other. That leaves enough runway for nearly every tomato in a home garden catalogue, including 80-plus day heirlooms, as long as transplants go in on time. The variable that actually decides your harvest date is not the frost window itself, it is how closely you match transplant timing to the variety’s days-to-maturity, and whether you are gardening near Kansas City or somewhere with a different local frost pattern.
Below are the cultivars in our database, ordered from shortest season to longest, each set out mid April to early May and each first-ripe estimate calculated from that transplant window plus its catalogue days to maturity.
Sakura
At 55 days from transplant, Sakura is the earliest cherry tomato on this list. Set out mid April to early May, it ripens late June, leaving about 112 days of margin before the Kansas City fall frost window. It resists nematodes, tomato mosaic virus, and both races of fusarium wilt, which makes it a dependable choice if your soil has a wilt history.
Sun Gold
Sun Gold needs 57 days from transplant and ripens late June from the same mid-April to early-May setting, with about 110 days of margin before frost. It resists tobacco mosaic virus and one race of fusarium wilt. The fruit is sweet enough that most gardeners eat the crop straight off the vine rather than cooking with it.
Supersweet 100
Supersweet 100 runs 60 days from transplant and ripens early July, with 107 days of margin. It carries resistance to verticillium wilt and fusarium wilt race 1. The plant is indeterminate and keeps producing clusters well past its first ripe fruit, so the season margin matters less here than storage space in the kitchen.
Juliet
Also a 60-day variety, Juliet ripens early July with the same 107-day margin. It resists early and late blight at an intermediate level, useful in a wet Missouri summer. The elongated grape-shaped fruit holds up well on the vine, so a short delay in picking rarely costs you the crop.
Jasper
Jasper is the third 60-day cherry tomato here, ripening early July with 107 days of margin. It carries high resistance to late blight and intermediate resistance to early blight, which sets it apart from Juliet and Supersweet 100 if foliar disease has been a problem in your garden before.
Amalfi
Amalfi needs 68 days and ripens mid July, with 99 days of margin. It is determinate, so the plant sets its fruit over a shorter window rather than trickling out a harvest all summer. It also carries intermediate resistance to late blight and early blight along with nematodes, a useful combination for a compact paste tomato.
Cherokee Purple
Cherokee Purple takes 72 days and ripens mid July, with 95 days of margin before the Kansas City frost window. It carries no listed disease resistance, so it depends more on crop rotation and airflow than the hybrids on this list. Gardeners grow it for flavor rather than yield or disease defense.
Big Beef Plus
Also 72 days, Big Beef Plus ripens mid July with the same 95-day margin as Cherokee Purple, but it carries resistance to nematodes, gray leaf spot, and tomato mosaic virus. It is the more reliable large-slicer choice where disease pressure has been an issue.
Tiren
Tiren needs 75 days and ripens mid July, with 92 days of margin. It resists verticillium wilt, tomato mosaic virus, and fusarium wilt race 1, and is grown mainly for sauce and paste rather than fresh eating.
Granadero
Granadero is also 75 days, ripening mid July with 92 days of margin. It adds nematode resistance to the same verticillium and tomato mosaic virus resistance as Tiren, which makes it a reasonable substitute where nematodes have shown up in past seasons.
San Marzano II
San Marzano II runs 78 days and ripens late July, with 89 days of margin. It has no listed disease resistance in our records, so plan on rotating beds and spacing plants for airflow if you grow it.
Celebrity Plus
Also a 78-day variety, Celebrity Plus ripens late July with 89 days of margin. Unlike San Marzano II, it carries resistance to nematodes, gray leaf spot, and tomato mosaic virus, and it is determinate, setting most of its crop over a few weeks rather than all season.
Brandywine
Brandywine is the third 78-day variety here, ripening late July with 89 days of margin. It has no catalogued disease resistance and is grown almost entirely for its flavor and size, both of which come at the cost of a longer, less predictable ripening spread than the hybrids on this list.
Amish Paste
Amish Paste is the longest-season variety here at 85 days, ripening late July with 82 days of margin before the Kansas City frost window closes. That is still a comfortable buffer, but it is the tightest on this list, and it is the first place a late spring or a delayed transplant would start to matter.
| Variety | Days to maturity | First ripe (calculated) | Margin before fall frost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sakura | 55 | late June | 112 days |
| Sun Gold | 57 | late June | 110 days |
| Supersweet 100 | 60 | early July | 107 days |
| Juliet | 60 | early July | 107 days |
| Jasper | 60 | early July | 107 days |
| Amalfi | 68 | mid July | 99 days |
| Cherokee Purple | 72 | mid July | 95 days |
| Big Beef Plus | 72 | mid July | 95 days |
| Tiren | 75 | mid July | 92 days |
| Granadero | 75 | mid July | 92 days |
| San Marzano II | 78 | late July | 89 days |
| Celebrity Plus | 78 | late July | 89 days |
| Brandywine | 78 | late July | 89 days |
| Amish Paste | 85 | late July | 82 days |
Working it out for your own garden
The method behind that table is arithmetic you can redo for any variety, including ones not on this list. Start from NOAA’s 1991-2020 last-frost window for your area, add the extra week or two most gardeners wait for the soil to warm before setting out transplants, and you get a transplant window. Add the variety’s catalogue days to maturity, counted from transplant, and you get an estimated first-ripe range. Compare that against the first-fall-frost window from the same NOAA dataset, and the gap left over is your margin.
A worked example, and where the line falls
Take San Marzano II, at 78 days from transplant. Set it out in the mid-April to early-May window Kansas City allows, and the math puts first ripe fruit in late July, with about 89 days left before the October 18 to October 29 frost window. That is a wide enough margin to absorb a slow, cool spring without losing the crop.
Now shift the transplant date instead of the variety. If a gardener starts seed too late indoors, or waits for a warm spell in late May to set plants out, the same San Marzano II pushed back by three to four weeks ripens closer to late August, cutting that 89-day margin roughly in half. It would probably still finish near Kansas City, but a grower further north with an earlier fall frost, or a cooler summer that slows fruit set, has far less room for error. The transplant date matters as much as the variety you pick, and pushing it late erases the safety margin a short-season cultivar was supposed to buy you.
What changes across the state
The Kansas City figures above come from one NOAA station, and Missouri is long enough north to south that they do not hold everywhere. USDA’s Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts the state across zones 5b to 7b, with the coldest pockets in the northern counties and the mildest along the Bootheel in the far south. A last-frost date that falls in mid-April near Kansas City can run a week or more later in the state’s northern tier, and noticeably earlier in southeast Missouri.
Elevation and river valleys shift things locally too. Low ground along the Missouri and Mississippi river bottoms tends to hold cold air on clear, still nights, so a garden in a low spot can see frost when a garden on a nearby ridge does not. Urban areas retain heat overnight, which is part of why the FACTS note that downtown Kansas City itself runs about five days earlier in spring than the airport station the NOAA normals are measured at. None of this changes which varieties exist in this list, but it does change how much margin you actually have. A gardener in the Bootheel working from the same Amish Paste 82-day margin figure is being conservative, since their real frost-free season likely runs longer than Kansas City’s. A gardener in the far north of the state should treat that same 82-day margin as tighter than it looks, and lean toward the shorter-season end of this list instead.
The mistakes this state punishes
The most common mistake is planting into cold soil right after a warm stretch in March or early April. A few 70-degree days do not mean the frost risk has passed. NOAA’s last-frost window for Kansas City runs into late April, and a warm week ahead of that window is exactly the setup that leads to a wasted round of transplants when a freeze follows.
The second mistake is choosing a long-season heirloom, like Brandywine or Amish Paste, without accounting for a late spring. Both finish comfortably in an average year near Kansas City, but their margin is the thinnest on this list, and a transplant delayed by even a few weeks starts to matter. If your garden sits in a cooler part of the state or you tend to get plants in late, a shorter-season cultivar such as Sakura, Sun Gold, or one of the 60-day varieties gives more room for error.
A few other habits cost Missouri gardeners fruit every season:
- Skipping disease-resistant cultivars in beds with a known wilt or nematode history, then blaming the weather when plants collapse midseason.
- Leaving ripe fruit on the vine too long into fall, betting on a frost date that is a range, not a guarantee.
- Ignoring the difference between the reference city’s frost dates and their own county, especially in the state’s northern counties or low river bottoms.
Matching variety choice to your actual local season, not the statewide average, is the single habit that prevents most of this. The state’s guide to growing tomatoes in Missouri covers the general planting and care steps this page assumes you have already worked through.
Checking this against your county
Every figure on this page is anchored to one NOAA station near Kansas City, and the FACTS caution that other parts of the state run earlier or later. Before you commit to a transplant date or a long-season variety, check your county extension office through Missouri Extension at extension.missouri.edu for local frost records. For the sowing and transplant timeline itself, see Tomato Planting Dates in Missouri: Counting Back From Your Frost Window, and for what to watch for once fruit is setting, the companion page on Tomato Pests in Missouri: Which Ones Actually Show Up Here covers the insects that show up in the weeks after these varieties start to ripen.
Common questions
Can I still grow Brandywine or Amish Paste if I’m north of Kansas City?
Probably, but check your local last-frost date first since it likely runs later than the Kansas City normals used here. If your frost-free season is shorter, treat these two as the riskiest choices on this list and prioritize getting transplants out at the earliest safe date.
Do the disease-resistant varieties actually taste as good as heirlooms like Cherokee Purple?
That is a matter of personal taste, not something this page can settle with a number. Many gardeners grow one bed of hybrids like Big Beef Plus or Celebrity Plus for reliable yield and a few heirloom plants like Cherokee Purple or Brandywine for flavor, accepting the extra disease risk on those.
What happens if I plant a 78-day variety too late?
The plant may still set fruit, but ripening pushes later into the season and eats into the margin before the first fall frost. If a cool, wet spring delays your transplant date by several weeks, switch to a shorter-season variety like Sakura, Sun Gold, or Jasper rather than sticking with a longer-season plan.
Are these days-to-maturity numbers exact for Missouri?
No. Catalogue days-to-maturity figures are counted from transplant under average conditions and typically shift by a week or two depending on the season, sunlight, and how the plant is grown. Use them as a planning range, not a guaranteed harvest date.