📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Green Zebra
- 🌍 Origin: A legendary American variety bred by Tom Wagner (Tater Mater Seeds) in 1983. It is arguably the most famous green-when-ripe tomato in the world.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. Can be a bit of a slow starter and sometimes grows spindly outdoors, but yields are generally reliable. It is considered a mid-late to late-season variety in cooler climates.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Small salad-sized tomatoes weighing around 2.5-3.5 oz (70-100 g). The skin turns from pale green to amber/yellow with dark green stripes when fully ripe.
- 👅 Flavor & Use: Highly debated! It has a bright, zesty, and tangy flavor. Growers who prefer “old-fashioned” acidic tomatoes love it, while those who prefer sugary-sweet green heirlooms are often disappointed. Not recommended for whole canning as it tends to fall apart.
Only for the greenhouse in our climate, plus it’s a fairly late tomato. Medium height. The tomatoes aren’t very big. Out of all the green-when-ripe varieties I tried this year, it’s the tastiest.
Soooo pretty!!! And if it’s tasty too… 😊
Marina 😕
Marina, you and Lena are basically forcing me to start a collection of little zebras. I’m getting in line for seeds, but for 2015. 😉😉
Galina P. (Galina P.) said:
Soooo pretty!!! And if it’s tasty too… 😊
It’s in second place for me, I liked it, right behind Malachite Box. So yes, it’s tasty. Sugary, absolutely not watery, and sets fruit pretty heavily.
Elfiya (Alya) said:
I’m getting in line for seeds, but for 2015. 😉😉
No way, let’s do this year! I won’t be planting it next year, I have other things to try out)))
Marina, it did pretty well for me outdoors in the dirt! 😉👍
tomatinka (Vera) said:
Marina, it did pretty well for me outdoors in the dirt! 😉👍
Vera, I think they just didn’t like the summer weather outdoors here. We took the row covers off too early. And the summer was cool and rainy. The outdoor plant was pretty wimpy and had a pretty low yield.
I grew it last year, direct seeded into a warm raised bed. It performed fine. Wasn’t one of the very first to ripen, of course, and didn’t manage to give up its whole crop before frost, but we got enough to eat and save seeds.. 😉
It did a great job for me during this crappy summer. Stayed disease-free for a long time. Sure, it started ripening a little on the late side, but it kept setting fruit right until the very end. The yield is totally decent, and the taste is excellent.
I grew it both in the greenhouse and outdoors. In the greenhouse, I only got two trusses. Outdoors it was a heavy yielder but late, didn’t manage to ripen before September 5th. It was sour in both spots.
I have absolutely zero feelings about Green Zebra. The tomatoes didn’t start coming in until fall… right when I had to rip almost everything out anyway. So next year… it can just sit in my seed stash.
Green Zebra is now one of my favorites for flavor, too. Yield is average.
Average taste and average yield. Didn’t like it.
My husband and I thought the flavor was mediocre, and the yield was the same… But my youngest daughter loved the taste and is begging me to plant it next year!!!
Well, I definitely can’t complain about the Zebra’s yield. It was a pretty heavy yielder. The only issue was that it was late for us.
Looks-wise, it’s my absolute favorite. It’s so mesmerizing, you literally can’t take your eyes off it! Taste-wise, it’s good. Compared to Black Zebra, it was a heavier yielder, prettier, and earlier. Huan-Yu has a better yield, of course, and ripens earlier, but Green Zebra tastes better. I’ll keep growing both just for their beauty.
Grew one bush in the greenhouse. It’s a prolific indet, mid-late season, beautiful variety. I liked the flavor, it’s very interesting, though not quite as sweet as Malachite Box, for example. Average fruit weight is about 3.5 oz (100 g).
Adding a few photos. Grew it outdoors in the dirt.
Grew it outdoors, didn’t have time to ripen. I pulled all the fruits off the bush because it was the very first one to catch Late Blight, but they didn’t even manage to ripen indoors off the vine, they went bad really fast 🙁
Planted Green Zebra in the greenhouse in 2013. The bush was about 4 feet (1.2 m) tall and formed two giant trusses with 12 and 14 little tomatoes on them. Some ripened on the vine. I liked the taste, but comparing it to Irish Liqueur this year—Irish Liqueur tastes much better. Green Zebra does have beautiful fruits, though.
And how can you tell when it’s ripe?
Viktoria. (Viktoria) said:
And how can you tell when it’s ripe?
Squeeze it 😄 The fruits get softer and a yellowish blush appears 🙂
Thanks! I just logged into the desktop version and checked out the photos. The picture on the seed packet is so confusing, it just looks totally green. In 2015, I was running around my Emerald Apple bush squeezing the tomatoes. Someone told me a classic tomato smell would appear, so I was literally crawling around sniffing them. My neighbors probably almost died laughing. I still ruined the first few before I got the hang of telling when they were ripe. When it’s something new, you just can’t wait to try it.
Looks a lot like my Green Vernissage from Popenko. Only its average weight was a bit smaller, around 2.5-3 oz (70-80 g).
Tall plant. Tomatoes were up to 3.5 oz (100 g), very tasty. It took a long time to get going, but by the end of summer, it was one of my favorites. Some made it into canning jars, but it clearly doesn’t hold up in marinades—it completely fell apart to mush.
Sweet and juicy with the slight tanginess of a tasty cherry tomato.
Mine turned out to be the worst-tasting out of all the green varieties I grew. And I absolutely love and adore green-when-ripe tomatoes. It was late and the flavor was just bland.
I’m disappointed with this variety. If you compare it to Boloto and Malachite Box, it definitely loses on flavor. Half of my fruits developed patches of dead skin right along the stripes.
Reading through this thread, you will notice a massive divide in how growers rate the flavor of Green Zebra. Some say it’s their absolute favorite, while others call it “sour”, “mediocre”, or “bland”.This is actually a very well-known phenomenon among Eastern European heirloom collectors! The legendary American breeder Tom Wagner specifically bred Green Zebra to have a sharp, tangy, and zesty “old-fashioned” tomato bite. However, Russian and Ukrainian growers are deeply accustomed to their own native green heirlooms (like Malachite Box, Boloto, and Irish Liqueur), which are famous for being overwhelmingly sugary, tropical, and sweet.
If you go into growing Green Zebra expecting a melon-like sweetness, you will be disappointed. But if you want a complex, tart, and punchy tomato for salsas and salads, it is unbeatable!
Pro Tip for Beginners: As Viktoria hilariously noted in her post, telling when a green tomato is ripe can be incredibly confusing! Do not wait for it to turn red. A ripe Green Zebra will feel slightly soft when gently squeezed, and the pale green background skin will develop a distinct amber or yellowish blush.
