Paste tomato recommendation

[Hencackle]

Currently I'm raising Speckled Roman paste tomato and would like to add another variety to my garden next year. Is there an heirloom variety that's prolific AND tasty?

ETA: I'm in zone 6B.

 

[bigredfeather]

We like Amish Paste.

 

[Sunsaver]

"Roma" is the classic open pollinated paste tomato, and one of my favs for tacos and salads as well. It is an heirloom variety that you can use to make your own tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, and save your own seeds for next season.

 

[dickiebird]

I grow the San Marzanos, they are a plum shaped, heirloom. At maturaty they are about 4 oz and compare largely with the Roma, but are a little more pointed and less acidic.
They are great sliced, but are most noted as a paste tomato.

THANX RICH

 

[journey11]

I have grown the San Marzanos the last two years and they have good deep flavor and are really easy to slice up to process. Also I have grown the Costoluto Genovese the past two years and the flavor and deep red color on them is *awesome*. They make a very thick paste. However, I have had disease problems with them both years and I think as an heirloom they must be rather susceptible to the wet weather diseases (which I have been moaning and groaning about). If you have a drier climate, they would probably do well for you. Both of those varieties are very prolific!

 

[Sunsaver]

I like tart and acidic tomatoes. The more tangy the better. I don't like "Brandywine" at all. Sweet and bland. Yuck! "Beefstake and Better Boy" are my favorites.

 

[chris09]

This year we are growing Roma VF and Campbell 33 for paste tomatos.
Our main crop of past tomatoes are the Roma's (51 plants) we like them a lot and I will let you know that they have out produced any of the other paste type we have grown over the years.


Chris

 

[Hencackle]

The heirloom San Marzano I raised didn't produce that well. Figuring the poor harvest was part of that particular year's bad tomato year...I raised San Marzano the following summer. Again, another poor harvest and the tomatoes were small. The fertilizer I used was Tomatoes Alive! by Gardens Alive, same as I always use for tomatoes and peppers. The harvest for the heirloom slicing varieties both years outproduced San Marzanzo.

Journey--I like Costoluto Genovese too, I don't know why I didn't buy more seed. Probably forgot about the variety when I was looking for something "new and interesting" in the catalog and I was trying to keep the the seed bill down. It's so easy to go hog wild when ordering seeds.

bigredfeather--there's one Amish Paste in the garden which I started from seed; the other 3 seedlings didn't survive the hailstorm we had in the Spring. None have started to ripen yet, so I can't tell if I like this variety yet.

chris09--I look forward to your review of Campbell 33.

 

[chris09]

chris09--I look forward to your review of Campbell 33.

As of now the 33's are doing well.
The fruit is around 3 to 5 oz. and meaty the plant has good leaf coverage of the fruit. The plants seem to be doing well and have a good crop on them even though they have only been fertilized once.
I would have liked to see a little larger fruit on them but the smaller fruit may be do to the conditions I put them through this year.

Next year I will be putting through a second test next year in which I will give them more "ideal" conditions where I will add granulated fertilizer to the ground prier to planting and they will be watered more often and fertilized once a week with a water soluble fertilizer.

We do a lot of canning here so I do a "test crop" of all plants that we plan on using in the garden in the future. The "test crop" keeps us from one (1) spending money and time on a vegetable/fruit and finding out that it wasn't worth the money that we payed for the seeds and two (2) having a crop fail and not having its harvest to can.


Chris