Best sauce or paste tomato?

General Gardening
#21

I have the same problem. I mix DE in my soil mixes which holds enough water to give me a day or two extra. That has helped a lot. Plus DE has so many benefits to plants. I use 1/2 part, but you can use as much as 30% of your mix. Mine is like 5-10%. I can’t afford 100 containers with 30% mix. It still helps a lot at 5%. I use a 30 gallon sometimes 20 gallon containers. You can get DE here. It must be the size of perlite, not the powder! This stuff!! Best price I found.

Here is a study on the benefits of DE, Hundreds of studies confirm.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260133195_Effect_of_diatomite_on_growth_of_strawberry
Here is the conclusion of the study

Results obtained from this study have shown that diatomite is an effective
amendment to improve water holding capacity of light textured soils. Among the
substrates tested, the highest water retention capacity was obtained from 30% DE-I
treatment. As DE-II application has also increased water retention capacity, it was not
much more effective as DE-I due to surface area. Use of diatomite as substrate not only
improved hydro-physical properties of soil but also vegetative parameters of strawberry.
As a conclusion it can be said that, use of diatomite as a growing media not only
improves water holding capacity but also minimize leaching.

More info from the study
Addition of diatomite to substrate increased development of cull strawberry seedlings
(Table 3). Root number and length and leaf area increased significantly with diatomite
addition. Primer root number is directly affected by soil moisture in the upper layer.
Increase in primer root number and length can be due to increase in water holding capacity
and pore size distribution of media. Leaf area is important for photosynthetic efficiency. It
not only affects plant development but also yield capacity. Increase of leaf area is especially
desired in plants with low canopy, such as fern cv. Diatomite application increased leaf
area. The highest results were gained from 30% DE-I treatment

#22

Striped Roman is a productive but relatively bland tomato. I would not hesitate to grow it, but don’t expect your taste buds to do much dancing. I have not grown Marzano Fire.

Extremely bad, as in had to move the tomatoes and peppers every year to get a crop and even then would lose production on quite a few.

#23

You are all making me crave fresh summer tomatoes. The winter tomatoes in France are like water balloons. Just awful!

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#24

I never have BER on my tomatoes… and I use only organic fertilizer…

1… homemade compost (which we include all our egg shells in)… I load them up on compost.
2… BoneMeal and Gypsum (both good sources of calcium).
3… Blood Meal
4… and a little GeenSand and Epsom Salt

Here is a pic showing first bloom set on some Big Beef last year. Loaded…

TNHunter

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20200624_091255800×450 218 KB

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#25

I didn’t have much BER with Opalka but I liked that the whole fruit ripened. Sometimes with San Marzano the fruits were ripe but kept some green at the top.

#26

TNHunter, BER is a problem that mostly affects paste type tomatoes. It is a genetic issue which is only partially amenable to correcting with fertilization and soil treatments. Most of the genetic changes involved in dense meaty paste tomatoes are on chromosome 5 which means that the changes tend to be highly inherited in any cross with regular tomatoes. In other words, by the time F3 or F4 segregation has been reached, chromosome 5 from a paste variety is almost always intact or nearly so therefore the fruit with that chromosome tends to be dense and meaty and more paste like. These type fruits are susceptible to BER. The fundamental issue is calcium transport in the plant. This is why calcium sprays intended for BER susceptible varieties are so effective. If you put the spray on leaves near the fruit rachis, the plant can readily move it into the fruit which prevents BER.

Otherwise, I strongly agree with your methods of using organics to enhance tomato production. Bet you also noticed that plants heavily fertilized with organics have better flavor.

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#27

Alan,

I agree with you on Brandyboy from Burpee… I tried them the first 2 years they came out.

I got a little more production out of them… perhaps 2x… and they did taste good, but not quite a brandywine.

After I tried the Big Beef I never went back to Brandyboy or Brandywine.

For me in my garden the Big Beef are just a very good tasting tomato, big and beefy, and quite disease resistant, and production wise I have just not found anything that comes close.

I am getting older… and really appreciate something that gives me more good fruit with much less work.

TNHunter

#28

Fusion…

You are right about that flavor thing… I have been ogranic since the 90’s so that is really all I can remember.

On Paste Tomatoes… I just don’t grow them anymore. I have in the past, and I have grown cherries too (SunGold one of my Fav’s). But now days I am keeping things pretty simple and only grow the Big Beef.

On the subject of Tomato Sauce… I am interested in homesetading and follow the folks at the youtube link below. The lady is named Sarah and she showed how to make sauce and juice when processing the same tomatoes (and they looked very similar to big beef)… they were not a paste tomato…

But in one processing she ended up with some very nice sauce and juice… using only a big beefy type tomato.

Thought that was cool.

TNHunter

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#29

The only disadvantage of using large fruited varieties for sauce is the cook down time. I consider flavor first and foremost when making sauce. This is why I usually use a blend of rich flavored tomatoes with sweeter more balanced flavor varieties.

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#30

I agree, it has an environmental component to how bad or not bad it is. When it rains 7 straight days and you’re growing certain tomatoes, nothing you can do except maybe give them overhead cover is going to prevent it.

I myself do not like sauce of regular tomatoes. I have a food strainer to remove seeds and skin.
And yes cook down time increases, but to me pastes taste so much better as sauce than regular tomatoes. Like many I would make sauce with them anyway but after a few years the pastes were so superior I throw regular tomatoes out before I would make a sauce with them. To each his own what works for you is fine. Regular tomatoes for sauce just does not work for me.
I have tried Big Beef and I was not impressed. I guess the heirlooms have spoiled me?

I prefer the black or darker tomatoes for fresh eating. Nothing comes close to these for my tastes. I would never use them for sauce though, just terrible!

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#31

So jealous, till summer!!!

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#32

If I could find New Zealand paste tomato seeds that didn’t involve huge shipping cost I’d do that. They are amazing with a lot of flesh.

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#33

wow @Drew51 those look amazing, great work!

Thank you all for the super information! Cant wait to get them going. May try a few in 15 gallons this year!

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#34

Martino’s Roma do well for me with rugose foliage and stocky plants. I’ve also had great success with Franchi Red Pear, but they are a bit later in the season. Still, they’re extremely meaty and tomatoey.

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#35

Now that 2021 is done and planning seeds for 2022, I thought I would describe my 2021 paste tomato experience. What I wanted was a determinate, preferably heirloom tomato that ripened more or less at the same time, stayed fairly small, didn’t need tying up, was disease free if possible and minimal or no blossom end rot. I thought it would be nice to have some I can save seeds for, as well. My climate is cool summer, cool nights, not much summer rain. However we did have a hot spell for a few days at what, 115F? I think that was it. I also sprayed with calcium foliar spray, a few times. I mulched with brown paper grocery bags and rarely watered my sauce tomatoes. When I did, it was by hand. These are what I grew:

Best -
La Roma III hybrid multidisease resistant hybrid. It was determinate, stayed within bound, very productive. The first handful had blossom end rot but only three or four. No leaf disease and when they were done, they were done. I thought they cooked down into a nice sauce, and also made a very good roasted tomato sauce.

Not best -
Amish Paste. I didn’t realize this would be indeterminate until I already started the seeds. It wasn’t all that productive. The tomatoes were too big and more watery than other paste tomatoes, but not a good flavor or texture for a regular slicer. No disease to speak of.

Roma VF open pollinated - not as productive as La Roma III but it did OK. They were later. I let the, sprawl on the brown paper. I like being able to save seeds. It didnt have blossom end rot or leaf disease.

Tiren - a multi disease resistant hybrid, San Marzano type. Gigantic fruits like banana peppers, minimal juice inside. They were OK but I liked the La Roma III better. Tiren ripened over a longer season, not all at once like the determinates. It grew very tall and needed tying up.

For 2022, I will mostly grow La Roma III hybrid, with a few Roma VF as a back up. I found some old seeds of Ranger which I will plant, they were good a few years ago but (a) I didn’t see them where I bought them before and (b) they were way too expensive even back then. I’ve grown Big Mama but it wasn’t as productive in my garden, as far as pounds per plant, as Ranger or La Roma III. I have a new raised bed setup for them and will use a horizontal trellis to keep them off the ground, and put down a paper mulch and have drip irrigation.

5 Likes
#36

Thanks for your report!

I grew a few open-pollinated determinate paste tomatoes last year that you might find worth giving a try, including Limbo, Divine Maltese and Rio Grande. I don’t make sauce with them, but like to have them for other uses that my big slicers don’t work for

Limbo was a smaller plant with smaller tomatoes (around the size of some San Marzano types), but very productive for its size and pretty tasty tomatoes for a paste. I’ll grow it again this year for fresh eating and for drying.

Divine Maltese was very similar to a Roma type, but I think has better taste and was very productive. I used these mostly on the grill and some cut up for Pico de Gallo. I’ll definitely grow this as well. It would be good for canning as well.

Rio Grande was another Roma type which was productive and had pretty good taste. I liked Divine Maltese better, so I’ll probablyl not repeat this one, but it was probably as good as any Roma types I’ve grown.

I also grew Heidi, which is supposed to be an excellent determinate paste as well, but mine turned out to be off type and grew ping pong ball sized/chaped tomatoes that were relatively bland. So I need to get some new seed and try this one again.

I realize you are in a very different growing environment than I am (a hot, humid east coast 7a) so it is hard to say whether these would work well for you, but they might be worth trying if you have some room.

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#37

Thank you @zendog for your report.

I searched on your varieties. Rio Grande looks fairly available. I could try that next year. I found Divine Maltese, listed as compact indeterminate. Is that the same as dwarf? Dwarf generally means short internode length, usually 2 to 4 feet tall if I understand correctly. Ripening over a long season? So far I haven’t found Limbo.

One thing I liked about the Roma hybrid was it was fast, productive, the earliest of my saucers, and the flavor. OK thats more than one thing. But they all ripened over a narrow time frame, which works for my wants. I could plant an early spring crop, such as greens or peas, finish those and plant the tomatoes, finish those and plant a fall crop such as garlic to overwinter, or greens again. So three crops in one season for that bed. I can’t do that with an indeterminate. Maybe two, by growing a cool season crop first. Also, could plant nematodicidal mustards over winter if determinate tomato crop ends early. Plus I can set aside time for multiple batches of sauce over two or three weeks, then Im done. I just wish I could save the seeds. By not watering them much, I might have improved the flavor, I dont know. Flavor is paramount of course, but there are all of those other things too.

I’ve been mulling over creating a dwarf determinate sauce tomato. I could cross Roma VF with Livingston’s Dwarf Stone. Select only brachytic F2 plants as seedlings, then with paste type tomatoes if there are any. That should give a red dwarf. Delecting for determinate when larger might go OK. I don’t know about other traits. Might not be meaty enough, that might benefit from backcross to Roma VF again. Then its a long slog to F9 or F10 so maybe I shouldn’t think about it. The advantage would be less sprawling, more friendly to smaller raised beds, but keep determinate bearing. My chromosome map isn’t detailed enough to think about how difficult that would be. Oh well that’s probably a different topic :grinning:

#38

I grew Opalka one summer. I forget why I was so busy but I didn’t eat much of my own tomatoes that summer. However, my foodie friend harvested the Opalka tomatoes regularly and still raves about the sauce she made from them. Every year since she has begged me to grow Opalka. I’m finally growing some for her again this summer - I’ll report back once I taste her sauce.

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#39

Divine Maltese was about the size of a largish Roma plant for me. So not too big. I didn’t consider them dwarf, since they don’t have the thick stems, short internodes and rugose leaves I associate with dwarf tomatoes, but by size it might have been 3 feet tall. The tomatoes were a bit later than Rio Grande. I find a lot of the names like compact indeterminate, semi-determinate, etc. confusing and would consider it much like any other determinate for me.

Limbo was substantially smaller and I’ve heard of people planting them in hanging planters. It was the earliest to ripen of the paste types, but as I mentioned the plant is smaller and the tomatoes are smaller too. I think if you are looking to make a whole bunch of sauce you might want a larger tomato, but if you are interested in trying it I have enough seed to send you some if you PM me your address.

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#40

I haven’t grown it for 20 years but it isn’t like Brandy Boy- just a different experience. In truth, what I grow isn’t brandy boy but seed I took from a volunteer whose own seed I believe to have come from a Brandy Boy plant. I isolate and save some seed of it every year.

What i grow now that is more like Big Beef is probably Country Taste, which is the most productive big tomato I grow. Don’t like it as much as Brandywine types though.

It doesn’t take a lot of really great tomatoes to fill my needs, I just love the look of lots of different colors and sizes and to take advantage of some early fruiting cherry types. Then, by midsummer, I’m inundated with more than my wife can process.

Best sauce tomato- she makes sauce with the surplus and the flavor is always amazing. The only problem using tomatoes not for sauce that I experience is having to boil down the sauce longer. Until I see a really great sauce tomato growing very productively in my climate I won’t worry about that classification. What I don’t know won’t hurt me. If the sauce I’m eating is better than Raul’s, that’s good enough for me. Our fresh herbs help as much as the tomatoes.