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Tomato Varieties For Salsa

17 years ago

On another thread, OGSW asked about varieties of tomatoes for salsa. So, everyone, ready to make some recommendations? I'll start but hope the rest of you will add yours as well.

In general, paste or plum tomates are better for salsa (and for making your own tomato sauce, catsup, tomato paste, etc.) because they have a lower water content and cook down more quickly than tomatoes that have more water or juice. Although most paste tomatoes are plum-shaped (elongated), there are a few that have a standard round shape.

Many paste or plum types are determinates, which means they set their main crop all at the same time. The advantage with these types is that you get a lot of ripe tomatoes all at once, which is convenient for large-batch processing. Some of the more common and more easily found paste tomatoes (in case you purchase your tomato plants as seedlings instead of raising them yourself from seed) are:

Roma, Viva Italia, Rio Grande, San Marzano and San Marzano Redorta and Burpee's Big Mama (the largest paste tomato plants I've ever grown). If space is a concern, or if you want a smaller plant that you can squeeze into a tighter location, Window Box Roma is small enough to indeed grow in window boxes, but also grows equally well in the ground. Sometimes I put a row of Window Box Roma plants alongside the edge of a raised bed that contains a row of taller, larger tomato plants farther back in the bed.

Some of the heirloom, or open-pollinated, paste or plum types include: Opalka, Polish Linguisa, Amish Paste, Grandma Mary's Paste, Jersey Devil and Martino's Roma. For flavor, it is hard to beat Opalka.

We make salsa from any and all of the tomatoes we grow, and the salsas I like best are usually made from a combination of various heirlooms, including Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Brandy Boy, Momotaro and Brandywine. With these larger, juicer tomatos, I usually cut them up and leave them sitting in a strainer or colander in the sink for a couple of hours. This allows a lot of the excess moisture to drain away before we make the salsa or sauce.

And, if you enjoy playing with colors, you can make salsas in various colors using tomatoes like Yellow Plum, Purple Russian, Black Pear or Black Plum, or Orange Banana. You do have to be careful about mixing different colors together though, or you can end up with a brown salsa that doesn't look very appealing.

There are several great tomato seed sources that offer many kinds of paste and plum tomato seed, including Tomato Growers Supply Company (www.tomatogrowers.com), Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (www.rareseeds.com), Sandhill Preservation Center (www.sandhillpreservation.com), Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsavers.org) and Victory Seed (www.victoryseed.com).

I've linked Tomato Growers Supply below just so you can click on the link and see the many tomatoes they offer.

Good luck choosing your salsa tomatoes,

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Paste Tomatoes from TGSC

Comments (6)

  • 17 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Thanks dawn as usual you provide ample amount of info. as i was reading i was thinking of questions and you had most of em answered time i was done reading.

    I've read your past post on growing from seed and repotting and thats what i plan to do. Matter of fact bought shelveing yesterday to hang lights on.

    Going to print this off and start searching for seed.

    Thanks

  • 17 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I end up using whatever kind of tomatoes for my salsa. I don't can it though. After I mix everything up and there is a lot of juice, I just have a V-8.

  • 17 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    OSGW,

    You're welcome.

    If you wanna talk tomatoes, I'm always available and could talk tomatoes forever. : ) Of course, if you've read the posts on this forum for more than a week, you already know that.

    And, I should mention that there are many marvelous heirloom paste and plum tomatoes available from Sandhill Preservation Center that I haven't tried yet. There's so many tomatoes......and so little time.

    I still hope others will add their favorites.

    And I'm still working on my list of tomato varieties to grow for 2009.....just like Santa, "making a list and checking it twice".

    And I would like to add Mariseeds (www.mariseeds.com) as another potential source, and Totally Tomatoes (www.totallytomatoes.com) too. The only thing with Mariseeds is that Marianna loves every variety she sells and her descriptions reflect that and sort of "gush" about the qualities of each one. And, Totally Tomatoes is NOT totally tomatoes although it was once upon a time, but it does have a nice selection of tomatoes. Some of the smaller seed companies, like Marianna's and Sandhill probably won't have their websites updated for 2009 until after Christmas though.


    Dawn

  • 17 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Dawn i did have another question which may need to be in another thread i'll let u decide.

    I read the recent thread on tomato starting from seed and the repotting at different stages and deeper. You had said other plants benifit from this method as well. I also took from it that peppers are not one of those plants.

    So what are a few othe examples. I ask because last year i started seed in flats, bought plants and direct sowed. It seemed to me i got better healther plants from ones i started in flats myself. So i'm interested in doing more of that this year with appropriate plants.

    I also have the planting date lists you provided printed off and got along good with those dates. Kind of like you i'm close to texas.

  • 17 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Roma does great for me. Tons of tomatoes and very little work. Makes great salsa.

  • 17 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    OSGW,

    Other plants benefit from being repotted, but not necessarily from being planted deeper when repotted. It depends on the plant.

    Anything in the squash family can be planted more deeply because squash plants tend to form more roots long the stems/runners. Most plants don't, though, so I just replant them into deeper pots (usually plastic or paper cups), but don't plant the actual plant more deeply in the soil itself. The deeper the soil, the more root system they have before I transplant them into the ground outside.

    If you have a list of what you're going to start from seed, post it if you want to and we can talk about starting those things from seed and whether they like to be repotted or not and whether it helps to plant them more deeply, or not.

    Dawn

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