Around here they plant cherry tomatoes for a fall crop. I think that's at least partly because it doesn't take as long for a cherry tomato to go from green to ripe as a larger variety.

Do the fall tomatoes need to be early varieties, heat resistant, cold tolerant, adapted to short days or anything special?

Not a simple question as it depends on several factors. Factors to consider:

how many growing days will you have from transplanting to killer frost (if you get those in your zone)? If 60-70 then earlys, if 75-90 days then just about any variety.

how effective is your form of "protection" and how easy to protect them from cold? If a hoop house then no problem with any variety. If you are talking sheets off and on daily then stick with early cold tolerant.

how much sun exposure available as the fall progresses and the sun moves lower?

do you have a particular variety you need for your salsa/sauce?

Dave

Thanks Dave. Sun will be an issue as my biggest garden is in the shade for most of the day, getting only afternoon sun. In December it will be down to 3 hours of sun a day. Temps are not a big deal, it will be very warm most years until November, then temperate most of the winter except for light freezes here and there. I can easily work out some sort of cover given the t-posts in the tomato garden. It will have to be lifted during the day as daytime highs can often be quite warm during any month of the year.
Last winter I used cardboard boxes on my other tender plants and it worked very well. I probably only needed to do it about 10-15 times total and everything made it through easily. (eggplants, cherries and 9 large hot pepper plants)
As far as taste/variety, still trying to figure that out. This is my first year growing anything but big box tomatoes and growing much quantity at all. I've usually used romas from the store to make my salsas and sauces fresh. I also make a tomatillo salsa verde "tart" salsa. I guess I'd say I like an acid, complex tasting tomato. My husband and I both fell in love with our first taste of the Purple Price this week so blacks would be a very good option. I'd like to try some Cherokee purples, which I didn't plant this year and have never tried before. I'm open to any/all suggestions for varieties. Just don't like sweet, bland tomatoes at all.

If you really like some tomatoes you already have, take some of the suckers and root them in water and moist potting soil. It's faster than seeds, and having the cuttings indoors for a couple of weeks breaks disease cycles. You can hold them back in containers for several weeks. That much said, I just started seeds of Amish Paste, a full-season determinate, as the last big bang of the season. When we lose good sun in Sept the tomatoes don't taste so great anymore, so I don't try to push the season too far.