La Roma and San Marzano are the only ones on your list I would even consider. Especially if you want some quality taste too. ;)

I assume you want it for making sauce? If so, there are many better ones available as reflected in the many past discussions on paste tomatoes here and don't forget that any variety can be used quite effectively for making sauce. You aren't restricted to just the paste types.

Opalka and Amish Paste are 2 that are frequently recommended but also check out all the ones linked below.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Paste tomatoes

I really did want to do Opalka or Amish paste, but the ones I listed are the ones that my local greenhouse sells. I know I don't need a paste tomato for sauce, but I have never grown them before and would like to try them.

Jane, there's plenty of time for you to look at the link Dave has provided, make some decisions, buy the seeds and take them to the local nursery you deal with and ask them to raise some plants for you as well as offering them to other customers.

But you should check with them before you go ahead on this to be sure they'd be willing to do that.

Just a gentle suggestion.

And please do consider using varieties other than paste tomatoes for sauce or at least adding some of them to your paste ones b'c in general pastes don't have very good taste, are very susceptible to BER as well as to Early Blight ( A. solani)

Carolyn

Hi Carolyn,

Other than the "Paste" type tomatoes, what specific varieties would you suggest for Marinara sauce? I canned some Cherokee Purple as well as Indian Stripe earlier this year, but they were on the bitter side. I am looking for a "sweeter" tomato sauce, so perhaps Momotaro??

thanks,

Raybo

I too will look forward to Carolyn's suggestions Raybo but meanwhile you might want to consider almost any of the pinks - superb sauce makers if you like sweeter sauces like we do.

We used Florida Pinks and 1884's this year along with our usual Giant Belgium and Arkansas traveler. Great marinara when mixed with the San Marzano and Opalka (for the first time) that unfortunately is getting eaten as fast as we make it.

Jane - Carolyn makes a great suggestion - many local growers will willingly grow different varieties for you if you supply the seed. So far this year our little local operation has 3 requests for extra Brandy Boy plants next year and a couple of neighbors who want the 1884's.

Dave

Other than the "Paste" type tomatoes, what specific varieties would you suggest for Marinara sauce? I canned some Cherokee Purple as well as Indian Stripe earlier this year, but they were on the bitter side. I am looking for a "sweeter" tomato sauce, so perhaps Momotaro??

****

Ray and Dave, I just found out at 5 PM today that I have to have emergency surgery tomorrow, quite unexpected.

I'll get back to you when I can.

Carolyn

I would recomend finding a couple of determinate hybrids and use them to make sauce.
I would never recomend that for an eating tomato as the heirlooms out taste them 10 to one for eating BUT
When you need to pick a LARGE batch of Tomatoes all at the same time to cook with I feel this is the way to go.
I will look up the 2 varities i grew last year when I did the same thing. From about 8 plants I got enough sauce put in the freezer to last us a long long time....

So originally I wanted a paste tomato just for the heck of it to try it. So your saying I should just grow "normal" tomatoes instead that are just as good in sauce?

Next year I am growing:

Sungold
Beefsteak
Big Beef
Brandywine
?San Marzano?

Any Other suggestions for sauce instead of San Marzano (or any paste) that are still "all use" tomatoes?

Thanks

I grew San Marzano this year for the first time, and am disappointed. For me, they are mealy and kind of bland. Of course, that is with my soil and conditions, so your results could be different. Also, this hasn't been the best year for growing conditions around here. But I don't think I will try it again.
If at all possible, try Opalka. They are hands down our favorite tomato for everything from BLT's to sauce, to salsa. Last year I grew 6 plants, this year 12, and next may be 15 or 18.
Plants are available from a few online sources, although that does tend to be pricey. If you can find a smaller, family owned greenouse in your area, they may be willing to grow some for you. I would try a small greenhouse before I would try a larger operation. I have worked in small, family owned greenhouses, and largish ones, and just from my experience, I would guess the smaller ones would be more willing to work with you.
You are listed as zone 5---if you happen to be a Mid-MI zone 5, I would be happy to start some for you in the spring. I grow seedlings for friends and neighbors, and would be happy to start some for you too.
And yes, any tomato will work for sauce, it's just that the juicier, non paste types take longer to cook down to a thick consistency. If you do a search on the harvest forum, there are a lot of good tips for getting a lot of the juice out of the tomato to cut down on cooking time.

I have tried san marzano, and roma and both were disappointing, got a lot of rotten ones for some reason. And were dry. The last two seasons I have grown a tomato called Milano (John Scheepers www.kitchengardenseeds.com). They are blemish free, very meaty, very abundant and make great sauce!

Good luck with whatever you choose.

I've been enjoying my 'Striped Roman' and 'Big Mamma' this year -- both good quality, paste type tomatoes.

While not strictly a paste, I've also really found 'German Red Strawberry' to be excellent for sauce.

So your saying I should just grow "normal" tomatoes instead that are just as good in sauce?

Nope, we're saying they make better sauce. ;)

The only disadvantage to making sauce with non-paste types is it takes more cooking down and even that can be reduced by pre-squeezing. But the flavor is much better.

Wife and I prefer a mix of varieties as I indicated above. San Marzano and Opalka both did exceptionally well for us this year but I would never make sauce out of just one of them. ;)

But which ones you use depends on if you are going to grow from seed yourself or get the nursery to do it for you. Otherwise you are really limited in your choices.

Dave

Thanks for all of your help!
I have decided not to get a paste tomato and to go with cherokee purple. I tried it this year, but lost it to early blight. Everyone has been raving about it, so I will give it another try.

I really think you need to stick with a hybrid determinate if you want to get the volume of tomatoes you need to do sauce. Last year I grew halley3155 and florida91. I only had 8 plants (4 of each) and I had a TON ( well maybe 20 30 lbs) of tomatoes that were ready to pick all at once with no diesese that seem to plague the heirlooms.

Louster, I don't know what growing conditions you had, but mine must have been similar, because I had the exact same experience with the San Marzano. I had heard great things about it, but I found them to be mealy and bland as well. They work fine for cooking, which is what they are intended for, but are no good for fresh eating.

I'm also growing Opalka, and have quite a few huge ones on the vine, that simply refuse to change color. If they ever ripen, I'll have to do a side by side comparison with the San Marzano.

For next year, I've already purchased Amish Paste seeds, so we'll see how that works out. Still, I would love a good multipurpose tomato, that would taste good freshly sliced/diced or cooked in a sauce, mainly because I have such a small garden, and only have room for 6 - 8 plants. A tomato that could do double duty, would be a real spacesaver for me.

Bonnie

jane4667, see if you can get the variety "Spudakee Purple". Its a Cherokee Purple potato leaf and more disease tolerant than the regular Cherokee Purple. I'm growing it this year and it's performing very well. If you can't find it let me know. Ami

jane4667, see if you can get the variety "Spudakee Purple". Its a Cherokee Purple potato leaf and more disease tolerant than the regular Cherokee Purple. I'm growing it this year and it's performing very well. If you can't find it let me know. Ami

*****

I'd also suggest the variety Indian Stripe which is commercially available. It's a strain of Cherokee Purple and is very productive and folks have found it to be quite tolerant of foliage diseases.

There's also a variety called Cherokee Purple Potato Leaf which is similar to the Spudakee Ami mentioned above.

(I really think you need to stick with a hybrid determinate if you want to get the volume of tomatoes you need to do sauce. Last year I grew halley3155 and florida91. I only had 8 plants (4 of each) and I had a TON ( well maybe 20 30 lbs) of tomatoes that were ready to pick all at once with no diesese that seem to plague the heirlooms.)

Mike, a couple of points.

First, what plagues, as you say it, OP varieties is foliage diseases and there's no variety, hybrid or OP that has significant tolerance to any of the common foliage diseases, rather, the hybrids have disease tolerances bred in for some systemic diseases which may or may not be useful depending on whether or not a particular disease is even found in the area.

Second, I don't really care if someone grows hybrids or OP's but I can name several OP/s that yield just as well as any hybrids that I've grown.

And those might include:

Break O Day, an older commercial variety
Box Car Willie
Red Brandywine ( true RB)
Druzba
Rutgers
Bulgarian #7

...... for starters and all are red medium sized fruit varieties with better taste than the hybrids I've grown.

Carolyn

Carolyn:
I agree with you 150% that the taste of OP toms is 10 times superior to hybrids.
I grow hybirids for eating and would do nothing different.
I feel you may be right on track with the fact that there just may be foilage diseases prevelant where i am as Hybrids do out perform my OPs 3 or 4 to 1 EVEN with the spraying regime I seem to try to addhere to of Rot stop, copper, seaweed etc etc etc.
That said, for ME I need to grow hybrids to cook with.
not only do they outpreform the OPs in my yard BUT I prefer a less sweet tomato for sauce & for cooking.
I feel what makes the Heirlooms the best eating tomatos in the world are the huge amounts of sugar they produce.
to ME this is not a desirable quality for a cooking tomato. Those 6 to 8 oz fist size hybrids that I can produce by the bushelfull was no hassle produce what I feel is better tasting sauce......
As I am told so much here Different strokes for differnt folks

Thanks again for all of the advice. What do you all think of Boxcar willie?

Heres what you do. Go to this link and they got a sauce tomato seed collection. 7 different varieties for $16.95. Try them out next year and see what you like.

Here is a link that might be useful: Heirloom-tomato-seeds-sauce-collection

I too found the San Marzano rather tasteless. My 2 plants put on a pretty good amount of tomatoes and I mixed them with better tasting ones to freeze. I like the New Yorker and Italian Market Wonder tomatoes for sauce, freezing and general eating. They have quite a small amount of seeds compared to meat and have a nice flavor for fresh eating. They are almost the size of a baseball and have produced the largest amount of tomatoes compared to my others. I really love the flavor of Cherokee Purple. I had much more splitting with them and then BER...these were the only ones and I plant only 2 ft apart, the other 9 varieties were not effected.

This is my first year growing heirlooms so I cannot say if there are any better tomatoes out there. I am hoping to find some the of Opalka everyone is talking about. Check out a group at Wintersown.org. They collect a very nice variety of tomatoes and will send out 6 different varieties for the cost of 2 stamps. This is where I got my seeds this year and they are all doing great.

Kim

Thanks again for all of the advice! I just emailed my garden center and asked if they would grow opalka tomatoes for me. I will keep you all updated with what happens.

Of the varieties I've grown, the ones I would use for sauce include:

Heidi - a pear shaped determinate paste variety with lots of production and good flavor
Opalka - an elongated pepper shaped tomato with very good flavor.
Lyuda's Mom's Red Ukraine - a determinate round tomato that can be sliced, juiced, or made into sauce.
Druzba - round/oblate, good production, very dense meaty and excellent flavor.
Eva Purple Ball - outstanding for overall production and makes a decent juice/sauce tomato.
Picardy - another really good one for general use including sauce.

Any of the above will knock your socks off for total production and excellent flavor.

DarJones

Hey DarJones,

Thanks for the tomato variety suggestions for Marinara sauce. I guess my ideal tomato for sauce would be a Wes oxheart, but a variety that was much more prolific. In summary, a pithy tomato, low in juice, minimal seeds, and very prolific with a reasonably good (7 out of 10) taste. Any suggestions to meet this criteria??

Raybo

I would recommend Opalka as a very tasty paste type tomato. I grew both Opalka and San Marzano this year and there really is no contest between them here! The Opalka' are larger and produce more, and are tastier! The first group I picked never made it to sauce as they were so good tasting I simply ate them!
I also like using Cherokee Purples for sauce and my best sauces were a combo of Cherokee purple, Brandywines and Caspian Pinks! If your making yellow sauces try Kellogg's breakfast and Lillians Yellow heirlooms. Happy saucemaking!

camochef,

Thanks for the recommendation on Opalaka. Have you ever tried Amish Paste? Looks like another possible candidate.

Raybo

Raybo,
For some reason I haven't gotten around to trying Amish Paste yet. But I've really grown fond of the Opalka's. I had 254 tomato plants in the garden this season. a little over 100 varieties. Opalka makes the top 10! Happy Gardening!
Camo

I just got a response from my garden center:

"We would be glad to grow it for you next year. I will add it to our list of seeds to order. It sounds like a great tomato!"

Thanks for all of your advice and I am glad to say I will be growing opalka next year!

Jane

OK, I'm in. Opalka it is for me in 2009!!

Raybo

Opalka is the best,Amen!!!

My colleague Alan Lepage ( a well-respected organic grower in northern Vermont) says his favorite paste tomato for taste is orange banana. So I will be giving that a try. Baker Creek carries it. Fedco may have as well.

To mikec4w and others who are concerned about collecting a critical mass of tomatoes for processing; the alt.rec.preserving group recommends freezing tomatoes as they ripen to collect enough. Rumour has it that they peel easier when they thaw.

I LOVE Opalkas! They are a staple in the tomato garden. I make lots of fresh salsas and pico de gallo every year. I use what is ripe at the time, but Opalka is always the main star. The flavor is outstanding and when you cut them up, they practically peel themselves. We eat them a lot on burgers too. So glad I'm not the only one in love!

bump - about to lose this one into the cosmos

Dave

I haven't had much luck with Opalka. The tomatoes have all been on the small side, not a heavy producer, and susceptible to foliage disease and rot. A temperamental plant all around and the taste just didn't live up to the hype. In contrast, I planted two Roma VF this year(and in years past along side Opalka) and they are going nuts . Very healthy, bushy, looking plants that are loaded to the gills with fruit. Taste has been decent in years past. They certainly aren't worthy of any prizes in that regard, but they make great sauce and salsa. And besides, I mix in other varieties(whatever slicers I can't get rid of fast enough) which might a include a juicier, meatier, tomato like Brandyboy or Mortgage Lifter to kick up the tomato flavor.

That doesn't sound like the Opalka I know.

Did you raise your plants from seed and if so what was the seed source?

Or did you buy your Opalka plants.

All paste types are very susceptible to BER. Since it's a non-disease environmental problem it can appear on some varieties some years, and not on those same varieties other years.

And same comment for foliage diseases and since there's no tolerant varieties for foliage diseases, with just a couple of exceptions of no use to the home gardener, most of us just have to preventatively treat.

Carolyn

All paste types are very susceptible to BER. Since it's a non-disease environmental problem it can appear on some varieties some years, and not on those same varieties other years.

sounds grower related

Carolyn, my Opalka seeds were sourced from Sandhill. I will admit, my first year growing Opalka BER became a problem for several varieties(but not all) of tomato that year. Lots of rain followed by drought, and then I think probably over watered to compensate.

Last year I gave Opalka another shot. And while I didn't get any BER problems, the production, fruit size, and plant vigor just wasn't all that spectacular. As I said before, the taste, while not bad, was only a slight improvement over Roma(which I consider to be far more vigorous and productive).

I know most here won't share my opinion, but I've found leaf problems are far less pronounced when growing hybrid tomatoes and varieties bred for resistance. I understand that all tomato varies are susceptible to one thing or another regardless of being OP or Hybrid, dictated by the grower, but more accurately, by the environment and soil- which is sometimes difficult if not impossible to control.

Mulio, I am far from being an expert, but this "grower" has successfully grown and harvested many varieties of tomatoes over the last decade. I've made a few mistakes along the way, but it ain't my first rodeo. I mean, really, how hard is it to grow a tomato? Opalka just didn't pan out the way I hoped it would. Just because the majority likes it(and Carolyn recommends it) doesn't mean I have to. I know it's not a popular opinion and I'm ok with that.

This year is a mostly hybrid centric crop, and the plants just look so much happier and healthier than before, and producing like mad. Pure luck? science? grower? There are a few heirlooms that I would probably grow again, but 1 or 2 varieties out of the few dozen I've tried is hardly worth it.

Here's my 2 cents.

I've grown Opalka for 4 or 5 years, but only around 3 plants each year, some in soil, some in self watering containers.

BER is very rare in my garden, but I'm pretty sure I've not lost even one Opalka fruit to it.

They do seem to be a bit more disease prone, even compared to other heirlooms.

Last couple years some of the supposed to be Opalkas yielded ox heart fruit. I suppose it's the seed supplier, but maybe they're not stable?

They taste really good. Best all around tomato for me. And it's true as many have noted, that you can make sauce from any tomato. However (replacing my gardening hat with my chef's toque) I would like to point out that making a ragout type sauce is not the only way to cook tomatoes. Long cooking times change the taste. There's also the large amount of seeds and gel in non-paste types. A good paste tomato will always taste better in a saute or salsa.

Too bad they seem to be so finicky.

here is my paste story.

the lady that does most of our canning likes larger tomatoes. i don't think she is concerned with the taste so much. so we tried Amish paste last year and she liked the size much better. we liked the taste.

well we have a green house and the lady that was taking care of it left our Amish paste covered on day and it cooked most of them. we could not find Amish past that late in the season.

we then got San Marenzo seed for the local seed house. also we wanted to try Opalka and for two years we had seedling problems with the opalka. this year i planted 150 plants and they are just getting ripe so i can't really comment on them of the San Maranzo yet.

next year i want to try the Super Italian paste. it looks good in tomato growers cat.

both San Maranzo and Opalka look like they are equal or close to the same production.

has enyone tried the Super Italian Paste?

WM

I just made paste from about 20 pounds or so of surplus sungold tomatoes from my twelve plants in my container garden. It made a very sweet paste, although it was a bit of work to filter out the seeds and reducing the more watery tomatoes. I have planned to mix it about 50/50 with paste from my roma tomatoes for a spaghetti sauce base. I have used different varieties and I think there is a bit of room for experimentation with this as the results are generally good.

See the thread at the link below for paste tomato recommendations, there's LOTS of pics too. You can post in it, it just won't bump for some reason.

Here is a link that might be useful: Paste Tomato Recommendations

I've read good things about Oroma and Saucy with regard to flavor and production. They're both parthenocarpic tomatoes that are descended from a cross between Santiam and Roma, I believe.

I'm planning to try Oroma next year.

Parthenocarpic tomatoes don't need pollination to set fruit. However, they do need pollination to develop seeds. I'm not sure if parthenocarpy affects blossom end rot, but it might, since the fruit tissue forms differently, I believe.

I wouldn't classify Yellow Pear as a paste tomato. It's fairly juicy in the middle, and not pasty, in my experience. I would prefer it for either fresh-eating or salads. Apparently, it tastes different depending on where you get it, though. I liked the taste of those we grew when I was a teenager. They tasted a bit like tomato leaves smell, but I liked their flavor.

Pomodoro San Marzano can be pretty prone to blossom end rot when the weather is hot and dry (not as prone as Martino's Roma, though). I believe regular Roma performs a lot better than either of those, without getting as much blossom end rot (in my experience, and they all taste about the same to me, but maybe San Marzano has a slight bit better flavor). My particular Roma strain that performed well had a bonnieplants.com label, and was purchased as a plant from Home Depot in Ontario, Oregon, in 2014. I saved plenty of seeds. The plants were pretty compact, though. Instead of crawling all over the other tomato plants, they crawled all over themselves (but they still managed to outperform the other kinds). Granted, this year was a lot hotter than last year (so, maybe even it would have been riddled with blossom end rot, this year—but I didn't grow it this year; so, we may never know).

An oold vantage thread revived by shule.

First I wonder if there are people who actually make "PASTE". I let that Heinze do it form me. I make some sauce ( like spaghetti sauce consistency) with whatever varieties I have on hand. To reduce energy costs, I mash them and get some of the juice out, drink it or make soup with it. Delish !

I grow few varieties that are meatier, with less seeds : like Legend, Siletz, brown heart, Black From Tula. and even Big Beef. Legend is "parthenocarpice" and usually its is meaty with very little seeds.

But then I am not into a lot of canning. Like this year I have canned about a dozen quarts. I use it mostly for pasta.

Sey