You are debating among some good choices and Johnny's has a good selection of all types of tomatoes. Even if you chose to include a red cherry like Sakura or Favorita to go with a yellow or orange cherry they can supply those. I can't help with your decision between Yellow Mini and Sun Gold. If I were you I'd start with Sun Gold but I plant more Sun Sugar plants than both of these combined.

For paste tomato I like Pozzano and Grandero. I also liked Gremlin last year which is a lot like Red Pear Piriform (RPP). I got Gremlin from Seedway but Johnny's has RPP.

I generally avoid paste types as I find other types make much better sauce. But I have grown Pozzano with good production results and ok flavor. Tiren is good too. Unfortunately Johnny's doesn't offer any of the better heart tomato varieties.

If the choice is Sun Gold of Yellow Mini then Sun Gold wins hands down IMO.

Dave

I appreciate these comments.

Dave, what are the better heart tomato varieties? I might break my own rule and order from more than one place.

Barrie, I'll look up sun sugar as well.

Sun Gold without a doubt!

"Dave, what are the better heart tomato varieties? I might break my own rule and order from more than one place."

Literally discussed here hundreds of times and the search will pull up all sorts of 'best sauce tomato' discussions. Basically any heart is better than most any paste IMO. Check out Hungarian Heart, Kosovo, Bull's Heart, Oxheart, Wes, etc. to name a few.

Many find that the best flavored sauce comes from a mix of varieties and types.

Dave

I have requested a catalog from Totally Tomatoes. Rather than just ordering from Johnny's, maybe we will place an order from both.

I am pretty set now on Sun Gold as our cherry type tomato. Last year we grew Purple Bumblebee and it was pretty good - beautiful looking, but we would like to try something different this year.

Interesting Barrie. I may chose Sun Sugar then in that case. Is the flavor and productivity similar?

Sun gold is fine if you don't mind harvesting every day :-) They are so productive that I don't mind some splitting and my chickens don't mind either since they get the splits.

I switched Sungold for Yellow Mini myself, for the majority of the season more Sungold fruit split than don't, and they split after picking from the most minor of handling, it is almost impossible to store them except in the refrigerator or eaten immediately.

For a paste tomato, if you like sweet and mild, Golden Rave is great.

While many claim that there is a flavor difference between Sun Gold and Sun Sugar I can't detect any any I've been comparing the two twice a week from late May through Nov. for many years. Some seed sources list SunSugar as the variety with the higher sugar level but I can't detect that difference either.

If you want to revert back to either of the better flavored Bumblebees, Sunrise (orange with stripes) or Pink (pink with stripes), you would have much less cracking than with either Sun Gold or Sun Sugar. Those Bumblebees are later to ripen though as you probably already know.

Same here is Eastern KS (6A). We've grown Sun Gold and Sun Sugar side by side in our raised beds for the past 3 seasons with no noticeable difference. We have splitting in both varieties. Just throwing it out there, but if you like a darker colored larger "cherry", we like Kazachka. Anymore, we don't specifically grow any "paste" varieties. With my husband's love of "hearts" and large heirloom varieties, we have an over abundance to mix-n-match and fill the sauce pot. FYI: As you probably know, Johnny's is a great source for some very productive F1s.

Shell

I've have grown Granadero roma from Johnny's for six years and recommend it highly. It is an F1 with a great disease resistance package and has always been a strong producer with good flavor. I love heirlooms, but Grandero is my saucing/canning tomato.

I didn't buy/order any seeds this year. I got about 6 from farmers market tomatoes and also was donated about 6 by fellow gardeners, here and at another site. Plus I had a lot of my own grown varieties. Here is what I think are my best varieties , out of 35 :

FRANCHI ,( thanks to gorbelly )

BRANDYWINE SUDDUTH,

COEUR DE BOEUF ,

CREOLE,

PRUDENS PURPLE,

INDIAN STRIPE PL,

SUPER SIOUX,

MYSTERY BLACK (my own),

BRANDY BOY (F1)

BIG BEEF (F1),

STUPICE,

SUN GOLD (F1),

INDIGO CHERRY DROP

BLACK CHERRY (thanks to Max Johnson )

sey

The Franchi is a good all-purpose. Very nice taste for fresh eating and meaty enough for sauce. It eats a lot like an oxheart tomato--the shape just happens to be opposite, i.e., fat bottom instead of big chest.

Sungold is a very sweet delicious tomato that grows into a huge plant. As so many fell to the ground I let the seedlings grow. Although it is considered a hybrid, the plants still produced sweet tomatoes, so each year I just let them grow and enjoy whatever comes up.

I used to enjoy San Marzanos for my sauce, but just found them so genetically predisposed to BER that I stopped growing them. I'm giving San Marzano 2 a try this year so we'll see if they're any better.

In terms of cherries you should give both Black Cherry, and Chocolate Cherry a try. The harvest is abundant (another daily picker), and the fruit has a rich, spicy yet sweet and unique flavor. They keep well, and aren't very prone to splitting. I've been growing them both for 3-4 years now, and only have observed splitting when picking too soon after watering. They even make a pretty good sauce!

My experience with cherry tomatoes is that they produce in abundance, especially the Sungolds.

I have watched Lidia's Italy programs and she quite often will use cherry tomatoes to make a fresh sauce. Since it's thin, she'll add in al dente pasta to soak up the wonderful juice.

Also, if you can find, or have, a cone sieve, then you can simply use any tomato to make a sauce. I'm leaving a link at the end of this from an excellent blog I found on the internet about this.

Also, my mother used to make and can (or you can freeze) tomato juice. Nothing beats homemade!

In addition, cherry tomatoes are wonderful when roasted-just cut in half, toss or drizzle with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and roast at 375-400 degrees until caramelized a bit. Tons of recipes on net, but you don't need to roast at low temps for hours, nor high temps, either. Just freeze and bag when you need concentrated tomato flavor. And you'll find lots of recipes for using these.

And then there are wonderful recipes for tomato pie, spicy tomato jam, etc. The list is endless, so search the net and you'll have lots of options for using those surplus tomatoes.

Cone Sieve

To deal with SunGold cracking, try picking at color break and let them sit on the counter/dinner table few days. Do this especially it there is rain in the forecast. The reason for cracking is very thin skin.

Another alternative to SunGold is Esterina (F1).

Sey

I hear Opalka and Polish Linguisa are decent paste tomatoes, but they're not at Johnny's. What Johnny's does have in abundance is hybrids, including a lot that I've never heard of before. They really need more reviews, as I'm sure some of them must be awesome. Most seed stores are lacking in reviews, though (not just Johnny's with hybrids), but it's generally harder to find reviews and information for hybrids I've never heard of before than for open-pollinated varieties I've never heard of before. If they had a program where they gave a certain number of new or lesser-known hybrid packs away free in exchange for reviews after the growouts, they might get more reviews, advertising and sales. They'd have to be consistent, though, and make sure not to hide bad reviews (because people would notice).

I don't know about sauce tomatoes there, but I've heard their Brandywine tomato is a particularly pure version of the Quisenberry strain (if you want that strain, Johnny's might be the best place to buy it, for that reason). It's supposed to taste awesome. That's one I would probably buy if I were shopping there (and didn't mind growing a non-early tomato).

For cherries, if you want something reliable, I might echo what others are saying about SunGold F1 and such. People generally like that one. If they have SunSugar F1 that's another (which is similar to SunGold). Esterina F1 sounds like it's becoming popular, too, but I haven't heard as much about it, yet.

For all you tomato lovers, I'm adding a few links for tomatoes.

If you need a container tomato, I once tried Red Robin and it grew about a foot tall and produced an amazing number of tomatoes much larger than cherries. In fact I was amazed at their size and number for such a small plant:
Dwarf container tomatoes

The best paste tomato I ever grew from seed was sent to me by an Italian relative. The plants were literally dripping with tomatoes they were so loaded. Unfortunately it was the year we had the late blight, so I cannot attest to their flavor. But in terms of sheer production, I just never saw so many on a plant:
Seeds from Italy-Rio Grande Tomato

And this site offers heirloom and open-pollinated seeds:
Victory Seeds

And just as it says, this site is devoted to Totally Tomatoes:
Totally Tomatoes

Happy Gardening!

PS: Apparently my link to Victory Seeds failed, but you can still contact them as this is the actual name of the company.

Totally Tomatoes. Well almost. I got 7 pepper varieties from TT this year.

Tatiana'stomatobase.com is another great site, and she actually responds to inquiries. I also find a lot of heirlooms over at rareseeds.com

If you're ordering from the USA, know that Tatiana's ships from Canada. So, there's a disclaimer on their site with more information you might want to know. They have a nice selection of hard-to-find varieties, though.

If you're not in a rush, it's also nice to support Sand Hill Preservation. Yes, the website is not great, and the mail-order-only aspect is very retro and not something most of us are willing to put up with anymore in this instant-gratification age. But if you're ever ordering seeds far ahead of time, it's something to consider.

My favorite seed store is rareseeds.com (I like the community, reviews, pictures, events, selection, videos, catalog, new varieties every year, etc.; I like how their corn had been tested against GMO cross-contamination). I like timeless-tomatoes.com quite a bit (great prices and tomato/pepper selection; free shipping; I like how it is based out of Nebraska instead of near the coast, the east, the south, or the far north, for the sake of my climate); tradewindsfruit.com has great prices and selection (and they constantly add new stuff—a lot more than once a year—and they'll email you when they do with a list of new items); victoryseeds.com is great for price and selection; sandhillpreservation.com has a great selection and prices; seedsnow.com looks petty cool, as do dollarseed.com and superseeds.com. There are lots of other cool stores, like highmowingseeds.com, nativeseeds.org, etc.

gorbelly, I didn't see your post before I wrote mine; so, that's cool we both mentioned it. Yeah, the mail-in order is interesting, and takes a good while, but it works. I've ordered from them two or three times.

Another issue is that for new customers, it's a little hard to find their seed catalog (but I directly linked to it above). You have to click on Seed & Roots Catalog, read the page (in order to know their policies so when you order you do it right), click on the link at the bottom (entitled 'Go to seed and root catalog') and there you are. They have lots of cool varieties (I don't know that anyone else sells some of them).