Best Paste Tomato

[Greatgardens]

I've grown Super Marzano hybrid several times and have had good results. But it does have a tendency to drop its fruit when ripe. I've had several paste types that do the same thing. It's ind. so it keep producing for an extended period.
GG

[NewWestGardener]

Holy C! I also think you are an exceptional gardener, remembering your pepper productions.
I'll be happy if I can get 5 lbs off a plant.

Originally Posted by TomNJ

My favorite paste is Rio Grande - extremely productive (32 lbs per plant last year!), very firm 3 oz tomatoes with no scabs or BER.

For tasty fresh eating tomatoes I grow Brandywine Sudduth, but with 90+% of my tomatoes getting canned into salsa, sauce, & soup I focus on productivity for the rest. Productivity is not just pounds per plant, but also how much of the tomato makes it into the pot. Therefore I look for smooth meaty varieties that require little trimming of cores, scabs, fiber, and imperfections. Kosovo is my mainstay for canning - huge, smooth, sweet and meaty, and also makes a great sandwich tomato. Rio Grande is so perfect that I just cut out the tiny core and 95% makes it to the pot.

The taste of the sauce depends on the ingredients and how it is cooked. My canned tomato products all contain onions, garlic, peppers, salt, sugar, oregano, and basil, so I doubt that the fresh taste of the tomatoes make much if any difference in my final sauce. If you simmer the sauce a long time it gets dark and takes on a cooked flavor. For a more tomatoey taste, I squeeze the cut tomatoes to drain away much of the watery juice and thereby reduce cooking time. Likewise freezing the cleaned cut pieces and then draining after thawing does even better as the liquid removed is almost clear water. Sauces and salsa made this way are brighter red and fresher tasting.

TomNJ/VA

[NewWestGardener]

You are absolutely right Karen!
I've tried about a dozen varieties in the small farm I'm volunteering. The best performers are: Roma VF ( thanks for the large pack of seeds Gary sent me in the mega trade), and Marianna F1 and Granadero F1, in a low maintenance, low water environment.
Determinant varieties are a big positive. Earliness, productivity and disease resistance are all important. If we don't get late blight, we still get molds/mildew.
The Romas are just loaded with fruit, little BER or scabs, after a few pickings, there are still tons of green fruit we probable won't be able to harvest. No staking, they just flop onto the landscape fabric.
I thought Roma VF is open-polenated, I'll save seeds anyway for next year.

Originally Posted by KarenO

Typically I am an Open pollinated tomato fan but you might be better off with a disease resistant hybrid Roma. Fresh flavour is not the goal for a cooking tomato and your production will likely be better than most OP pastes.
Perhaps try some of each.
KarenO

[clkeiper]

I will still give a thumbs up for the giant garden paste. all the other paste tomatoes are dead. the giant Garden Paste is still producing tomatoes. they are the nicest looking plants in the outside tomatoes.

[NewWestGardener]

Good to know. I looked up Garden Paste. Too late for our climate. Is it as good as in the Park Seeds photo?
I don't always trust PS's photos. (e.g.Their chocolate cherry tomatoes do not resemble the real thing, and other stuff). I still buy from them.

[Fred Hempel]

We have had very good luck with Granadero too.

[FarmerShawn]

As much as I love Opalka, it is pretty juicy compared to some others. Chinese Paste, from Brokenbar; Polish Linguista, from I don't remember where; and Father, from Carolyn, I think perhaps in her next seed offer, have been my "driest" (least juicy?) tomatoes. I keep trying Speckled Roman, but it seems very disease prone in my garden, and Martino's Roma has similar problems, along with being just a bit late for my short season.

[clkeiper]

Originally Posted by NewWestGardener

Good to know. I looked up Garden Paste. Too late for our climate. Is it as good as in the Park Seeds photo?
I don't always trust PS's photos. (e.g.Their chocolate cherry tomatoes do not resemble the real thing, and other stuff). I still buy from them.

I will try to get a photo of it today. I have a tray of them I picked on Friday and the plants are wow... greener than anything else in the garden. I don't think you should discount it though ... it may be just fine in your growing frame. you aren't out much to try it other than the space it takes up. I saved seeds from it this year, but I see it listed as hybrid and op... so many seeds nowadays are listed as both.

[clkeiper]

15070485164321016164310.jpg

IMG_20171003_123442.jpg
Giant garden paste

The one in my hand is the same one in the back middle of the pic. The back ones are Roma's.

[NewWestGardener]

I actually almost bought the seeds in the spring from Park, dropped it when I checked out.
I will try to order some along with their Fried Green tomato seeds on my next order. I can grow it at my home garden, not out in the field.
Thanks for the report. Plant vigor is always important when it comes to this time of the year.

[HudsonValley]

I've had good success two years running with an indeterminate variety of small paste tomatoes called San Marzano Nano. (Note that there is also a compact, determinate variety by the same name. I haven't grown that one.) Mine appears to be identical to this one, and I'll be sending seeds for the 2017 MMMM: https://www.tomatogeeks.com/product/...o-nano-tomato/

Roma VF was awesome last year -- it acted like a semi-determinate and produced a second flush. I wish I had regrown it this year... I tried San Marzano Redorta instead and it didn't do well for me at all; too much rain, I guess.

[NewWestGardener]

The Nano looks loaded. Did you have that much of a production? Is staking a must? We simply do not have the man power for staking.
I will make a note on your offer. Thanks.

[Lindalana]

I have not found success here with San Marzano, maybe I should try again. Neighbor growing Roma year after year very successfully.
This year I did Kenosha paste, Tom's Patti Italian paste, Damskie palchiki aka Lady fingers, Italian plum and Perito Italian from Tania. Results were wonderful and I def will be repeating.
If a tomato just a bit on a juicy side I will reduce juice by slightly precooking them- just giving it a heat for few minutes, then letting clear juice drain, remove skins and create most wonderful thick paste consistency with very little cooking. I save juice separately as soup base.
So in the end I use a variety of tomatoes.

[HudsonValley]

Originally Posted by NewWestGardener

The Nano looks loaded. Did you have that much of a production? Is staking a must? We simply do not have the man power for staking.
I will make a note on your offer. Thanks.

Yes, especially the first time (2016), when I grew just one -- that plant was literally dripping with tomatoes. (I have a picture somewhere and if I can find it, I'll post it later. I could hardly believe my eyes!) This year the Northeast was unusually wet and fairly cool, so production and plant size weren't quite as good, but it has been one of my most productive varieties anyway. I grew two this year and both still have dozens of greenies that will continue to ripen until frost. I cage them (42" round cage) and the branches eventually cascade over the wire rings like a waterfall or a weeping willow. The plants are leafy, but not overly bushy. I haven't let my plants sprawl because there are so many critters here, but I probably wouldn't with SM Nano -- the branches get heavy with fruit and picking might be difficult. It's definitely a variety I will continue to grow each year. In my garden at least, it's the one paste that has never shown signs of BER...