Marzano Fire

[Fred Hempel]

Marzano Fire. We recently released this tomato, and after a long season with a 100 ft row under careful watch, it is time to tout it.

It is relatively disease resistant. It is an indeterminate vine, but takes well to trellising, but you can't get behind. The heavy branches are not easily trellised when too long. It is very productive.

Most of all though, we are getting very very positive feedback on the sauce that amateur and professional chefs are making from the variety.

One rather curious characteristic came about in the past two days. It has been very cold in our field. My wife told me to go downstairs and get some of the tomatoes in that last crate of tomatoes. I refused. We argued. I told her those were seconds from last week, and they were all horrible and I refused to even sell them as soup tomatoes anymore.

She ignored me and went down and fished out a bunch of Marzano Fire tomatoes from the crate. They were the only ones that were in decent shape. We put them in our salad and they were GOOD. Really good. Like a good summer tomato. Better than I remember them being fresh in the summer. Even if it is our desperation for a fresh tomato coloring our taste, they are still better than all of the other tomatoes that have been hanging on in our field, and this is a good thing when you don't want to let go of tomato season.

So, that's the story so far about the tomato, Marzano Fire. It is an OP.

[ginger2778]

Speckled Roman X San Marzano?( changed to correct name, thanks Fred)

[Fred Hempel]

Yes. Speckled Roman X my favorite strain of San Marzano. That was the original cross, and this is an OP variety.

One thing about Speckled Roman, which I think I said before, is that it is Speckled Roman that is the striped progenitor of all of the Artisan Cherry tomatoes (both round and long).

[Raiquee]

Love it Fred! Will have to add it to my grow list!

[salix]

Grew it this past season - agree in all respects. Very nice to eat fresh, and am very happy that I still have a few ripening out in the cold garage. Harvested mature green 2 months ago, they are still more than just edible. Yesterday made a tomato onion tart with some that had been on the kitchen counter for the past month - very yummy. They are beautiful, tasty and productive and loved by all who were lucky to share. (did you notice I asked for more of that seed with the Green Bee offer? )

[Fred Hempel]

I didn't notice, but I am not surprised. We had been viewing this as our "best paste", but now it is even more than that.

[MrBig46]

Beautiful tomato. What approximately DTM? San Marzano variety mature very late for me .
Vladimír

[Fred Hempel]

These are earlier than San Marzano. I would say maybe 70-75 days in our field.

[MrBig46]

I look forward to when I can to try sometime.
Vladimír

[Barb_FL]

This sounds promising; how long of a shelf life do you think this has if grown in a hot/humid climate with ripe tomatoes kept indoors in a/c?

Do you think shelf life would be longer than Garden Gem?

[zeroma]

This one sounds like a good paste to try! How do you think it would do in hydroponic growing system?

Any faster DTM doing it hydroponicly?

z

[Fred Hempel]

The only recent question I can answer is that I do think the shelf life would be better than Garden Gem.

[Fred Hempel]

Any more general feedback on Marzano Fire? In our hands it continues to perform well every year. For the farm, it is our go-to paste variety.

Well, all I can say is it made it to my wantlist probably a few months ago, due to positive things I had read, but now it's even higher priority!

[Labradors2]

I grew it last year. It was beautiful and productive. A fabulous paste tomato .

Linda