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lexxluthor

sauce tomatoes

lexxluthor
10 years ago

Second year i am going to grow tomatoes. I usually lurk around the hot pepper forum. I live in upstate NY and didn't get one tomato due to excessive rain and blite. Tossed 50 plants away and want to start by seed this month.I am looking for suggestions on tomatoes for sauce. Thanks and any help would be appreciated and best place to buy a few seeds.

Comments (19)

  • digdirt2
    10 years ago

    Start them now? Way too early in your zone. Still 6 weeks too early even in mine.

    As for sauce - lots of discussions here about this question and most agree that using paste types results in a less quality sauce when compared to using multiple types - IE: any great tasting tomato. Your choice. No where is it written that only certain tomatoes can be used for sauce.

    As for best place to buy? That will depend on the varieties you seek but tomatogrowers.com has just about anything one could wish for. Search 'where to buy seeds" for 100's of suggestions for seed sources many here use.

    Dave

  • lexxluthor
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks Dave greatly appreciated.

  • fusion_power
    10 years ago

    Costoluto Genovese is a very good sauce tomato. I like to mix them with a few Opalka to balance out flavor.

  • carolyn137
    10 years ago

    I'm also in NYS, also zone 5 near the VT border, and even when I was about an hour south of here I never sowed seeds until about April 1st or so, and that date chosen after growing over 3,000 different tomato varieties.

    Your last average frost is about mid May and you don't want to put them out, after hardening them off, until early June, at the earliest.

    Please find the other thread here about sauce tomatoes and read the many links that Dave posted. I know I posted in many of them, so I'm not going to repeat myself by posting again about them.

    And actually many of us prefer to not use paste varieties for sauce which you'll see when you read some of the links in that other sauce thread.

    Carolyn

  • lucillle
    10 years ago

    I found one, it was pretty interesting:

    Here is a link that might be useful: one of the sauce tomato threads

  • seysonn
    10 years ago

    In my opinion, any tomato that is good in salads, sandwiches, cooking is good for making pates. Like a good chef, you cook with the wine that you drink.

    ABOUT GERMINATING:
    If you have space and good growing system, IMO, you can starts 10 weeks in advance. In my case, our average LF date is April 1st. Add 2 weeks for hardening off. I start germinating February 1st. That will give me a 10 week window of time.

    This post was edited by seysonn on Wed, Jan 15, 14 at 22:02

  • ABlindHog
    10 years ago

    Lexx
    I too have been thinking about trying my hand at canning and sauce making in earnest this year. Last year I put up a dozen jars of excess slicers from my garden. They taste great but I found them to be a seedy and watery mess to work with. Most of the comments I have read about paste tomatoes have been complaints about lack of flavor, small size, and blossom end rot. After spending to much time thinking about this, (as I usually do) I have concluded that the answer may be none of the above. Instead I plan to grow hearts for my canning and sauce making needs this year. Hearts can be larger, more flavorful, and have less blossom end rot problems than the traditional paste types. They are also meatier and less seedy than most of the slicers, beefsteaks, or salad tomatoes that I like for fresh eating. It might be worth your while to try a few heart types.

    Mike

  • lucillle
    10 years ago

    Mike,
    Just wondering how difficult it is to cut open and squish out the seeds of tomatoes?

  • grandmamaloy
    10 years ago

    My favorite for sauces is Applause and Early Girl II, both of these tomatoes producing earlier than many. Applause is determinate, which means the majority of the tomatoes will come on all at one time, while Early Girl is indeterminate, meaning it will produce throughout the season. For making sauce, I've found that having the majority of the crop come on at one time and early gives me more time for canning other stuff later in the season :). As far as seeds go, I only buy mine from one place. I know they're fresh and I know they are organic, which means I know what has NOT been used on them and the germination rate is normally high. I don't know if they have the types of tomatoes I've mentioned, because I normally buy plants, but they tend to tell you if they are meaty, have seeds, have good flavor--you get a lot of information here.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Seeds

  • ABlindHog
    10 years ago

    lucille
    I did not find it to be particularly difficult to cut the tomatoes and squeeze out the excess water and the seeds. I did find it to be messy, wasteful, and less effective than I had hoped. About a quarter of the tomatoes volume was lost to this process. In the end they were still a little on the watery side and a few seeds still made their way into the jars. At least some of this is surely attributable to my inexperience, but meatier tomatoes with less seeds would have made a big difference. The good news is that the canned tomatoes taste great and were well worth the effort.

    Mike

  • digdirt2
    10 years ago

    Investing in a tomato mill - well worth it if you plan to make lots of sauce - eliminates the seeds issue all together and also eliminates peeling as the mill removes both.

    Saves lots of time and results in much less waste too.

    Check out the discussions about them and sauce making over on the Harvest forum here.

    Dave

  • sharonrossy
    10 years ago

    Hi, I concur, don't start seeds until end of March. Regarding sauce, I found the hearts, like Anna Russian made a great sauce. In the yellow tomato variety, Orange Strawberry made phenomenal sauce, which I found was better than eating them fresh. A tart/sweet sauce and a gorgeous color.
    I also invested in a food mill, well worth it. I bought the one called Italian Tomato Press.

  • Donna
    10 years ago

    This is such a great thread! I read the linked one with great interest too.

    Question: So If you are going to grow a mix of paste and beefsteaks to make sauce, salsa, etc. what percentage of paste tomatoes would you plant?

  • hoosier40 6a Southern IN
    10 years ago

    The tomato mill will be the best money you ever spent if you are going to can a lot. It will last for years and years. I usually can 30 quarts or so of sauce every year and have always used Roma VF. I plant 6 of them and they put on loads of fruit and mature a large quantity at one time. Never had any problem with BER just a few on each plant. I am going to mix it up a little this year and try Opalka and Maybe San Marzano Redorta.. For someone canning sauce for the first time I would recommend the Roma's. Another trick if you are going to use larger slicer types is to blanch them and puncture them and let some of the juice drain off in another container before you run them through the mill.

  • digdirt2
    10 years ago

    So If you are going to grow a mix of paste and beefsteaks to make sauce, salsa, etc. what percentage of paste tomatoes would you plant?

    As long a you understand that you don't have to plant ANY paste types to make great sauce - many don't - then the % is up to you. Personally I wouldn't go more than 50% paste types and probably less.

    We have had lots of discussions over on the Harvest Forum about what tomato varieties makes the best tomato sauce for canning and freezing. And with all due respect to Whosurtomato, no one there recommends Roma simply because there are so many better tasting paste types..

    Margherita
    Carol Chyko's Big Paste
    Howard German
    Opalka
    San Marzano
    Red Pear
    Heidi
    Martino's Roma
    and most any of the hearts get consistently better reviews.

    Dave

    edited to correct 'would' to 'wouldn't'

    This post was edited by digdirt on Mon, Jan 27, 14 at 18:56

  • Donna
    10 years ago

    Thanks, Dave. I do understand. Two years ago, I grew a few paste tomatoes as an experiment. I was very disappointed in how they tasted when eaten alone. However, I ran them through my Victorio along with the beefsteaks, drained the liquid off for wonderful juice and then used what was left to make a few quarts of spaghetti sauce. (All on a whim, of course.) The sauce was wonderful. Last year, I planted no paste tomatoes, since I had not made the connection that the thicker sauce from the year before was because of them. I did not get anything like the sauce product I had the year before.

    I have purchased seeds for several kinds of paste tomatoes this year including Opalka, San Marzano, Viva I'talia and a couple others that I read about on this forum.

    I read garden mags and books like crazy, but I never seem to find the kind of info I want, except on GW. I am so grateful!

  • hoosier40 6a Southern IN
    10 years ago

    And with all due respect to Whosurtomato, no one there recommends Roma simply because there are so many better tasting paste types..

    No problem Dave. I know Roma's get a bad rap on the taste but I have always found them to be pretty decent. I am sure there are better tasting varieties but I think as far as ease of use it's pretty hard to beat. That being said I am going to try using other varieties this year so I may change my tune. :)

  • 2ajsmama
    10 years ago

    I grew Grandma Mary's last year, and Speckled Romans the year before - both peeled very easily, and I thought the taste was good, though I mix with slicers (not the purple/blacks, though, it ends up making a muddy-looking sauce). Haven't tried making sauce with *just* the paste/plum types though.

  • seysonn
    10 years ago

    BTW, there is a big difference between making SAUCE and PASTE.

    How do you make tomato PASTE ? I have a great way to do do it. But I usually make just SAUCE, like spaghetti sauce consistency, NOT too watery. Once I add all the Italian type of herbs and spices, and adjust acidity by adding some sugar to it, it makes little difference to me how the raw tomato tasted.
    But because we don't get a big crop/harvest, I am not into planting JUST FOR SAUCE?PASTE varieties. I can always squeeze the extra juice for drinking.

    YMMV.

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