Roma is a very good traditional canning variety and a determinate. I grow it every year.

Can you clarify what specific characteristics you are looking for? Many of us can tomatoes but don't restrict ourselves to any one or 2 varieties. Any tomato variety cans well. :)

Some seem to feel that only paste tomatoes should be used for canning or making salsa and that simply isn't true since they aren't really known for flavor. The Harvest forum here is the canning and preserving forum and we often have discussions over there all canning all kinds of tomatoes - paste, slicers, beefsteaks, and even cherry types.

The advantage to using determinate varieties is that you get many ripe at or near the same time. But you can accomplish the same thing with indeterminate varieties by just planting more plants.

Dave

In my limited experience, some tomatoes have a ton of seeds and gel (?) that make them more wasteful when canning. I guess I am looking for a tomatoe that tastes great, and has a firm flesh that will chop up, rather than mush. I would prefer determinate, because last summer I found it difficult to get enough tomatoes at once to make the hassle of canning worthwhile. Hope that clarifies what I am looking for :-)

a ton of seeds and gel (?) that make them more wasteful when canning

Guess we will just have to agree to disagree there. :)

Then it sounds like you'll be limiting yourself to paste types. Rutger's is a well noted tomato for canning but is indeterminate unless you can find some of the original determinate seeds somewhere.

I'd recommend the heart varieties instead for much better flavor but most all of the varieties commonly available are indeterminates. Tatiana's Tomatobase has a listing of several heart determinates so if growing your own seed you could try some of her offerings.

Two of the very best pastes are Opalka and San Marzano but they too are indeterminate.

If growing from seed then determinate pastes I'd recommend include Martino's Roma and Viva Italia.

If buying transplants then you'll likely have only a couple choices, primarily plain old Roma.

Hope this helps.

Dave

Since you live in the southeast, you should consider tomatoes that are recommended locally. Here are a few that will do the job.

Atkinson - a fairly firm 2.5 to 3 inch tomato that is excellent canned
Picardy - a productive tomato that has excellent flavor canned.
Homestead 24f - this is a good determinate canning tomato
Heidi - a determinate roma type tomato that is highly productive, very dense and meaty, and excellent flavor
Druzba - This one can do double duty as a canner and a slicer. Flavor is intense and full bodied.
Big Beef - Indeterminate, but highly productive and makes a decent canner/slicer.

DarJones

Bought and sold....Celebrity.

Thanks,all. These suggestions are really appreciated! Like I said, I am fairly new at this, but loving every second of it. There is just something so amazing about eating and canning tomatoes that you watched sprout from seeds!

I'd like to add one suggestion, but it makes sense only when considering canning whole tomatoes. The variety I'm going to suggest is a hybrid for the most part suitable for only one thing: nice bright red solid firm whole canned tomatoes, just the right size to fit through the jar opening.

When harvested fresh it is brick hard, not overly tasty and at 2.5 inches diameter max hardly a bragger. It is an indeterminate plant and is pretty darn productive, particularly in good soil. Whenever my inventory says it's time to can up some more whole tomatoes for the winter I'll
put in one or two of these plants.

The variety is called Kada, and most recently I purchased it from Totally Tomatoes. One packet should last you many years!

Last summer we had a huge crop of Rutgers (which a previous poster recommended) but when canned, they were so juicy that I ended up with half a jar of tomato and half a jar of juice! I would love to find a flavorful tomato that isn't quite so juicy.

Celebrity! What method do you use? I do cold pack and mine do not have a lot of juice.

I cold packed the "Rutgers".
I will try Celebrity this summer for canning. Will it be good for salsa too, or should I stick with Roma?