I've grown san marzanos and I find them very productive and excellent for making sauce and also for drying.

i have grow both.

Amish paste is larger.

San Marzano is very easy to skin.

both are good tomatoes.

you should try Opalka. it taste better.

Dean

Dean; I had Opalkas this yr. & was dissapoinnted in the flavor

I've grown plain ole San Marzano and was not at all impressed, and I'm one who doesn't think that Amish Paste IS a paste tomato b'c for me it's too juicy with too many seeds.

If you had expectations for Opalka I suggest growing it another season b'c my IA friends didn't have that great a tomato season, with a few exceptions. In other words if a variety comes to me highly recommended I don't make a judgement on it if it doesn't perform in any given season, rather, I grow it again.

For sauces and the like I think it's best to use just any darn good tasting variety that's meaty and has few seeds b'c paste varieties in general are not know for good taste.

However, here are a few that folks seem to like:

Heidi
Mama Leone
Martino's Roma

..... to name a few, and I think the newer variety Sarnowski Polish Plum is at least the equal of Opalka in terms of excellence.

Carolyn

I grew Amish Paste. Mine were very large. Good sweet flavor and a lot
of tomatoes. Next year I will grow Amish Paste again and I will try
San Marzano. If I can get my hands on some Opalka, I will try that also.

Ohh, I forgot the bad..My Amish Paste got late blight. Most of my
tomato plants did anyway..By the time the blight got it, it had produced
so many tomatoes anyway....

I grew San Marzano Redorta this year and loved them. Almost no gel, with the seeds concentrated in the middle up by the stem, yet somehow the flesh was firm but still juicy with a nice rich taste. They averaged around 5" long and were easy to peel. They were perfect for making sauce or eating fresh in salsa.

I'm trying Long Tom next year as well, but San Marzano Redorta will be my standard.

Wow. You can find almost anything on these forums. I'm about to order seeds for winter sowing and was going to try the Amish paste. Now I'll add San Marzano and Opalka. These will be my canning tomatoes. Thanks everyone.

BTW, has anyone ordered from the Totally Tomatoes catalog before?

Thanks Trudi. That's good to hear since I'm about to click buy from their website. Trying many new varieties this year. Most are heirlooms, but I'm getting Jet Star to have at least one hybrid.

Caryl

We grew both Amish Paste & San Marzano last year for the first time. They both are now among our favorites for cooking. The Amish Paste(AP) are so big that you can fill up a pot of sauce in no time. The San Marzano(SM), being fairly small does take more work to fill the same pot. Our taste buds noticed little difference in the "SM only" sauce vs. the "AP only" sauce. We eventually made sauce combining both toms there on out.

It may surprise some, but Early Girl and/or Celebrity has(had) been our main sauce tom for several years. I have heard of others doing the same. The AP & SM have now certainly made that a thing of the past.

As far as productivy, while the AP produced "enough", the SM produced an amazing amount of tomatoes. Also, the SM seemed to have a surprisingly long "hang time" and got even better as they vine riped. With these two, it escapes me as to why anyone would grow a Roma...

Because of there smaller size, the SM ended up being our preferred tomato for sun-drying. We would cut them in half lengthwise, remove seeds and fill up a large zip-lock with say 60 halves. To that, we added enough cheap Merlot so that the bag would barely close and let them soak/marinate overnight, dehydrating the next day(in a food dehydrator). We used that same "used" wine for a total of three batchs. Part of the third batch had SunSugar and Black Cherry toms. Very good!

Incedently, we generally de-seed (squeeze) any tomato before pureeing or dehydrating(except the cherries). The AP seemed to be the easiest with some having very very little seeds. Not surprisingly, but to those who don't know...both the SM and AP have far less seeds than regular slicing in types.

After hearing so many good reviews, this year we have added Opalka to our list of sauce making toms.

I had mixed results with Amish Paste last year. I was pleased with the fruit I got, but my three plants didn't produce real well. It might have been the weather. This year I'm giving them another try, and am also going to add SM and Opalka. Let the best 'mater win!

We do a little plant sale fundraiser each year so I started about 12 varieties of tomatoes. Had requests for Amish Paste, so I did a couple trays of these. They were a complete PITA. Failure to thrive. They survived and were of nice size for the sale (Memorial Day) after being potted up twice. But good lord, that tiny plantlet stage was a nail biter (compared to all the rest I started). All the same -- out of three different seed packets. I managed to keep two to plant myself, and they continued to be PITA. What fruit I got was tasty and of good size (tho not all that 'paste-y'), but there was precious little of it. And then the late blight wiped out plants. The whole process was exhausting!

I've done the SM (unsure of the strain) a few times with varying success ... from quite fabulous to meh. When they are good, they are in their own class for a paste. No waste.

I did not have any luck with San Marzano's last year. I yanked over 100 almost full grown maters off 2 plants, all with BER. Of course, I probably had some bad seeds or an infected potting mix. I hear a good bit of good opinions on them. I am going to try and get a hold of some Amish Paste seeds this year and give them a go.

"Of course, I probably had some bad seeds or an infected potting mix."

tn_veggie_gardner,

BER is not the result of bad seed or infected potting mix. It is a problem caused by a low calcium levels in the fruit itself. Paste type tomatoes are more prone to it in the early part of the season, but it can occur at any time and some of the causes are uneven watering practices, low amounts of calcium in the soil or a pH that interferes with calcium absorption. (It can and does occur in other vegetables, just not as frequently.)

Bets

Here is a link that might be useful: FAQ page on Blossom End Rot

It's strange that for some the Amish Paste was not productive. I only had
one plant and it had so many tomatoes. I don't know why I didn't take
pictures of it when they were ripe. Here it is in June. You can see 5 Amish
Paste tomatoes in one small area. They came out to be very large and
had cracking on top. Maybe all the rain. They tasted very good,
refreshing sweet flavor, but not too sweet.
{{gwi:15546}}

My experience has been good with both varieties. San Marzano is considerably smaller than Amish Paste but quite prolific. What makes it even nicer is the fact they are both heirlooms.

My regular indeterminate San Marzano's were the only plants that did well in 09'. My beefsteaks, Roma's, and Delicious were all poopoo. I tried to germinate my Amish Paste in 09' and had no success. I need a new packet.

This season I am going to try the SM Redorta heirloom....very excited. Along with a "Porter" indeterminate, a dark pink plum tomato.

This post is 10 years old that I'm commenting on. But oh well. This year I'm growing Amish and San Marzano. I've not made the paste before. It says Amish are good for that and Marzano is good for the sauce. That's what I'm going for. So far my 90 plants are doing great.

San Marzanos volunteered in my zone 4 garden, so I transplanted a few seedlings. While they are just coming into production, rather late in the season, it looks like I’ll get a decent harvest. If all I get are a few fruits for next year‘s seeds, I’ll be happy. San Marzano plants are extremely heavy producers, a definite plus.

A review was done in the NYT and that grower found the San Marzano flavor to be rather bland when eaten fresh, but it won for taste once cooked.

Tomato paste is basically just sauce that's been cooked long enough to reduce down to a thicker consistency. Now, a juicy tomato would certainly need more cooking to get rid of the more liquid, but basically the key to making paste is to cook your sauce longer.

We did San Marzano a couple years ago, and they worked our well. The last two years we've grown Striped Roman, and it's been great. I think the "plan" is to grow both next year (the "plan" changes every couple weeks). Extreme Bush also did well in our sauces this year, though we got it as a Saladette, where it has been great, as well; it pairs nicely with mozzarella.

The last batch of sauce I made this year was only San Marzano and Amish paste for a quick run to use them up but to my surprise it was the best sauce I've ever made or had. I only had three San Marzono and Amish paste plants and would mix them in with my Roma's along with some celebrities for flavor making great sauce, but when I just used the San marzono and Amish it was awesome! The sad part was after reducing the sauce I ended up with only 5 jars.

One of the best sauces we've made was when we add in some of our sweet frying peppers. It adds a bit more depth and a touch of sweetness.

Here's a small batch getting started (mostly trying to clear counter space and make sure nothing went bad rather than making to freeze):

Big Daddy Pepper, 1 or 2 Striped Romans, some Extreme Bushes, a couple small Cherokee Purple (counter ripened because they got knocked off), and Scallions

Chocolate Cherry and Shimmer joined the party

Gotta have herbs! Looks like sage, rosemary, oregano, and thyme in this one; parsley may have hopped in later with the salt and pepper, but I didn't take more progress pictures.

And this is what actually made it to the fridge (cooked, strained, and partially used up):

That looks delicious. I'm working through a plan for next year's plantings. I grew San Marzanos a few years ago and wound up with about 10 lbs a plant. Now I'm seeing a range of harvests, with 4 lbs being listed. My space is limited, so I'd like a closer range than that. Anyone have guesses about your San Marzano plant yields?

I'm also curious about the plant yield differences between SMs and San Marzano Redortas.

Wow, the things you run across on the Internet. This thread started 10 years ago and it's an absolute wealth of information about something very specific: Paste tomatoes. I grow mine for dehydrating and have had good luck with Romas. Now I'm going to try Amish Paste and Opalka. Thanks for all the reports from gardeners/cooks who've been there, done that.