2024 Tomato Report
My quest to find high yielding, BER resistant, excellent-flavored paste tomatoes went well.
Nearly everyone agrees this was a weird tomato year. Things got off to a good start, but then a major heatwave came in as tomatoes were flowering. The theory is that the high temperatures interfered with fertilization as the plants were blossoming.
Most of my plants started producing mid-August, with the bulk of the harvest happening toward September. Nearly all of my selections yielded very well.
This year my goal was to find some very good paste/sauce/general cooking tomatoes. I find the presence of tasty varieties of paste tomatoes in my cooking really improves the flavor of nearly anything I’m cooking.
My understanding, from speaking with many gardeners on this topic, is that paste tomatoes in our region can be difficult to grow, in part due to the pesky problem of Blossom End Rot, of which paste tomatoes in particular are susceptible to. My preference is for San Marzano-style tomatoes, but that variety is particularly problematic. It also needs a super long and hot growing season in order to ripen well, which does not describe my forested garden.
I have done very well in the past with Sunrise Sauce Paste tomatoes, which yield heavily. But the flavor is very bland. So this year I set out to find replacement varieties.
I also grew a few slicer and cherry tomato tried-and-true varieties.
2024 variety selection
Cosmonaut Volkov is the medium-large red slicer that you see in the photo. I’ve grown it several times - it is super reliable, tastes good, yields well throughout the season.
Azoychka is the yellow slicer in the photo. It was the earliest slicer to produce. It has good flavor and is reliable, but does kind of putter out before the end of the season.
Sungold is my tried and true cherry tomato. It is always the first tomato to fruit, and the last to give up at the end of the season. One plant is plenty for me. I find that there are so many fruits that I need to preserve them.
Pomodoro Squisito is a new-to-me paste variety, selected for its ability to resist Blossom End Rot. I did notice a tiny amount of BER this year, but nothing too bothersome. The flavor is perfect for cooking and yield is high.
Paisano is a tomato variety that I have grown for a few years. In the past it hasn’t yielded well, but this year it gave many pounds of fruit! The only thing that changed for me this year was that I gave it a very thick mulch of chipped up blackberry vines. Unfortunately I ran out of seed, and it looks like Johnny’s has replaced this variety with another, so won’t be growing it again unless they decide to restock it.
Pozzano is another paste variety selected for BER resistance. Yielded well and had good flavor. I don’t notice much difference between Pomodoro Squisito and this plant but the price of the seed. Pozzano is very expensive and probably not worth paying in most situations.
Principe Borghese was a first for me. The plant grew quite big, and I got good harvests. The intention of this variety is used as a sun-dried tomato. Our climate isn’t ideal for Sun-dried tomatoes, but I had thought I would try using a dehydrator. Sadly, there aren’t enough of them ripe from one plant at any one time to justify turning on the dehydrator. Perhaps if one were to grow several at a time. I like the idea of having shelf-stable food, so may try that in the future if I can find space.
Golden Treasure was a plant gifted to me as a start from a friend. This is a “storage” variety, where the plant is grown through the summer, and the fruits are harvested unripe at the end of the season. They slowly ripen further when brought indoors. They last an incredible amount of time - in fact, along with the plant I was gifted, I was also given a tomato from last year’s plant for tasting. It was good. Nothing like summer harvested tomatoes. But they require no processing or cold storage, and they haven’t been shipped halfway across the planet like what you buy the grocery store that time of year.
Amish Paste: another new-to-me paste variety. This is an OP that is a classic variety grown in the Willamette Valley. The plant did not start ripening up for me until extremely late in the season, and when they did, they ripen quite unevenly, super red on top and green at the tips. The other pastes I grew were way earlier, and I’ll be crossing this variety off my list for future plantings.
How was your tomato year?
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Thank you for this! I've decided that next year I am going to plant more sauce and paste tomatoes. I might just plant all 'Italian Heirloom' from Uprising (not really). I've grown these for years after after receiving in a seed exchange. They are excellent for both sauce and slicing (and roasting low and slow for about 3 hours). They are delicious, often very large, and very prolific.
I'll probably grow 'Baylor Paste' from Adaptive as well as it is the only roma type that I have every gotten a decent harvest from - tons of fruit and zero blossom end rot.
I prefer to plant open-pollinated seeds, but make an exception for 'Juliet'. It's like a mini roma/large grape. I covered both of my plants and they are still producing.
I will have to try 'Pomodoro Squisito'. I am also super curious about 'Golden Treasure'.
I used to grow 'Amish Paste' and thought it was great. The couple of years it was disappointing so I didn't grow it this year and probably won't again.
Thank you for this review!! My sungolds were fabulous as always. My san marzano were mixed - some perfect, and plenty with BER. You've given me some new ideas to try.