PASTE TOMATOES
Amish Paste heirloom, 80+ days. Indeterminate. Said to have been grown by an Amish colony near Medford WI as far back as the 1870's. An oxheart type that produces deep red, 1/2 pound fruit that are firm, slightly juicy, nearly seedless, and somewhat sweet with low acidity. Amish Paste is a favorite for fresh table use as well, as its name suggests, of being an excellent canner. Heavy yields are born on aggressive sprawling vines that grow out to 6 ft or more taking up a lot of space and requiring much in the way of physical support. This is definitely not a tomato to try and grow in a container or small raised bed. Amish Paste’s regular leaf foliage has little resistance to septoria leaf spot or early blight. Keeping the vines off the ground, trimming the very bottom leaves below 18 inches, and mulching will help. To avoid sun scald allow all suckers to grow to provide shade. On the hottest, brightest days you may want to consider a 30% sunshade cloth cover. I grew my Amish Paste plants where a tall maple provided shade during the hottest part of the midday which alleviates the problem. I really do like this heirloom variety, but only recommend it to those who have ample space for it to sprawl, and who will take the preventive measures to deter disease.
Anna Russian heirloom, 80+ days, Indeterminate. Anna Russian produces beautiful rosy pink, oxheart shaped fruit sometimes weighing over a pound that grow in clusters of two or three. Anna's profound aroma and excellent sweet flavor places it often on the best tasting tomato list. It’s also an excellent canner, but it so good fresh, good luck having any left to preserve.
Anna Russian was brought by a Russian immigrant to the state of Oregon and given to Kenneth Wilcox who passed the variety on through his granddaughter, Brenda Hillenius.
Oxhearts, like Amish Paste and Anna Russian are great multi-purpose tomatoes. Their firm meaty fruits contain few seeds making them excellent for canning, and yet they are juicy enough with a good balance of sugars and acids to make them good eating tomatoes fresh of the vines. I like Anna’s flavor even better than Amish for fresh off the vine table use, but they are both very good tomatoes. Amish Paste is the better canner.
Being an oxheart tomato plant like Amish Paste, Anna Russian also has distinctly vigorous sprawling vines with wispy, sparse, almost fern-like foliage that can lead to the same problems discussed above. In other words, it is another ‘high maintenance’ tomato. Is it worth the time, space, and effort necessary to produce a good crop? I really think so. It’s a standout in the aroma, texture, and flavor department, and I really don’t know of another, less high maintenance, tomato to use as a substitue that comes close to matching Anna’s sublime gourmet qualities.
Health Kick hybrid, 75 days. Determinate. A newer innovation in health food is Petoseed's 1999 introduction of hybrid Health Kick tomato. The 3 to 5 oz meaty, roma-type tomatoes contain 50% more lycopene than other tomatoes and ripen on vines that only grow up to 4 ft. tall and Expect high yields of bright red, tangy tomatoes maturing over a very short period of time. Only one main crop is produced. Once it’s harvested, you’re done.
In addition to its heart-healthy benefits, gardeners are reporting that Health Kicks are very resistant to the devastating spotted wilt virus and other common foliar diseases, The tomatoes are great for cooking up a chunky sauce or salsa. I have been very successful growing Health Kick in #5 (3.9 gal.) pots in full sun on a patio.
Martino’s Roma heirloom, 75 days. Determinate. Bright red 2oz, meaty, paste-type fruit in abundance. Martino is excellent for cooking and canning, but also delicious eaten fresh. Martino is more resistant to blossom end rot and early blight than many other paste tomatoes. The bushy plant is very productive over a very short period of time and grows only 3 to 4 feet tall. It’s dark green, rugose (puckered) foliage is somewhat resistant to disease.
Martino's Roma was discovered in 1991 by Maureen Conway, an SSE member, being grown by an 87 year old Italian gardener in the Finger Lakes region of New York. His source was a friend who had brought seed to the U.S. from Italy.
Opalka heirloom, 80+ days. Indeterminate. The meaty, half pound, bright red, bullhorn—shaped tomatoes with orange shoulders, cluster in groups of 3 to 5 on six to 8 ft gangly vines, and contain very few seeds and very little gel which makes Opalka prized for saucing and canning. Its rich, sweet, slightly spicy taste makes it also a gourmet tomato to eat straight from the vine.
Opalka has the typical wispy, droopy leaves found on many paste tomato cultivars, with the disease vulnerabilities that go with that. I found it annoyingly susceptible to blossom end rot and early blight. Still I continued to grow it because of its unusually rich flavor and most excellent canning qualities.
Renown tomato expert Dr. Carolyn Male was given seeds from Carl Swidorski whose wife’s (nee Opalka) family had brought with from Poland when they immigrated to Amsterdam, NY, in the early1900’s. Carolyn donated Opalka seed to the Seed Savers Exchange which was featured in their 1991 yearbook.
Principe Borghese heirloom, 75 days. Determinate. This Italian heirloom is traditionally used for drying. At harvest time in Sicily and Tuscany you'll find racks and racks of these plants bearing clusters of bright red, meaty 2 oz plum-shaped fruit hanging outside baking in the sun. Principe produces its crop over a short period of time and is traditionally used for drying, but its rich flavor also makes it great for sauces, or eating fresh.
Sun-drying was easily achieved in my greenhouse where I simply hung whole plants upside down and let the fruit dry on the vine, butour Midwest climate is really not conducive to sun-drying outdoors.Cutting the tomatoes in half lengthwise, placing skin side down on lightly oiled (preferably extra light extra virgin olive) cooky sheets and baking in an oven set at 200 will substitute adequately. Check after 3 hrs and judge the remaining time needed.
The name comes from an Italian noble family - the House of Borghese - with deep roots in Tuscany and Rome
Rio Grande Hybrid, 80+ days. Determinate. A paste tomato released to USDA in 1994 created by UC Davis plant breeders specifically to set fruit in extreme summer heat. They also bred in traits that gave Rio Grande disease and crack resistance, and also made it less susceptible to blossom end rot. Rio’s parent lines were Italian Roma strains. The bushy plants bear huge yields of quarter pound egg-shaped red fruits. This is a great choice for sauce but definitely not a fresh for the table slicer tomato because there is not much flavor of any kind to describe until cooked. My harvest of Rio Grandes, beginning 80 days after setting, out was absolutely free of blossom end rot, unusual for paste variety tomatoes, and verifying one of its developers claims
In choosing a name for their tomato the UC team might have had the lower Rio Grande climate in mind because of its similarity to the climate where much of California’s commercial produce is grown. California farms produce 90 percent of the nation’s tomatoes, and UC Davis is the leader in research in basic physiology, biochemistry, and genetics of tomatoes.
Doing research on 7/18/26 Google’s AI mode characterized Rio Grande as an heirloom. This is absolutely false, but I understand the mixup. Public acceptance for the label heirloom is the cultivar can be any open-pollenated tomato so long as it has been available for over 50 years including such well known tomatoes as Rutgers, Marglobe, and Big Boy even though they were F1 hybrids when first marketed, Tomato purist insist that to be considered an heirloom no tinkering with the genetic code through hybridization or engineering by commercial developers has ever been done, regardless of how long the cultivar has been available.
Rio Grande doesn’t qualify as heirloom using either the public or the purist accepted terminology. The UC Davis team did take the F1 hybrid and grow it out repeatedly using selection to make it an OP seed much more affordable to commercial growers, but the 1994 release date means Rio Grande will not qualify for heirloom status until 2044 using even the generous public accepted criterium.
AI does not have human reasoning and judgment capabilities. It is superhuman in combing and summarizing data. The errant data it is combing includes seed catalogues that incorrectly advertise Rio Grande as an heirloom tomato - probably because the word HEIRLOOM has market appeal. Most of these commercial seedsmen know better and should be more honest.
Roma open-pollinated, 75 days. Determinate. While we often use the word “roma” as a category name to refer to any of a number of meaty, plum-shaped tomatoes with few seeds and low moisture content ideal for making sauces and paste, the original Roma was created by William Porte at USDA Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville MD by crossing San Marzano with Red Top and Pan America. His new variety resulted in higher yields and more disease resistant compact determinate plants that matured 2 ounce fruit over a short period of time convenient for harvesting and processing.
Stable OP Roma seed was released to the public in 1955 and quickly became the industry standard for commercial use. It is still a very popular tomato easily found at your local grocer as fresh fruit, in spring at garden supplies as potted starter plants, or in seed catalogues. It grows well in my garden, and is great for processing, but not one I particularly desire for fresh table use.
Saucy Lady 75 days, hybrid. Determinate. Highly productive, bushy tomato plant reaching 3 to 5 ft. yields in a short window of time a large crop of richly flavored 4 oz blocky, oblong shaped, bright red fruit. I like Saucy Lady’s flavor and find it suitable for fresh salads and such. It also shows more resistance to blossom end rot than many pastes. Having limited planting space, though, I prefer a longer harvest period to keep fresh fruit on the table. I actually don’t process all at once anyway. I freeze tomatoes whole in zip-locks and then thaw them out and process them during winter months when I have more free time. I’ve grown Saucy Lady twice with no problems, like it, and recommend it if it suits your garden needs.
Sheboygan heirloom, 90 days. Indeterminate. The regular leaf vines of Sheboygan are vigorous and productive. The paste-type fruits are pink in color, weigh between four and nine ounce. Unlike most bland paste tomatoes, Sheboygan delivers big flavor that is balanced and complex making them excellent for fresh eating, processed into paste or sauce, or for canning. Introduced to seed savers in 1998 by heirloom preservationist Dr. Jeff Nekola who said his source told him that this variety has been grown since the early part of the 1900s in Sheboygan, Wisconsin by Lithuanian immigrants.
I really like Sheboygans productivity over a long period of time, and it’s flavor as a slicing paste tomato is second only to Opalka. But Sheboygan has no resistance to Septoria leaf spot or Early Blight so extra preventive garden culture must be strictly taken to avoid the onset of those diseases.
Viva Italia hybrid, 75 days. Determinate. Expect heavy sets of firm, 3 oz,. blocky, plum-shaped, red, tomatoes that grow on stocky compact plants that can be easily container grown. The hybrid plant is very disease resistant, and the fruit will all ripen within a month starting about 75 days after setting out, which suits most canners to a tee. Its meatiness and thick walls make it perfect for sauces, salsa, ketchup, or sun-drying. Viva Italia also is flavorful enough to top salads.
I am growing Viva Italia to replace Roma, which refuses to set fruit in the extended hot weather that is becoming more and more common here in N. IL.
Viva Italia, trial name PSX88288, a hybrid creation of Petoseed’s plant breeding superstar Colen Wyatt, was first offered to the consumer in 1992 by Totally Tomatoes, Tomato Growers Supply Co., and Park Seed, then in 1993 by Burpee Seed.
Zenzei hybrid, 75 days. Indeterminate. High-yielding roma tomato developed by Bayer/Semnis in 2023, especially for gardeners in the Midwest. This regional AAS winner produces a great yield of hybrid plum-shaped meaty fruits that are uniform and weigh up to 6 1/2 oz. each and are perfect for canning and freezing. The vines are very vigorous growing up to 6 ft tall and require support. Kenzie exhibits good cold setting ability and also features resistance to Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus, Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus, Powdery Mildew and Nematodes.
While only an acceptable slicer, I find Zenzei great for fresh salsa, and dicing for salad topping or bruschetta.
Zenzie will keep producing heavily up to frost.
For my purposes, wanting a multipurpose, disease resistant, climate indifferent tomato for table usage and preserving with a long harvest window, this is it.