(Solanum lycopersicum)

If you’re looking to cook your tomatoes (sauce, paste, ketchup, salsa, etc.) Paste tomatoes are your best option! They have meaty flesh with less seeds than a slicer variety.

There are two types of tomatoes- determinate and indeterminate. Determinate varieties reach a certain plant height and then stop growing- producing their fruit over a one to two month time period. Do not prune determinate varieties! Indeterminate varieties grow in a more vining pattern, require trellising, and generally perform well when pruned. Indeterminate varieties will continue to produce all season long until the frost.

Bonny Best- Famous old canning tomato that was introduced in 1908 by Walter P. Stokes seed house. This variety become one of the most respected and well known canning varieties in American during the first half of the twentieth century. Medium fruit is red, round, meaty and bursting with flavor. High yielding. Indeterminate.

Cipolla’s Pride- Originally brought to Brooklyn New York from Sicily in 1906 by Emilio Cipolla, this tomato has fantastic flavor. Very tough plants produce high yields of 10-16 oz. fruits in a concentrated window, which is ideal for harvesting for canning and sauce. Indeterminate.

Jersey Devil- Our personal favorite! This paste variety produces massive oblong shaped fruit and is incredibly productive over a long season. Makes processing a breeze with its meaty texture and size. Indeterminate.

Oregon Star- The vigorous, determinate plants produce huge fruit, 3 by 5 inches that are the meatiest sauce tomatoes imaginable. A signature characteristic of Oregon Star is its variability in fruit shape. Regardless of appearance, your harvest will make the richest soups and sauces.

Longkeeper- This storage tomato can be grown and harvested to give you fresh fruit throughout the winter. When the plant is nearly full of ripe fruit, harvest. Pull up the entire tomato plant, brush the dirt off the roots, and hang it upside down in an area that will stay 65-68 F. Will last 6-12 weeks in storage! Determinate.

Saucy-An early paste variety with small bushes that heavily produce clusters of plumshaped, dense, 2-3 oz red fruit with good flavor. Resists blossom end rot, to which so many other sauce tomatoes are susceptible. Very reliable and early compared to the ubiquitous Roma variety. Released in 1993 by Dr. Jim Baggett of Oregon State University. Determinate.

Planting Information:

Tomatoes can be planted in the garden after the danger of frost has passed and when the soil has warmed to roughly 50 degrees. In the Portland area, this is generally early to mid-May. A good rule of thumb is to plant your tomatoes out on Mother’s Day Weekend.

Photos by Baker Creek Seed Company, High Mowing Seed Company, and Territorial Seed Company.