Tomatoes & friends
San Marzano
Paste tomato for sauce.
- Indoors
- 6 to 8 wk (late Mar)
- Outside
- Transplant after frost
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground, staked
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Every 3 to 4 days in July; dead even or blossom end rot
- Harvest
- Aug to Oct, one big flush
Care
- Water
- Every 3 to 4 days in July and August, about weekly in spring and fall. A long soak at the base until the top few inches are wet, then let it dry a little before the next. Hold the soil dead even; on a paste type, blossom end rot hits those long fruits first, ahead of any slicer.
- Sow
- In cells in late March: 2 seeds a quarter inch deep per cell, keep the stronger. Set plants 18 to 24 inches apart in the bed, staked. Bury the stem to the first true leaves at transplant, and prune the suckers weekly.
- Start inside
- Mat at 75 to 85F, sprouts in 5 to 10 days. Under the lights the moment they break ground, 14 to 16 hours; off the mat at the first true leaves. Outside after mid May, once nights hold 50F.
- Feed
- A shovel of compost or castings worked in at planting starts the bed. Once the first fruit reach an inch, side-dress with Garden-tone, up to a third cup a plant, and again at harvest. Steady moisture does more for this paste type than any extra fertilizer.
- Ready
- Pick at full color and still firm; the crop lands in one big flush from August into October, right on time for a canning weekend. Fruit that has broken color finishes fine on the counter.
- Trouble
- Sunken black patch at the blossom end: uneven moisture in a paste type, soak evenly and skip high-nitrogen feed. Split fruit: rain after a dry spell, pick hard before storms. Hornworms in July: hand-pick at dusk.
In a bag?
- No
- A San Marzano is a big indeterminate paste vine that wants more root room than a 15 gal bag holds, and a bag's tight moisture swings bring on the blossom end rot this paste type already shows first. Give it the bed.
San Marzano is the most famous name in paste tomatoes, and one plant a year grows here beside Amish Paste for the sauce weeks. Every September the two meet at the canning pot, and the famous name has to keep earning its row.
Growing
It runs with the main tomato crop: started indoors in late March, planted deep after mid May, staked, given a full bed slot with real root room, suckers pruned weekly. Moisture is the discipline here: let the soil swing wet to dry and blossom end rot arrives in the long fruit before any slicer shows a spot. The crop comes in one big late flush, August into October, which is exactly what a canning weekend wants.
Varieties
San Marzano 2 is the improved standard strain; Redorta is the oversized Lombard cousin that fills a sauce pot in fewer fruit.
In the kitchen
Split, roasted flat, and milled, it makes the sauce the can labels keep promising. Dry flesh and few seeds mean less time boiling water off the pot.