Tomatoes & friends
San Marzano
Paste tomato for sauce; two crops a year.
- Indoors
- 6 to 8 wk (Jan to early Feb)
- Outside
- Late Mar, again Jul 1-25
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground, staked
- Sun
- Full sun; six hours minimum
- Water
- Deep weekly soak; even water or the long fruit rot
- Harvest
- Jun, then Oct to Nov
Care
- Water
- Deeply and about weekly, an inch that wets the soil 6 inches down, in the early morning; skip any week that brings half an inch of rain, and step up toward 2 inches in August heat. Dead even is the discipline: on a paste type, blossom end rot hits those long fruits first, ahead of any slicer.
- Sow
- In cells in January to early February: 2 seeds a quarter inch deep per cell, keep the stronger. Plant deep at set-out, burying the stem to the first true leaves, 18 to 24 inches apart and staked. Start a second bench in May for the July fall planting.
- Start inside
- Room temperature germinates tomato fine here, sprouts in 7 to 10 days, so the mat is a speed tool, not a necessity. Under the lights 14 to 16 hours. Out in the latter half of March once frost passes and soil hits 55F; the fall bench goes out July 1 to 25.
- Feed
- Compost worked into the bed at planting, then one side-dress when the first fruit set, nitrogen low once the trusses load or you grow leaves in place of sauce. Steady moisture does more for a paste type than any extra fertilizer. Hold all feeding through the July-August heat.
- Ready
- Pick at full color and still firm. The spring flush lands before the gap closes; the fall crop, set once September's nights cool, is the canning crop. The last pick ahead of the mid-November frost is anything that has started to turn.
- Trouble
- Sunken black patch at the blossom end: uneven moisture in a paste type, so soak deeply and evenly. Flowers that drop through the mid-June to early-September gap: normal, and set restarts with the cool nights. Hornworms: hand-pick at dusk.
In a bag?
- No
- A full-size paste vine wants more root room than the 15 gallon cap holds, and a bag's tight moisture swings bring on the blossom end rot this paste type shows first; in July the same swing arrives twice as fast. The Texas container minimum for tomatoes is 5 gallons, but the honest call for this one is the bed.
San Marzano is the sauce tomato here, double-cropped like every Killeen tomato: a spring flush before the heat gap, then a fall crop for the canning pot. The famous name earns its row twice over.
Growing
It runs on the Killeen tomato schedule: sow in January to early February, set out in the latter half of March planted deep and staked, suckers pruned weekly, and the plant loaded with flowers before the mid-June gap closes. Moisture is the discipline, since a wet-to-dry swing shows up as blossom end rot in the long fruit before any slicer. For the fall crop, the May bench transplants July 1 to 25, set resumes as September's nights cool, and October into November fills the canning pot ahead of the mid-November frost.
Varieties
Texas sources name paste tomatoes (Roma and Viva Italia make the state lists) but no San Marzano type, so the choice there stays generic: any true San Marzano strain, with San Marzano 2 the improved standard. Heat-set strains (Sun Pride, Heatwave, Solar Fire) only stretch the shoulders; none sets through the July-August core.
In the kitchen
Split, roasted flat, and milled, it makes the salsa roja and the bottled sauce the fall kitchen runs on; dry flesh and few seeds mean less time boiling water off the pot. The spring flush goes fresh, the October crop goes into jars.