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Old November 16, 2007   #22
dice
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: PNW
Posts: 4,743
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Quote:
I just bought some San Marzano seeds."
Most pastes should do fine in your climate. The caveats
are that the buyer needs to know that is what they are
buying ("roma-like", not juicy, with tiny seeds, meant
for cooking) and that roma-derived tomatoes tend
to get BER easily (soil needs plenty of calcium and
to stay moist; possibly a side-effect of decades of
selection in chalky Mediterannean soils rich in calcium,
where BER just didn't happen unless there was a drought
and they were not irrigated.)

Odds are people that select paste tomato seedlings will
already know enough about tomatoes in general to know
that, though.

Korney posted a list of "great paste tomatoes" in
a thread here a couple of months ago:

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=6302&page=2

Another one that Earl particularly liked was Andes Horn
(also called Cornue de Andes, IIRC).

The thing to remember about pastes is that they rarely
compete with slicers, canners, and salad tomatoes for
fresh flavor. It is the cooking or drying of them that
concentrates the flavors, and there is a lot less juice
to reduce, so less cooking time. (Something to tell
customers that ask "What is a 'paste' tomato?)
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