Paste Tomato

Paste tomatoes have dense flesh and relatively little watery gel. Determinate varieties suit batch preserving; indeterminate varieties spread harvest over more weeks.

Sun

Full sun

Water

1–2 in/week, deep and even

Spacing

24 in

First harvest

65–90 days

Tips

• Choose determinate plants for concentrated sauce harvests.
• Do not heavily prune determinate plants.
• Keep moisture even to reduce blossom-end rot.
• Use tested canning recipes with required acidification; paste tomatoes are not automatically safe to can without acid.
• Plant hardened transplants deeply, burying the stem up to the lowest remaining leaves once soil is warm.
• Install a cage or stake at planting and tie new growth loosely as it lengthens.
• Water the soil deeply to supply about 1-2 inches weekly, keeping foliage dry.
• Remove diseased lower leaves and rotate away from other nightshades to reduce soilborne disease.
• Pick fruit when fully colored and slightly yielding, or let mature blushing fruit finish ripening indoors.

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