"zxcvbob" wrote in message
...
Nick Cramer wrote:
Mark A.Meggs wrote:
On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:14:45 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

spring greetings to all! I want to grow roma tomatoes for canning
this year. I've planted heirlooms for salads before, but never
"sauce" tomatoes. Are there any recommendations for a nice, sweet,
prolific type? We'd prefer to start from seed, but if there's a great
seedling from garden centers or mail order, that's fine too! All
suggestions & opinions greatly appreciated! TIA, bobdrob
I grew the San Marzano variety from Johnny's Selected Seeds last year.
They supposed to be the same ones grown in San Marzano. Prolific and
great flavor - I put up over 100 pints before I got tired of it and
stopped watering them. I had about 12 plants.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/p...arch&search=sa
n%2bmarzano&item=2866

The only real problem was that they outgrew the tomato cages by
several feet. I'm trying to figure out how to support them this year.

Thanks, Mark. San Marzanos are the best Romas I've ever had.
Unfortunately,
I've only had them canned. I last tried growing tomatoes, including
Romas,
potted, two years ago. Between the bugs, my dog and other critters, I
ended
up with almost nothing.



"Principe Borghese" is a great variety for drying. They should be good
canned too, but I wouldn't want to have to peel 'em because they are
small. I saved a couple of fruit last year for seeds, but instead of
mashing them up in some water and letting them rot (like I usually do when
I'm saving tomato seeds), I just let them dry out and rot. The seeds
looked OK when I crumbled them up and planted them, but I got 0%
germination. Oops. Maybe I'll get some volunteers in my garden.

I'm planting "Rutgers" for my main tomato crop this year, and maybe one or
two "Better Boy" in case Rutgers doesn't do well up here.

I bought a fresh giant red Thai pepper 3 or 4 years ago, intending to
plant the seeds the following spring. Of course I forgot about it, and
just discovered the dried out pepper in the cupboard last month. I
cracked it open to get the seeds out, and it was full of dark gray mold.
Oops again. So I planted *all* the seeds in a little flat made from a
buttermilk carton. The first seedling started poking up in just 2 days. A
couple of days after that, there were almost a dozen. Last Saturday
afternoon (about 2 weeks after planting the seeds) I potted up 20 little
pepper plants, and barely made a dent in them. I'll bet there's over 100
more plants in that flat. I dunno what I'm going to do with them all. I
don't have room to plant them all out, and I don't have the heart to throw
them away.

Maybe you could sell them? I've seen people do that occasionally in their
front yards. The prices they charge are cheaper than what you would pay at
a nursery.