Canned tomatoes are the backbone of winter cooking. Amish Paste and Roma earn their bed space.

Sow

Start indoors April 1. Out after May 15 behind a wall or May 20 in the open. Harden off a week.

Spacing

24–36 in. Stake or cage. Determinate (Roma) for sauce in one wave; indeterminate for all summer.

Days

70–85 from transplant

Harvest

Full color. Pick ahead of a frost warning and ripen on the kitchen counter.

Store

Can (water-bath with added lemon juice — 1 Tbsp per pint), dehydrate into leather, or freeze roasted halves.

Seed

Ferment scooped seed 2–3 days in a jar, rinse, dry. Isolate heirlooms by 20+ ft or more.

Companions

Basil, marigold, carrot. Not potato.

Pests

Hornworms — hunt at dusk, look for stripped stems and black frass. Leave any with white cocoons (braconid wasps). Septoria leaf spot — mulch, don’t water leaves, prune lower suckers.

10 healthy paste plants fill a shelf of quarts for two people.