Amish Paste

Amish Paste is one of the most popular heirloom paste tomatoes. Most accounts trace it to an Amish community near Medford, Wisconsin. It was also grown by Amish families in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and it reached a wider audience through the Seed Savers Exchange in the late 1980s.

The fruit is bigger than a Roma, often 6–12 ounces, and ranges from plum-shaped to heart-shaped. It is deep red, with dense, meaty flesh, few seeds and less juice than a slicing tomato, so it cooks down into thick sauce quickly. It is juicier than most paste types, though, and good sliced fresh as well.

Unlike Roma, Amish Paste is indeterminate. The plants grow tall and keep producing until frost, so they need tall stakes or strong cages, and you pick a steady supply rather than one big batch for canning. Expect the first ripe fruit roughly 80–85 days after transplanting.

Elongated paste tomatoes are especially prone to blossom end rot, so keep the soil evenly moist under a layer of mulch. Amish Paste has no bred-in disease resistance; rotate beds and water at the soil to slow leaf diseases.