Growing Roma Tomatoes

Roma tomatoes are the normal paste tomatoes. With their dense and meaty flesh, low moisture content, and few seeds, the Roma tomato is right for processing into sauces and pastes. Roma tomatoes have a cylindrical or plum shape and feel heavy for his or her size. Their colors range from pink to orange to crimson. Verona, La Roma, and Sam Marzano are among the various popular Roma varieties.

New sorts of Roma are both flavorful for eating and meaty for cooking. These include Roma Napoli, Martino’s Roma, and Rio Grande Roma. Cherry Romas are small and sweet, perfect for snacking.

GROWING ROMA TOMATOES

You can start Roma tomatoes from seeds indoors two months before the last frost date for your area. Or, you’ll purchase seedlings (also called starts) from an area nursery or garden center and transplant them after the danger of frost has passed.

Romas need an equivalent condition as other tomatoes—well-drained soil high in organic matter, full sun, and plenty of water. Plant them about 14 to twenty inches apart. They’ll be able to harvest in about 75 to 80 days. Because Romas are determinate plants all the fruits of the tomato plants ripen at about an equivalent time, which may be a big advantage if you’re making the sauce. That’s why they create an excellent paste tomato.

But if you only want to eat the fruit, the Roma tomato is extremely tasty eaten raw. The fruit itself is usually about three inches long, and almost as round as other varieties, you would possibly have grown.

HARVESTING ROMA TOMATOES

Harvest your Roma tomatoes when the fruit is firm and evenly colored. If the temperature reaches 90 degrees F it’s best to select the fruit when it’s just beginning to color to ripen indoors at about 70 degrees F. Tomatoes won’t survive a frost, so if frost is predicted usher in the unripe fruits and ripen them in paper bags at 60 degrees approximately.

ROMA TOMATO PESTS AND DISEASES

Many Roma tomatoes are immune to early blight, fusarium, and verticillium wilt, diseases that plague tomatoes. Always choose seeds or seedlings that are VF resistant.

If you see a water-soaked area near the blossom end (bottom) of the fruit, your tomato may have blossom end rot, which is essentially a calcium deficiency. to assist avoid blossom end rot with the Roma tomato (and many other sorts of tomato plants too), don’t plant your tomatoes until the soil has warmed up and kept the soil evenly moist.

Tomato hornworms are big green caterpillars that camouflage themselves along the stems of tomato plants. the simplest thing to try to do is to select them off the plant—if you’ll find them!

To maximize fruit productivity and minimize insect and disease problems of this paste tomato select varieties that grow well in your area. Local nurseries and Cooperative Extension can offer you that information and assist you to identify plant problems. you’ll find your local extension office from this web site: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROMA TOMATOES AND REGULAR TOMATOES?

Roma tomatoes are just a spread of tomatoes. There are many sorts of tomato plants! Roma tomatoes are best referred to as paste tomatoes. meaning they’re great for creating ingredients and utilized in many documented Italian recipes. But you’ll eat them as regular tomatoes too, and they’re still delicious.

ARE ROMA TOMATOES BUSH OR VINE?

Roma tomatoes are bush tomatoes. they’re determined. Here’s a more detailed explanation of the difference between bush / determinate tomatoes and vine/indeterminate tomatoes. Bush (or determinate) means all the tomatoes will ripen at about an equivalent time, instead of continuing through the season.

SHOULD YOU PRUNE ROMA TOMATOES?

Since Roma tomatoes are a bush variety, they are doing not got to be pruned.

HOW TALL DO ROMA TOMATOES GROW?

Roma tomatoes are a bush (determinate) sort of tomato, which doesn’t grow as big as a vine (indeterminate) sort of tomato can grow. A Roma tomato will probably only grow as high as 3 feet, or 36 inches.

WHY ARE THEY CALLED ROMA TOMATOES?

You kind of image once you grow and luxuriate in these plants that they’re an old heirloom tomato that came to visit from some village in Italy. But the reality is that the Roma tomato variety was developed as a crossbred hybrid tomato back in 1955. it had been bred to be immune to the diseases of Verticillium wilt and wilt. In fact, the very first USDA cultivar, which remains commonly sold, is known as Roma VF for that reason. (But don’t tell this your Italian grandmother….)

Growing Roma Tomatoes

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