Can you mention all the dishes that you know that have tomatoes in them? Well, there are just too many, right? It is almost impossible to have to mention them all. One thing for sure is that fresh tomato sauce is simply delicious and this is the secret of so many chef to elevate the dishes that they create to another level. Will any tomato do for every sauce? Yes, but to make a great sauce you will need a special tomato, the Roma tomatoes.
What is a Roma tomato? It is a paste tomato. When a tomato is considered to be a paste tomato, then generally it has thicker fruit wall, denser grainy flesh and fewer seeds. It usually is oblong but heavier in size and also firmer compared to other types of tomatoes. The roma tomatoes are determine tomatoes. It means that the tomatoes ripens at one time and not continually all trough the season. As they are firmer, it may be quite difficult to know when they are ripe. So it is the visual that can help you determine of whether or not it is ripens. So when you see that the tomatoes are red from top to bottom, it is the indicator that the tomatoes are ripe and ready to be picked.
The next question is can we grow this type of tomato in our own garden? Well, caring for the roma tomatoes are no different to caring for the other tomatoes. The roma tomatoes do need lots of water just like the other, however, you need to water in little portion but often. They need rich soil and sometimes also need help to be stalked up off the ground in order to make them give their best fruit production.
Before you try to plant their seeds, you first need to prepare the soil by creating the beddings and also add the necessary compost. The alternative to compost is the slow release fertilizer. It is up to you which one to choose. When you have planted the seeds, you will need to water them at least once in a week. But when they have grown to about 6 – 12 inches high, then you need to start staking them.
Although the roma tomatoes are the secret ingredient to the fresh tomato sauce, but they can be considered to be easier to grow. This is because of the fact that many are verticillium wilt and fusarium resistant. Those two diseases have the ability to kill tomato plants, but they often they cannot kill the roma tomato.
