Rio Grande Roma Tomato - 2010 Growing Journal

March 1st -10th Planted Rio Grande tomato seeds in peat pellets. Germinated. Sprouting. Will transplant soon to 3 inch peat pots. March 14th: Transplanted into 3 inch peat pots. April 19th: Transplanted two, 7 week old plants outside in 10 and 15 gallon beige containers, each filled with compost and quality top soil. Added 2 tablespoons of tomato food, and 1 tablespoon of bone meal into hole before covering tomato roots. Planted as deep as possible. Click on image to enlarge. May 10th Update: Despite the lack of much rain, (there's been a little, but not as much as last year by this time) the Rio Grande Roma tomatoes are really doing great. (see pictures below). The Rio Grande is a popular roma tomato throughout Europe, including Italy, and in South America. In the United States, other roma varities seem to have more preference by gardeners which is too bad as the Rio Grande is reportedly a highly tolerant tomato that offers larger fruit that can be eaten whole or processed. Myfolia.com writes: A great paste tomato, this one has natural VFF resistance. Earlier and more productive than the standard Roma tomato. Plum shaped, red, regular leafed plant. On a thread at gardweb.com, a few posters there give this Roma paste tomato nice reviews and passes along a review from grower Chuck Wyatt who wrote in the 1990s: Rio Grande -75 days- Determinate - Rugose leaf,- compact growth. Seemingly very disease resistant - A super canner that out produces anything I have seen. The fruit is considerably larger than Roma and the plant bears at least twice as much as Roma. Expect four quarts of canned tomatoes per plant if well grown.

With glowing reviews such as these, it makes sense to grow this heirloom roma tomato instead of regular Roma VF tomatoes that seem to be more popular in seed catalogs. The seeds I have trace their ancestry back only a few generations to Southern Europe, so they are authentic.

The PASTE Rio Grande ROMA tomato should not be confused with the RIO GRANDE TOMATO, which is a very large sandwich tomato that grows 12 plus ounces. The Rio Grande Roma tomato looks like a standard, egg shaped, plum shaped roma tomato that is in the 2-4 ounce range.

My roma tomato container garden. The two rio grande romas on the left were transplanted April 19th, the younger one on the right was transplanted recently, on May 10th. Last year, we grew our roma paste tomatoes in 5 gallon containers, which was all we had at the time. Although the production was adequate, the size of the romas was small. Five gallon containers will grow tomatoes, they will do the job, but 10 to 25 gallon containers are more favorable as they will produce more and larger tomatoes.

In the time since last year, we purchased our "dream home" which contains 2.5 acres (1 hectare). We have mapped out our future garden area below, but have not had time to get it ready for the 2010 season as there are too many other more important "to dos" around this property = a lot of work needed to be done.

Future Garden Area

(Opens larger image in new window.) More clearing and work needs to be done before this garden area is completed, including the installation of raised beds and irrigation. This is behind our house and includes 6500 square feet. There is probably another 65,000 square feet of garden space off to the right of this image, which is to the north, - so there is plenty of room to grow, or grow all our own food I should say.

Rio Grande Roma tomato approximately 3 weeks after transplanting. Good growth compared to the image at top of page.

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