Low-Acid Tomato Varieties
Karen
WHICH TOMATOES ARE LOW ACID?
Often there are enquiries about which tomato varieties are low in acid and occasionally there's an enquiry about “no acid tomatoes”. So here is a blog about the varieties that are currently in our range.
Tomatoes contain citric acid and your body uses this type of acid to produce energy. Unfortunately, some dietary requirements for people who suffer from acid related digestive issues eg. acid reflux, ulcers, stomach problems necessitate caution when they want to have tomatoes in their diet. The low-acid tomatoes are a good option for them to grow.
Before we go any further, we need to address the misnomer about No-Acid tomatoes. Simple.... I don’t believe these exist but am happy to be proven wrong. We have no such variety in the 75 available in our range. A tomato is an acidic product of nature so to take this away would create something that would be very untomato-like and certainly wouldn’t taste like a tomato.
Tomatoes that fall into the low-acid range tend to have smaller amounts of seed, and more flesh than other varieties of tomato which make these the best option for making sauces and pastes, hence they are also referred to as paste tomatoes. The most commonly recognised variety are the roma style tomatoes. The oxheart style tomatoes are also more fleshy with small seed cavities.
Heirloom varieties:
Amish Paste
This red variety is known since 1885 and is a good producer. The plants perform well under most conditions and grow to approx 1.5m with fruit weighing around 225g.
Artisan Blush (organic)
An organic cherry variety introduced to our range in 2017. I grew it and found it to be a very prolific fruiter, growing to 2m. Loved the elongated small size of the fruit (approx the size of two small cherry toms) and it was fun watching the colour develop from green to yellow and then the red blush.
A new addition to our range this year. You may have seen the chat about this on Seven Sharp when the article about Kings Seeds 40th year in business was aired. It was Lucas de Jong’s (interviewer) choice for using in a competition so there will most likely be a few of these vines in NZ gardens this year. This is a bush tomato that produces 7cm long fruit, and these are great made into a sweet yellow tomato paste.
Roma (organic)
Here is the popular Italian tomato that is best known for the fabulous sauces that can be made from the bright red flesh. The vigorous plant produces 50g fruit that are also tasty when used in salads or dried.
San Marzano (organic)
Another bright red roma style tomato with 7cm long fruit that are tasty, good for paste, puree or eating fresh.
As suggested by its name, this pink tomato is shaped like a heart and a standard Italian home gardener variety. It is very fleshy making it low in acid and therefore great for making tomato paste, but it also provides nice big slices for sandwiches or salads. The fruit grow up to 600g.
This is a medium to large oxheart tomato with a dark blushed skin and great rich flavour. The plant needs staking as it grows 2 m high.
This tomato is from the northern regions of Italy and matures later in the growing season. The large pear shaped fruit weigh in at 230g with excellent taste and the vines grow to 1.5 m and have good disease resistance.
Hybrid variety:
Andiamo F1
A hybrid tomato that is very prolific and disease resistant. As with all roma style tomatoes, this is a great variety for eating fresh, making tasty sauces and pastes or using in a salsa.
