Gardeners Basics, San Marzano Tomato Seeds for Planting Heirloom Non-GMO Seeds for Home Garden Vegetables Makes a Great Gift for Gardening

I am a Louisiana grandmother. My Dad was a champion of tomato growing. I have never had a fraction of his ability or success. He propagated heirloom tomatoes from seed. San Marzano seeds, nursery seedlings, or even in our small town grocery stores were available. I ordered these seeds last spring, along with others, plus nursery started seedlings. They are awesome. They continue to grow and produce way into the fall. I tied them up like my dad did, but they continued growing and growing, spilling over the other garden plants and bushing up on the ground. It was looking for Easter eggs. I just ordered several packets, to start later indoors. I am going to grow a whole garden full! (with my son’s considerable help).

I love to cook. I love Italian cuisine. I love homemade salsa and pasta sauces and I love garden fresh tomatoes. For years I have been going to my local big box store and buying a small variety of tomato seeds, usually cherry tomatoes (for salads), big boy hybrids (for sandwiches,sauces and canning) and romas (for making sauces and general use). I buy seeds and avoid buying the overpriced plants because I like to have it my way and starting seeds, cultivating plants and harvesting the seasons production is quite satisfying. So this year I thought I would branch out a bit and see what the San Marzano tomato was all about. I've read about how meaty they are, how sweet they are and how flavorful they are, but until you actually grow and cultivate some for yourself, you are never sure how well the advertisement stands up to actual results. It will be at least 2 months before I actually have a tomato to eat, but so far, so good. I started with 8 4" peat pots, filled each with garden soil and added 3 seeds to each pot. 8 days later I have 22 plants about 1/2" tall. After they start to put on leaves I will cull out the runts and plant the remainder in my above ground planters that I use specifically for my tomatoes and herbs. The advertisement states that each packet of seeds contains 200mg of seeds, about 100 seeds. I believe that is correct and after using about 1/4th of the quantity of seeds, I have plenty left for next year. I placed the remainder in my seed catalog and depending on this years results, will grow more in the coming couple of years. The price of $6 for a packet of seeds might seem expensive to some, but considering the high germination rate and at least 100 seeds, you'll get a lot of tomatoes for that price. I typically pay about $1.50 to $2 for a much smaller packet of seeds, so I'm pleased with the price. I have also factored in the fact that I can save the unused portion of this packet for future plantings, so I can get multiple years of gardening from a single packet of seeds. I'll update this review later in the summer to report on how well, how many and how delicious these tomatoes are, good or bad, but I have high expectations that these seeds are going to produce a lot of tomatoes. For those of you who are having problems with germination, here's something that you might want to try. Prepare your starting pots or seed trays by filling them with quality soil. I recycle a lot of my garden soil and starting seedlings doesn't require a lot of dirt. After filling each with soil, slightly tamp the soil down until it has a smooth surface. Don't compress the soil, but just get it so the surface is level and smooth. After that, depending on the size of your planting cups, put 2-3 seeds on top of the soil and then lightly sprinkle dirt over the seeds to a depth of no more than 1/4 to 3/8" deep and lightly water. Do not soak the soil and over saturate the soil. Place in an area that receives strong morning sunlight and water again each evening when there will be less evaporation. You should see seedlings in about 7-10 days.

I soaked the seeds in water for 24 hours prior to putting in dome over heat mat. Extremely high germination rate!

I started square foot gardening in 2020, with a hiatus in 2021 and 2022 because deer mowed my plants down both of these years. Because I grow square foot method, I prefer to use indetermate tomato plants, because they can be string trained or trellised. High production, low space requirement. In 2020, my san marzanos (different brand of indeterminates) were fantastic and huge! I bought these seeds in 2022, after running out of my first and being too lazy to dig through my purchase history. These germinated and sprouted but due to my cat's obsession with tomato sprouts/seedlings none made it into the garden. This year I put up a very tall garden fence to keep the deer out, ran part of it on the ground tp keep armadillos out, and seeded late on my deck to keep my cat out of seedlings. The seeds, a year later sprouted just fine and made it to the garden and maturity this year. I accidently knocked my seed tray over containing my tomato sprouts (in peet pods) on my way to the garden. As a result, my san marzano, cherry tomato, and beef steak seedlings all got mixed together. Cherry tomato plants get huge, but still shouldn't be a huge deal. I have them growing with okra to the south of them, sp the tomatoes don't shade out all else in each bed. For some reason a few of my plants leaves curled from very early on, but not all plants. There was no disease, wasn't a watering issue, wasn't a nutrient issue. In fact I may have over loaded them on nutrients if anything trying to fix the leaf curl issues. As season went on, the curled leaf plants just didn't grow much. They stayed so short that the ones in the middle of the beds got shaded out quickly and completely by the later planted okra and other tomato plants. But they were getting super bushy. Then it dawns on me, what if these aren't indeterminates? (I'd never grown determinates before. It never occured to me that the same kind of tomato had both determinate AND indeterminate types.) I come in and check the seed packet, and sure enough - the back says determinate. My plants were too big by the time I figured this out to put cages around them, so they are on strings like my other tomato plants, with some of the runners tied up to my overhead to try to make the best of it. The only place I noticed in the listing "determinate" was on the back of package in one of the pics - which i did not look at in detail. So, just FYI - these are a determinate variety! Now, the good - these things are PROLIFIC fruit bearers. So much so, where one vine of tomatoes ends and another begins, you can't necessarily tell because they are so thick and close together. While attempting to tie up the fruiting vines, to get em off the ground - bc no cage - i had 3 of probably 10 plants have vines that broke off while still green, bc the limbs were THAT heavy. So, with that said, make sure you want determinates before you buy these. If you DO want determinates - these. are. amazing. (I never did figure out why the leaves curled, in the last few weeks growth the old leaves have remained curled but new leaves are normal. Curled leaves didnt impact anything that I can tell though.) I removed one star because I feel like the listing should make it more clear these are determinate and not indeterminate variety, other than just in image, and also hassle of mystery leaf curl which did not occur in any other varieties it was interplanted with.

These tomatoes grew well and tasted wonderful and cooked up well. I would buy them again.

I planted these San Marzano seeds a week ago and as the photos show, and I’ve got a very nice group of tomato plants which seem to be thriving. Can’t testify to the actual tomatoes as these plant are far from providing their bounty, but the seeds are growing, making this purchase a successful one.

I purchased these seeds in the spring on 2022 and they sprouted well and provided healthy plants. That being said, I don't believe they are true San Marzanos as they are not the long thin tomatoes portrayed as San Marzanos, but rather more of a typical Roma type paste tomato. Plants produced well but did not continue to grow as an indeterminate tomato should and they were not particularly sweet. I will be trying a different brand for 2023.