🌱 Origin & Story
Amish Paste is said to trace to Amish communities in Wisconsin, with documented history beginning in the 1980s. The Medford, Wisconsin Amish settlement — the oldest surviving Amish community in the state, founded in 1920 — is frequently cited as the variety's home ground.
The seed entered the broader heirloom world through Tom Hauch, who acquired it from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Amish growers and shared it with the Landis Valley Museum, a living history farm in Lancaster that preserves Pennsylvania German agricultural heritage. From there, it made its way to the Seed Savers Exchange, appearing in the 1987 SSE Yearbook under the listing of Thane Earl.
That SSE listing was the turning point. Within a few years, Amish Paste went from a regional Amish variety to one of the most traded paste tomatoes in the seed-saving community. The Slow Food Foundation added it to the Ark of Taste — their catalog of heritage foods worth preserving — and it's stayed there since.
🍴 Flavor & Fruit
Large teardrop to oxheart-shaped fruits, 8–12 oz, deep red with thick, meaty walls and very few seeds. The flesh is dense and dry enough to cook down fast, but still juicy enough to eat fresh — a rare combination in a paste tomato.
The flavor is rich, sweet, and low-acid with genuine depth. Most paste varieties are workhorses — functional but flat-tasting. Amish Paste is a workhorse that also happens to taste exceptional. It reduces into a sauce with a complexity that store-bought paste tomatoes simply cannot touch.
Slice one crosswise and you'll see why people who make their own sauce won't grow anything else.
🌿 From Our Garden
We trialed four paste varieties our first year. Amish Paste was the only one where we stopped mid-cook, tasted the sauce, and immediately decided to double our planting the next season. The depth of flavor after a slow reduction is something you genuinely cannot get from a grocery store tomato — or, honestly, from most other paste varieties we've tried.
📅 Your Oklahoma Season
Plant after mid-April, or May 1 for extra caution. Tulsa's average last frost is early April. Expect first flowers in late May to early June, with first ripe fruit in mid-to-late July. Heavy harvests run through August and September, tapering as nights cool toward first frost in early November.
Blossom drop begins when daytime temperatures hit 85–90°F and nighttime stays above 72°F. It gets severe above 100°F. Amish Paste rebounds well after heat breaks — the fall flush is often your best sauce-making window. Don't pull this plant early. September and October harvests are worth the wait.
💧 Care for Optimal Health
Water deeply twice a week at the base, never overhead. Mulch 2–3 inches to keep moisture consistent and soil temperatures stable. Cracking is less of a concern with paste types — the thick walls help — but erratic watering still invites blossom end rot on those big fruits.
Feed balanced through early growth, then shift to phosphorus/potassium-forward once flowers set.
DIY mix: 2 tbsp fish emulsion + ½ tsp kelp per gallon, every 2–3 weeks.
Calcium at planting is essential here. These are heavy fruits on a big plant — gypsum or crushed eggshells worked into the planting hole give you real insurance against blossom end rot.
☀️ Oklahoma Heat
Amish Paste handles Tulsa summers respectably for an heirloom. The dense foliage provides good self-shading, but fruits exposed on the west side will sunscald during peak heat. Keep your leaf canopy intact. Don't over-prune.
During the worst heat weeks, 30–40% shade cloth in the afternoon and deep morning watering before temperatures build are your best tools.
🛡️ What to Watch For
No formal disease resistance ratings — this is an open-pollinated heirloom. The thick fruit walls provide some natural resistance to cracking and splitting, but foliage diseases are the main concern.
Stay ahead of these:
• Early blight — lower leaves, late summer. Remove affected foliage at the stem, don't compost. Copper fungicide preventively every 7–10 days after wet stretches — follow your product label for exact rates.
• Septoria leaf spot — similar management to early blight. Good air circulation and consistent lower-leaf pruning help.
• Hornworms — check leaf undersides weekly. Hand-pick or apply Bt (1 tsp/gallon, evening spray).
• Aphids — 2 tbsp neem oil + 2 tsp dish soap per gallon.
• Blossom end rot — calcium and consistent watering. Prevention only; once a fruit shows it, that fruit is done.
🍽️ In the Kitchen
Sauce: This is what Amish Paste was born for. Core, rough chop, simmer low and slow. It cooks down thick and sweet without needing to reduce for hours. A batch of these with garlic, basil, and olive oil makes a sauce you'll jar and hoard.
Roasted: Halve lengthwise, drizzle with olive oil, roast at 375°F until caramelized. Freeze them flat on sheet pans for winter pasta.
Fresh: Don't overlook it. Thick slices with mozzarella and basil — the low acid and meaty texture make a Caprese that holds up without going watery.
Canning: Ideal for whole-pack canning. The dense flesh holds its shape in the jar beautifully.
🪴 Why Our Starts?
Six weeks of professional growing before they reach you — proper lighting, careful watering, hardening off. Paste tomatoes benefit enormously from a strong root system at transplant. We handle the slow early weeks so you hit the ground with a plant that's ready to produce heavy fruit all season.
