Sicilian Sauce Tomato

Why I grow it
This is a useful tomato rather than a show pony. I grow Sicilian Sauce because it produces the sort of fleshy tomatoes that are easy to turn into sauces and cooked dishes — particularly when summer is producing tomatoes faster than I feel like dealing with them.

One of my favourite ways to preserve them is also the easiest: I bag the tomatoes with garlic and herbs and freeze the lot. In winter the whole bag can go straight into a pot and become the beginnings of a pasta sauce, soup or whatever else needs tomatoes. No peeling, bottling or spending a summer afternoon sterilising jars.

At a glance
Type: Sauce tomato
Growth: Indeterminate
Fruit: Fleshy red tomatoes
Best use: Sauces, cooking and preserving
Season: Summer
Inventory: 5 plants

In the kitchen
Excellent anywhere you want a good cooking tomato. Use them fresh for pasta sauces, pizza sauce, soups and slow-cooked dishes, or preserve the summer glut for winter.

My lazy freezer method: put ripe tomatoes into a freezer bag with garlic and whatever herbs you have growing, seal and freeze. When you need them, tip the frozen contents straight into a pot and cook them down.

Not technically canning. Considerably less bloody effort.

In the garden
Give it a warm, sunny position and good support. As an indeterminate tomato it will continue growing and producing through the season rather than making one compact crop.

Care
Full sun, fertile soil and regular watering. Support the plant as it grows and feed during flowering and fruit production. Consistent watering helps reduce splitting and other fruit problems.

What you’ll receive
One established Sicilian Sauce tomato plant, ready to plant into its final growing position. Plants naturally vary in size and shape and may be supplied in reused nursery pots or growing bags — perfectly useful plastic doesn't need replacing simply because it doesn't match.