Solanum lycopersicum.

The Italian sauce tomato par excellence. The Roma line was born in 1955 in the USDA laboratories at Beltsville (Maryland), from European paste-tomato lines from which it inherited its name and spirit. The "VF" suffix indicates its genetic resistance to two cryptogamic soil diseases that often ruin tomato patches — Verticillium wilt and Fusarium wilt — a precious advantage in gardens where Solanaceae have been rotating for several years.

Fruit shaped like a small elongated plum, 5 to 8 cm, bright red at maturity, with dense, firm, low-juice flesh and very few seeds. It's not the best tomato for a fresh salad — it frankly gains in cooking: marinara sauce, jar preserves, oven- or dehydrator-drying, homemade tomato paste reduced for hours on the stove. A determinate plant, therefore compact (90-120 cm), self-supporting, requiring no suckering, and producing in a concentrated wave over 3 to 4 weeks — practical when you want to put up a big batch in jars all at once for winter.

Grower's tip: Sow indoors 6 to 8 weeks before last frost, at 22-25 °C, under generous light. Transplant by burying the stem up to the first leaves — tomatoes put out roots all along their buried stem, and the plant comes out sturdier and better anchored. In the garden, generous mulching to keep the soil cool and stable — it's the irregularity of watering that prevents calcium from reaching the fruits and causes blossom-end rot (the famous "black bottom"), not a lack of calcium in the soil.

• Open-pollinated. Stable variety, reproduces faithfully from sowing to sowing. Self-fertile, so few crossings to fear.
• Height: 90 to 120 cm. Determinate plant — light staking suffices, no suckering needed.
• Maturity: 70 to 80 days after transplant.
• Exposure: full sun, sheltered from wind.
• Rich, deep, well-drained soil. Space plants 50 to 60 cm apart. Mulching recommended.
• Indoor start 6 to 8 weeks before last frost. Transplant once all risk of frost is past and the soil is at 15 °C minimum (late May / early June in Québec).