I use whatever's available and cheap....free is better!
I don't grow a huge garden for tomatoes any more.
If I were planning tomatoes for sauce to can or freeze I would think about the way I prefer to work....determinate or indeterminate.
I am a "do a little bit every week" kind of person so I prefer the indeterminate varieties....but if you are a "get it done all at once person"....then something like Early Girl might be good for you.

I have a 2 quart container left from last years " too many tomatoes" friend. They were a mix of Roma, Beefsteak and who knows what else.

Won't be long now!! The eagles have laid their eggs.
Linda C

"Costuluto Genovese" is one of my recommendations. It is indeterminate which means they get ripe over a long period of time and put out more flowers for more fruit over and over. Used for both fresh and canned.

My favorite for drying (and then making paste or sauce from them later) is "Principe Borghese", also an indeterminate and more meaty than Roma, more prolific, though smaller. I also use them in sandwiches since they are more meaty and not so juicy.

"San Marzano" is the variety that "all" Italians use for their canned whole or crushed tomatoes and for sauce. If you look in the grocery store, there are lots of canned tomatoes using San Marzano's. They look like a torpedo version of Roma's and are also indeterminate.

Here in the South I grow determinate tomatoes (ripen all at once) for canning juice, bloody mary mix, and sauce - called "Homestead" (high heat and humidity tolerant) and for the shorter growing season of y'all in the North their counterparts are "Rutgers" and "Marglobe", all with very high disease resistance.

Being determinate means you put up everything over a week's time which is good if you want to get it over with at once. An indeterminate is good if you want to pick just a few at a time all through summer and put them up several times over the season.

I grow all of these tomatoes, plus many other heirloom tomatoes. The advantage of hybrid tomatoes is bigger yields, but the overall advantage to heirloom seeds is that of flavor - the hybrids don't even come close IMO. You can save the seeds of heirloom tomatoes and have new plants year after year without buying more packets while hybrids are a one time shot.

This summer, if you buy tomatoes at your local farmers market, ask the farmer for the name of the variety.

Nancy

Opalka. Long pointy tomatoes with few seeds, nice an meaty. They make the BEST sauce! Oh and their darn good raw as well. These are one of my favorite tomatoes.

I like Dona tomatoes, but haven't found them lately, and so I'm going to have to start looking early. I pretty much only plant indeterminate tomatoes, and they continue to produce tomatoes throughout the winter, but I still generally replace them in the summer. I grow them for salads and sandwiches instead of sauce, however. If I wanted fresh tomatoes for making sauce, I would buy them at a Farmers' Market.

Lars

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread on Dona tomatoes

We have grown indeterminate tomatoes. It is usually just me doing the sauce so I like to spread out the season. I have tried heirlooms before grown in ex-large containers. Didn't do well at all. I also got suckered into buying those upside down tomato growers...don't bother. Those didn't work at all. I'll check out the varieties everyone has suggested and see which grow well here in Maine. Thanks, NancyLouise