Growing Tomatoes for Canning Sauce Questions

[HollowOfWisps]

How many tomato plants does everyone plants each year for canning sauce? Also if you want to include the type of tomatoes you use and how many jars of sauce you usually get that would be fantastic. I grew San Marzano's last year and they did very well so I am looking to expand my tomatoes in the garden to can enough sauce for the year. I also purchased some Cuore Di Bue seeds this year to try for a little larger sauce tomato.

 

[Acre4Me]

Last year I grew “Super Sauce” hybrid from Burpee. I’d recommend it. They produced a lot of large canning tomatoes, with less greenery. I alternated San Marzano with Super sauce in the row. I’d plant both again. However, SM grew like an indeterminate, plenty of tomatoes, but not all at once, but the SS were spaced somewhat, but many were ripe at same time and the plant was mostly done. The SS are marketed as indeterminate, though, so maybe my plants didn’t have enough nutrition or something. I don’t can many tomatoes …so I can’t help there.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

If you want a lot of sauce, you'll need a lot of plants. For example, I think last year I cooked down 2 gallon bags full of tomatoes, and only got 5 pint jars of sauce. Tomatoes are mostly water, so when you cook them down you're left with a lot less than you think you'd have.

However, San Marzanos (the only actual "sauce" tomato I grew last year) only made up about 1/12 of the tomatoes I used for the sauce. I mostly grow slicers and cherry tomatoes. Maybe I would have had a better conversion if I used more of those thicker, saucier types instead of juicy ones in my batch of sauce.

Anyway, I usually grow about 25 tomato plants per year. I never take measurements, but by the time the main harvesting season comes around, I'm picking probably 2 bowls of tomatoes or more a day (large, tall cereal-type bowls). If you're growing your tomatoes only for the purpose of canning sauce, I think 25 plants will probably equate to a few gallons of sauce for you. This is a total guess though based on estimation in my head LOL.

I guess there's no way to know until you try it. Up the amount of plants you have this year. For example, if you think you need triple the amount of sauce you got last year, triple the amount of plants. Then next year you'll be able to make adjustments for more or less plants. Gardening is a lot of trial and error as you likely know. I hope this was somewhat helpful. Good luck.

 

[Sally PB]

I've been growing Amish Paste for a few years. Last year they weren't as productive, for some reason. I'll grow them again. Here's a picture of why I grow them:

 

[Chris2018]

For home use I grow about 50 tomatoes of a few different verities, on the average Roma, Campbells 1327, Campbells 33, Campbells 146 (KC 146), JTD, Brandywine and Beefsteak. I average 10 to 15 pounds of tomatoes per plant.