# How many tomato plants???????



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

I'm trying to figure out how many tomato plants I need this year and would really like some help. I can ALOT and would like to make about 150 quarts of spaghetti sauce and 100 quarts of salsa and 20 quarts of juice and 50 quarts of barbeque sauce. I was lucky enough to get the most amazing spaghetti sauce and barbeque sauce recipes this past year and 30 quarts of spaghetti sauce (all I was able to make) is almost gone as we love it and so does my extended families. It's a zuchini based salsa but does have alot of tomato in it. 100 quarts of this is a minimum, I would love to make alot more. 

I'm thinking I'll need 200 plants. Does that sound about right?


----------



## Blue Oak Ranch (Aug 23, 2005)

Have no idea on the number, but please do share the recipes! I would like to do more canning this summer. 

I plant about 300-500 for the market garden, but don't know how that would translate to canning. 

Cheers!

Katherine


----------



## COSunflower (Dec 4, 2006)

Yes! PLEASE share the recipes!!!  How many plants did it take to make the 30 qts? Multipy the number of plants again and again  to figure it out. Alot depends on the type and size of tomatoes you grow plus how rich is your soil and what the weather will be like this summer. It's always good to plant extra!!!!


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

Dawn's BBQ Sauce
11 cups tomato juice
11 whole onions chopped fine (we grind)
2 3/4 tsp paprika
5 lb sugar
1- 15oz worcestershire sauce
2 hot peppers chopped fine (we grind)
1 1/4 cup vinegar
7 TBS salt

Simmer all ingredients for 1 hour and pour into sterilized jars. Process pints 10 min at 10 lb pressure and quarts 15 minutes. Note: we ground everything so that once done it wouldn't clog up the meat injector (think HUGE needle and syringe). 



Zuchini Salsa
10 cups zuchini (peeled and shredded)
4 onions- chopped
2 green peppers- chopped
2 red peppers- chopped
1/4 c pickling salt
1TBS pickling salt
2 TBS dry mustard
1 TBS garlic (we use a bit more) crushed
2 TBS cumin
2 TBS cilantro
2 C vinegar (white)
1/3 C brown sugar
1 TBS red pepper flakes
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp pepper
5 C chopped tomatoes
12 oz tomato paste

Day 1- combine zuchini, onions peppers and salt. mix and let stand overnight
Day 2- rine and drain well, add everything else and simmer for 15 min. HWB 15 min (I pressure canned for 15 min)


----------



## Johnny Dolittle (Nov 25, 2007)

A bushel of tomatoes weighs 50 pounds. Yields per plant will depend a lot on the variety, spacing, growing season etc. but 10 to 15 to 20 pounds per plant is a good ball park figure.


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

When I can find the spaghetti sauce recipe I'll post it. 

I'm guesstimating that I'll need 200 plants which is alot more than last year, but last year I was lucky and had a friend with a serious tomato surplus problem and we combined tomatoes and processed them and canned together. Which makes guesstimating so difficult. She had 400 plants and I don't think I'll need that many. 

Oh, the BBQ sauce is runny/thin but EXTREMELY flavorful, you could simmer till as thick as you want it- we wanted it like this cuz of the meat injector and found that it's perfect for old fashioned BBQ (smoking 12 hours then smoking/barbequing really low for another 12 hours with lots of basting the last 4-5 hours).


----------



## manygoatsnmore (Feb 12, 2005)

I know it takes a ton of tomatoes to make a batch of good thick spaghetti sauce, so for that many jars, you are gonna need a lot - you're probably about there on your plant estimate. So much depends on the variety, the weather, the soil, watering practices...it's like asking "how long is a piece of string?" Better to have too many than not enough, as long as you have the room for them and the energy to care for both the plants and the produce. Good luck and looking forward to seeing your spaghetti sauce recipe. Mine has grape jelly in it.


----------



## happydog (May 7, 2008)

One thing to consider before planting acres of tomatoes, is how you're going to support them. Cages vs stakes vs florida weave, etc. They all have their pros and cons, not the least of which is cost. None of them are free. 

Thanks for posting your recipes. That's the first thing I thought of too, when I read your post, lol. Curious though, what do you use to 'grind' the onions and peppers for the bbq sauce? Love that recipe. Anything that starts off with 11 onions to 11 cups tomato juice. Gotta love that ratio!


----------



## kirkmcquest (Oct 21, 2010)

happydog said:


> One thing to consider before planting acres of tomatoes, is how you're going to support them. Cages vs stakes vs florida weave, etc. They all have their pros and cons, not the least of which is cost. None of them are free.
> 
> Thanks for posting your recipes. That's the first thing I thought of too, when I read your post, lol. Curious though, what do you use to 'grind' the onions and peppers for the bbq sauce? Love that recipe. Anything that starts off with 11 onions to 11 cups tomato juice. Gotta love that ratio!


Hey that reminds me of a set up that I saw this summer that I'm thinking of trying out. This is a good way to minimize costly stakes;

They had tomatoes growing in rows with thick. strong stakes at the end and middle of each row and a line going across ( three actually set at different heights along the stake). As the tomatoes grow they get tied to the first line, then the second, and finally the third. The whole thing was about 3 feet high (of course you can make it as high as you want depending on your variety and etc).

I thought this was a good idea and beats staking every plant when you are growing a large number of plants.


----------



## po boy (Jul 12, 2010)

That's 320 quarts! Just about a quart per day for a year. How many in the family.

I would cut it to 120 quarts for this year and see how far that goes..


----------



## COSunflower (Dec 4, 2006)

Thanks for the recipes! The zucchini salsa recipe sounds like a zucchini hot dog relish that my neighbor makes - except there are no tomatoes in it. I got the recipe and canned up a bunch last year and it is GREAT on just about any KIND of meat! I'm anxious to try YOUR recipes this year.  Hope you find the spaghetti sauce one!


----------



## olivehill (Aug 17, 2009)

po boy said:


> That's 320 quarts! Just about a quart per day for a year. How many in the family.
> 
> I would cut it to 120 quarts for this year and see how far that goes..


I was kind of wondering the same. I can see using that many tomatoes in a greater variety of foods, but... 150 quarts of spaghetti sauce is enough to use 1 quart of spaghetti sauce on 42% of the days of the year. I LOVE spaghetti. I still don't imagine I'd ever want to eat it 42% of the days of the year. 

:shrug:


----------



## COSunflower (Dec 4, 2006)

You can use spaghetti sauce on all sorts of things. I used to make lots of cassaroles with a spaghetti based sauce when my kids were young. I've even used it on homemade pizza. If you share with family it goes fast too! Everything I canned last summer is GONE as I shared with my DILs who don't have time to can or put in a garden.


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

The spaghetti sauce is used for lots of things- spaghetti, chili (it's actually quite good in it, chicken parm, eggplant parm, soups (beef and barley last week- holy cow good) etc.
I want 100 quarts for us and the other 50 would be divided up in the family. We would go through about 100 quarts in a year.

The BBQ sauce we grind so it fits in our meat injector without clogging the "needle". If you don't inject stuff into turkey/beef/chicken/etc then you wouldn't have to grind the onions really fine. We just do it all the same way cuz it's easier than trying to figure out which jar has runny sauce and which has chunky sauce. And we keep it a bit on the runny side for BBQing- lots of thin layers of sauce carmelized onto the meat. It is beyond good and so worth the day it takes. A pig roast will take about 5 quarts, if not more. 

The salsa will not last all year, no matter how much I make...... During BBQ's, parties, etc we easily go through 4-5 quarts at a time. 


I figured for staking the plants I would do something I saw on Youtube that looked pretty slick- pound 8' pickets 2' or so in the ground about 8' apart (I think) in a long line. Then wrap rope around the pickets all the way down the line so that you end up with a line of rope on both sides of each picket all the way down the line. As the tomato plants grow up, you just keep adding "levels" to the rope. I'm not sure what it's called, but looked easy and sturdy and seemed to work really well for the market growers that were doing it. And they had done it the year before and were doing it again so it must have worked out alright.

Like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gjLXGo_n5lQ

I figure if it doesn't work out well, I'll have 50 pickets left over.....and I can always find a use for a picket. lol


----------



## Willowynd (Mar 27, 2005)

Hmmm I grew 24 tomatoe plants year before last...I was so sick of canning tomatoes and sauce I was giving them away and tossing them to animals. My tomatoe plants got taller than me (and I am 5'2") and man the amount they produced- even though I did nothing but plant them and water them through dry spells! I only planted 4 plants last year for salads and still too many- even though I did not weed or water....but family and friends and animals still enjoyed them too. I still have some sauce, tomatoes and lots of salsa left in the cupboard. I make chili tomatoes, Italian tomatoes, plain spaghetti sauce, meat sauce, sauce for chili, salsa (pineapple, medium and mild). I will plant more tomatoes this year to restock my cupboards, but it will not be 24 plants again! Now it was only 3 of us then and I did mostly pints for tomatoes and sauces, but...I could have done just as many quarts with all I threw out. It seems I spent all summer peeling tomatoes!


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

COSunflower said:


> Thanks for the recipes! The zucchini salsa recipe sounds like a zucchini hot dog relish that my neighbor makes - except there are no tomatoes in it. I got the recipe and canned up a bunch last year and it is GREAT on just about any KIND of meat! I'm anxious to try YOUR recipes this year.  Hope you find the spaghetti sauce one!


It is quite similar to my zuchini relish recipe too......was thinking that as I was typing up the salsa recipe.


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

Willowynd said:


> Hmmm I grew 24 tomatoe plants year before last...I was so sick of canning tomatoes and sauce I was giving them away and tossing them to animals. My tomatoe plants got taller than me (and I am 5'2") and man the amount they produced- even though I did nothing but plant them and water them through dry spells! I only planted 4 plants last year for salads and still too many- even though I did not weed or water....but family and friends and animals still enjoyed them too. I still have some sauce, tomatoes and lots of salsa left in the cupboard. I make chili tomatoes, Italian tomatoes, plain spaghetti sauce, meat sauce, sauce for chili, salsa (pineapple, medium and mild). I will plant more tomatoes this year to restock my cupboards, but it will not be 24 plants again! Now it was only 3 of us then and I did mostly pints for tomatoes and sauces, but...I could have done just as many quarts with all I threw out. It seems I spent all summer peeling tomatoes!


I would love your pineapple salsa recipe!!

We don't peel the tomatoes, the big ones we might slice in half but that's about it for prepping them (besides washing of course). They all go into this giant grinder/separator thingy (it's 3 am and I am sooooo tired but can't sleep) that separates out the peels and seeds into one side and the pulp and juice into the giant pots which then get cooked. Works like a charm and can process ALOT of tomatoes really quickly.


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

po boy said:


> That's 320 quarts! Just about a quart per day for a year. How many in the family.
> 
> I would cut it to 120 quarts for this year and see how far that goes..


Technically there is just me and DH. But as the only person in my VERY huge extended family that cans and having ALOT of elderly relatives that can't can anymore or are on special diets (diabetes/etc) and then there are our friends and I like taking canned stuff to cookouts/etc. And some of them are addicted to certain things I make so we trade (I shouldn't ever have to buy buckets- thanks to friend who works at Dunkin Donuts), etc. And then there is christmas presents (what to buy for the grandpa who has EVERYTHING including diabetes but can't can anymore.......a case of pickled beets with splenda instead of sugar). When ya factor all that in, 320 quarts really isn't much at all. I have somewhere around 2,000 jars (not that they are ever ALL full at the same time). Oh and the stuff in them will last for much longer than just one year which goes well with gardening- some years tomatoes are great and other years it's the beets. 

Oh, and I just *might* be addicted to canning :sing:


----------



## Willowynd (Mar 27, 2005)

I just add a can of crushed pineapple-drained to my regular salsa recipe and a shake of paprika and process as usual. I use it over chicken breast, for chip dip and over ham slices served with my canned sweet potatoes. I also like it on breakfast burritos with eggs, ham and cheese rolled in a flour tortilla.

Can you give me a link to your easy peasy tomatoe processor? I would can more sauce and such if I had something that did most of the work!


----------



## copperhead46 (Jan 25, 2008)

I'm with you, Willowynd, I scald the tomatoes, dip in cold water, slip the skins off, cut out the core, then put in food processor, then peel the onions, garlic, peppers and whatever else I wind up putting in the salsa and I'm whipped. I usually put up 40 or 50 pints of salsa and about half than many quarts of tomatoes, and seasoned sauce for cooking with. Sheesh, it wears me out every year, then family, and friends all want a couple of jars of salsa, (cause it's so good) and in bad years, like last year, I don't want to give it away. Maybe one of those squeeso strainers would help with the work, and my attitude. 
P.J.


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

Just like a squeezo except much bigger and cast iron (I think). It's a huge, heavy contraption with a big electric motor that is full of country ingenuity (sp?). I'm pretty sure it was originally a crank model and the motor was added later on. 

I would seriously recommend a squeezo or something like it- no scalding/peeling/seeding/coring needed with one of those. Makes canning MUCH faster and easier. 

I use a food processor to chop up everything else then dump directly into the giant pots of heating tomato juice/pulp.


----------



## katydidagain (Jun 11, 2004)

You can never grow enough tomatoes IMO. I started with 125 last year; 25 were weak and lost 20 more then found 15 volunteers. People laughed at me for having so many but I canned what I needed (not what I wanted), had chickens eat a bunch and was pretty happy with my season. Grow what you can manage to grow then buy some "2nds" to finish your canning.


----------



## lhspirited (Jan 31, 2010)

Tomatoes get pretty cheap in August and September. I will grow 8-10 plants for us (different varieties) and if I do that much canning, buy more tomatoes.


----------



## Willowynd (Mar 27, 2005)

Is that what it is called? A squeezo? I have no idea what you are talking about. Do yu have a link so i can see what it looks like and hopefully order one?


laughaha said:


> Just like a squeezo except much bigger and cast iron (I think). It's a huge, heavy contraption with a big electric motor that is full of country ingenuity (sp?). I'm pretty sure it was originally a crank model and the motor was added later on.
> 
> I would seriously recommend a squeezo or something like it- no scalding/peeling/seeding/coring needed with one of those. Makes canning MUCH faster and easier.
> 
> I use a food processor to chop up everything else then dump directly into the giant pots of heating tomato juice/pulp.


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

http://www.homesteadhelpers.com/get_item_sqd_deluxe-squeezo-strainer.htm

I in no way endorse this product or company, just showing an example of something like I use.

There is also a kitchenaid attachment that will do the same thing if you have a kitchenaid mixer.


----------



## olivehill (Aug 17, 2009)

lhspirited said:


> Tomatoes get pretty cheap in August and September. I will grow 8-10 plants for us (different varieties) and if I do that much canning, buy more tomatoes.


This is such an interesting thread to see what is "a lot" to different people. 8-10 plants wouldn't even be enough to grow one of each variety that we like here. LOL! And it would be nowhere NEAR enough to keep us in fresh eating, let alone do any canning.


----------



## copperhead46 (Jan 25, 2008)

Willowynd, I found bunch on e-bay, I put in food strainers, and a lot of the different brands came up, but they have pictures of how they look and work. They have Squeezo, Roma and some other brands. The price was a whole lot better too !!


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

Just DON'T GET A FOLEY FOOD MILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They are HORRIBLE and take FOREVER to use (ask me how I know). I sold mine at a yardsale a couple years ago as I had only ever used it once (on cooked apples) and decided that if TEOTWAWKI ever happens, I'll make spaghetti sauce with the skins and the seeds. I swear picking out the seeds by hand would be faster.


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

lhspirited said:


> Tomatoes get pretty cheap in August and September. I will grow 8-10 plants for us (different varieties) and if I do that much canning, buy more tomatoes.


Canning tomatoes are $25 a bushel around here. A bushel is about 50lbs which would be (I'm thinking- please correct me if I'm wrong) about 21 quarts of sauce. If I don't grow enough, I'm gonna be paying alot of money for tomatoes.

I would much rather grow too many than too few, at the very least, extras will make cheap chicken/goose/pig feed.


----------



## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

Now that the thread is back to growing tomatoes rather than cooking them, I'd suggest some varieties which will fill a lot of jars without having to have a quarter acre of plants. Moneymaker is hard to beat. Same with Alicante. I set those two head-to-head one year and stopped weighing when both passed 20#. And that was one plant each. Problem with both of those varieties is that they love to climb. Two shorter types which probably ran up to 15# this past year were Basket Vee and Super Sioux. All 4 mentioned are round red canner types and produce more than the average field tomato. Best that I've ever found for weight versus size of plant was Pink Ruffled. It's not an easy one to peel but fifteen pounds easy from a 4' plant. Of course, much depends on how rich the soil is under the plants. Otherwise, expect an average of between 5 and 8 pound from your average canner types. Anything over that is a bonus.

Martin


----------



## Willowynd (Mar 27, 2005)

Thanks Laughaha and copperhead..I will certainly be buying something like this before it is time to can maters this year! Last year though I did peel, I left in the seeds...really- did not affect taste at all. It is just peeling them is soooo tedious! It was funny...hubby was complaining about a batch of mater that were sitting in the kitchen a few days that I had not gotten to yet. The batch before he made rude comments about how long it took for me and my sister to make up one large pot of sauce, my explainations about how long it takes fell on deaf ears. This batch he thought he would "show me" how easy it is. He started in the morning before I left for work...I came home and not even half was peeled and he was cursing. I walked in and he asked for help...I could not resist commenting about what was so hard about it and why wasn't he done yet LOL He apologized as we finished it up together. Heck- I bet he will buy it for me!


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

Paquebot said:


> Now that the thread is back to growing tomatoes rather than cooking them, I'd suggest some varieties which will fill a lot of jars without having to have a quarter acre of plants. Moneymaker is hard to beat. Same with Alicante. I set those two head-to-head one year and stopped weighing when both passed 20#. And that was one plant each. Problem with both of those varieties is that they love to climb. Two shorter types which probably ran up to 15# this past year were Basket Vee and Super Sioux. All 4 mentioned are round red canner types and produce more than the average field tomato. Best that I've ever found for weight versus size of plant was Pink Ruffled. It's not an easy one to peel but fifteen pounds easy from a 4' plant. Of course, much depends on how rich the soil is under the plants. Otherwise, expect an average of between 5 and 8 pound from your average canner types. Anything over that is a bonus.
> 
> Martin


Thank you very much for the suggestions!! How is the taste of moneymaker, basket bee, super sioux, pink ruffled and alicante? 

I can make the soil quite rich (gotta love flemish giants- big rabbits mean lots of poo). Between the rabbits and the chickens I shouldn't have to worry too much on the manure front. The next decent day is chicken coop cleaning day and it's still a good 3 months before we can plow so that should be long enough for it to mellow, right?


----------



## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

laughaha said:


> Thank you very much for the suggestions!! How is the taste of moneymaker, basket bee, super sioux, pink ruffled and alicante?


Generally all medium utility or canners run close for taste. They are developed for canning and as such are usually combined with other ingredients when eaten. That is, they are not eaten as is right from the jar. Moneymaker got its name because that's what it is, a money maker. It's been a longtime favorite at farmers markets for bulk sales for canning. I haven't grown it for a few years so I don't have any seed to spare but it's widely available. Basket Vee and Super Sioux were too large to be whole stew tomatoes and too small to be called a slicer but perfect for quartering. They were grown this past year and certainly impressed me for production. But then, they were in my home garden were the soil is really rich. Pink Ruffled was super for both taste and production but the shape of the fruit prevented peeling. Instead, it was the basis for spaghetti sauce by processing through a blender, boiling for awhile, and then sent through a chinois sieve. That was the best batch of sauce that I've ever made. 

Martin


----------



## Willowynd (Mar 27, 2005)

Yes, a few months is plenty of time for it to mellow. Actually I run my chickens on my garden when I am done with it. They clean it up and eat the weeds before they go to seed and keep the surface scratched up with the help of some feed thrown on it after the ground is bare. I then close off the garden area and clean my coops/rabbitry 2 weeks before I am ready to till and throw it all on the garden along with half of the manure pile from the previous year. I till it all in then plant the next day. The other half of the manure pile is used for top dressing plants and my flower gardens. I use nothing else. One chicken run is part of the garden fence on 2 sides....I plant my cukes and other plants that get those beetles on them along the shared fence side and have no issue with wilt. Last year hubby insisted on planting them on the other side- I lost almost all my cukes, melons and squash plants. My tomatoes get taller than me and I keep the width trimmed back best I can so I can get in between to harvest. 



laughaha said:


> I can make the soil quite rich (gotta love flemish giants- big rabbits mean lots of poo). Between the rabbits and the chickens I shouldn't have to worry too much on the manure front. The next decent day is chicken coop cleaning day and it's still a good 3 months before we can plow so that should be long enough for it to mellow, right?


----------



## Phantomfyre (Jul 1, 2004)

manygoatsnmore said:


> Mine has grape jelly in it.


Spaghetti sauce with grape jelly? Have heard of that with BBQ sauce, but not spag... Intrigued - could you please share the recipe?



laughaha said:


> There is also a kitchenaid attachment that will do the same thing if you have a kitchenaid mixer.


There is?!?! Hmm. Maybe one more reason to upgrade from my ancient $5 garage-sale Oster...



laughaha said:


> Just DON'T GET A FOLEY FOOD MILL!!!!!!!!!!!!


Um, yeah. That's what I've been using. And one of the old aluminum cones with the wooden doohopper. They work great if you have a lot of time to kill... :bored:


----------



## ca2devri (Feb 29, 2008)

Laughaha,

I think the staking method you describe sounds like the Florida Weave. I've used it for the past 5 years and I like it. It is still a lot of work, but I don't think there's a staking method that isn't.

Last year I had a total of 70 plants, probably 40 of them "Roma VFN". We used as many of the roma's as possible and processed using a food mill into sauce. We might have been able to use about 1/2 of them overall and probably got about 40 quarts of sauce. We also made about 50 quarts of tomato soup / juice out of a mix of large beefsteaks and misc. tomatoes.

I think part of the issue is how many tomatoes you'll get and when you'll get them. If you want to do all the processing in a couple batches, you're plants may not cooperate and give you all the tomatoes at the right time. Figure in a lot of "waste", i.e. tomatoes that don't make it into your batches for whatever reason.

We love the tomato soup / juice we make. No boiling down, just process and can. Great for the really watery beefsteaks and includes a lot of heirloom tomatoes with outstanding flavour. The soup is really unbeatable.

We finally this year bought a food mill attachment for our Kitchenaid mixer and it saves a lot of time and makes the big batches feasible in 1 day.

Chris


----------



## laughaha (Mar 4, 2008)

ca2devri- thanks for letting me know that it's the florida weave method- now I should have better luck looking it up. 

if 70 plants made about 90 quarts, then 200 plants sounds about right for what I'm looking to make. 

You ain't kidding- the food mills make life SOOOO much better when canning large batches. We were canning in 40-60 quart batches per day. I'm planning on canning everything in multiple batches as stuff ripens and is ready.


----------



## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

olivehill said:


> I was kind of wondering the same. I can see using that many tomatoes in a greater variety of foods, but... 150 quarts of spaghetti sauce is enough to use 1 quart of spaghetti sauce on 42% of the days of the year. I LOVE spaghetti. I still don't imagine I'd ever want to eat it 42% of the days of the year.
> 
> :shrug:


LOL! My Nick would eat spaghetti (or tomato-based sauce) every day of the year, and twice on Sundays. 

I am bummed out because I didn't put up enough tomatoes this year. Totally ran out; used the last jar day before yesterday.

Also ran out of beets. Grrr! My favorite pickled beets are the ones I make, and my MIL loves them, too. Going to have to double or treble the number this year.

Oh, I am so glad that the hours of sunlight are increasing, even if the temps aren't (yet) cooperating.

C'mon, SPRING!


----------



## olivehill (Aug 17, 2009)

Pony said:


> LOL! My Nick would eat spaghetti (or tomato-based sauce) every day of the year, and twice on Sundays.
> 
> I am bummed out because I didn't put up enough tomatoes this year. Totally ran out; used the last jar day before yesterday.
> 
> ...


LOL! I used to be that way. My mom always says it took her years to eat spaghetti again after I moved out because I was always "forcing" it on the whole family for dinner. As I get older I like more variety though. One italian type dinner with a tomato sauce per week is about my limit. We have lots of non-spaghetti type tomato based dinners besides, but about 1 jar of spaghetti sauce per week -- perhaps a handful of extras for the year -- would do it around here. 

Salsa on the other hand... :shocked:

And I agree... C'mon, SPRING! Can't even start seeds here for a few more weeks. *sigh*


----------

