# Tomatoes



## wife89 (Jun 29, 2011)

Just curious, how many tomato plants do you plant for canning?? We are a family of 5 and planted 5 last year... nearly not enough. So, I am curious how many everyone else plants


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## countryfied2011 (Jul 5, 2011)

there is just two of us and we planted about 35 or 40 last year and I will probably have that many this year.


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## Ms.Lilly (Jun 23, 2008)

When the boys were growing up, aprox. 50 tomato plants. Now that they are grown and it is just the 2 of us 10-15 plants.


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## BlackFeather (Jun 17, 2014)

30 to 40 for the four of us


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## wife89 (Jun 29, 2011)

Wow, ok... I have 15 seeds started... maybe I should start more.. :happy:


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## Werforpsu (Aug 8, 2013)

For a family of four I planted 35 plants last year. It wasn't enough and I plan to plant 45-55 this year (at least 30 of which will be Roma/paste tomatoes. I wold do more but don't have any more room. 

My goal is 100% of my canned tomato needs being provided by my garden. I usually can tomato sauce, salsa, pizza sauce, tomatoes for chili and tomato soup. Tomato sauce is what I can the most and I make spaghetti sauce from it. Many people can spaghetti sauce from the start.

Depending on your families eating habits, you could need a lot more or a lot less.


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## wife89 (Jun 29, 2011)

Werforpsu said:


> For a family of four I planted 35 plants last year. It wasn't enough and I plan to plant 45-55 this year (at least 30 of which will be Roma/paste tomatoes. I wold do more but don't have any more room.
> 
> My goal is 100% of my canned tomato needs being provided by my garden. I usually can tomato sauce, salsa, pizza sauce, tomatoes for chili and tomato soup. Tomato sauce is what I can the most and I make spaghetti sauce from it. Many people can spaghetti sauce from the start.
> 
> Depending on your families eating habits, you could need a lot more or a lot less.


We eat a lot of tomato based stuff. Very similar to your list.... plus I want to try bbq sauce and maybe a very small batch of ketchup..just for kicks..


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## Werforpsu (Aug 8, 2013)

For our family, I figure:
a pasta type dinner almost once a week (I use 3 pts of sauce per pasta dinner) = 120 pints
homemade pizza once a week = 52 half pints 
Chili once a month = 12 quarts
Salsa for snacks = 12 pints 
Tomato soup = 12 quarts

By deciding our needs, I get a more accurate understanding of what we need.


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## hippygirl (Apr 3, 2010)

For just the two of us, 24 is plenty if we have a good harvest. We don't eat as many tomato-based dishes as some, so I process probably 2/3 of mine (not including those for fresh eating) as tomato juice.

This year, however, we're adding six Sweet 100s, mainly for use in green salads and, of course, eating straight from the vine while working in the garden.


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## Ozarks Tom (May 27, 2011)

For the 2 of us, about 30 plants. But then, we use a lot in spaghetti sauces, chili, salsa, pizza sauce, stews, etc.

We can sauce, paste, Italian stewed, stewed, juice. It's amazing how fast it goes.


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## claytonpiano (Feb 3, 2005)

16 of us here. We plant 125. That is not enough.


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## Werforpsu (Aug 8, 2013)

This is such an interesting thread because it really helps us with how much to plant. Since I posted the other day here, I did some research on yield per plant. Basically it came down to one gallon of sauce per plant as a conservatie yield (meaning more if plants do awesome). I hope this info helps others decide.


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## Ozarks Tom (May 27, 2011)

As I understand it, there are two types of tomato plants - determinate, and indeterminate. The indeterminate will keep growing and producing as long as the weather allows. 

We plant Amish Paste (heirloom), which is a large Roma, very meaty, and great for canning. It's an indeterminate, and by the end of the season we have to rip them out when we're sick of canning tomatoes, our friends aren't answering the door, and we can't find open car doors in parking lots.


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## oldasrocks (Oct 27, 2006)

Two of and I usually plant 50 tomatoes. Sometimes to season is short because it gets too hot or dry so we try to insure enough to can all at once.

I found that growing cherry tomatoes is an easier way to make tomato sauce or paste. Don't have to blanch them to remove the skins. Just throw the whole washed cherry tomatoes in a blender, cook it down to thickness desired, bottle and waterbath.


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## arnie (Apr 26, 2012)

I'll plant over one hundred ; a lot of differint types some romas and rutegers for canning some big red, some striped .yellow pink .somwm early types some late there are so many flavors and uses


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## Feisty Farm (Apr 10, 2012)

We put out about 1000 tomato plants. Yep, not a typo. but that is enough for my family and my grandparents, as well as, selling to a few locals.


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## Werforpsu (Aug 8, 2013)

Feisty Farm said:


> We put out about 1000 tomato plants. Yep, not a typo. but that is enough for my family and my grandparents, as well as, selling to a few locals.


I am interested in how you have them planted. I can imagine 1000 tomato plants takes up a large amount of space. Do you steak them or trellis? Grow along fences? 
I have been trying to figure out how to fit more tomatoes in my garden. I plant mostly Roma's in a grid. The plants are about 2-3 ft apart in the grid (enough that I can walk through the grid for picking). This year I was considering planting them in rows along fences or planting along a cattle panel hoping that I could plant the tomato plants closer together.


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## WestFork (Dec 20, 2012)

Wow, you all grow a lot of tomato plants!

We grow early girl tomatoes, mostly for eating fresh. We plant 8-10 plants is all, but we don't cook with them too often. They are good keepers, so we can save them in cardboard boxes covered in newspaper all the way to Thanksgiving or later. If we have a lot of extra tomatoes because of a good crop, we freeze them whole and use them in recipes. Rinse the frozen tomatoes in warm water & the skin peels right off.


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## Laura Zone 5 (Jan 13, 2010)

wife89 said:


> Just curious, how many tomato plants do you plant for canning?? We are a family of 5 and planted 5 last year... nearly not enough. So, I am curious how many everyone else plants


I planted 125 San Marzono plants.

We were a family of 5 and that lasted us 1 year.
We eat A LOT of tomatoes.

I had 15, 12 x 3 raised beds, 10 of those beds held tomatoes, about 15 plants per bed.


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## Feisty Farm (Apr 10, 2012)

Werforpsu said:


> I am interested in how you have them planted. I can imagine 1000 tomato plants takes up a large amount of space. Do you steak them or trellis? Grow along fences?
> I have been trying to figure out how to fit more tomatoes in my garden. I plant mostly Roma's in a grid. The plants are about 2-3 ft apart in the grid (enough that I can walk through the grid for picking). This year I was considering planting them in rows along fences or planting along a cattle panel hoping that I could plant the tomato plants closer together.



We have about about 5-6 acres of ground dedicated to garden. We use to raise produce and supplied local stores and produce stands, as well as, farmers markets. I have since stopped doing that, and raise simply for ourselves and sell to neighbors and others who come to the farm and pick things up. 

We plant our tomatoes about 2 ft apart in rows enough that we can walk through and actually cage every single one. We have made cages out of fencing.


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## Werforpsu (Aug 8, 2013)

Feisty Farm said:


> We plant our tomatoes about 2 ft apart in rows enough that we can walk through and actually cage every single one. We have made cages out of fencing.


Wow! That is an impressive number of cages!


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

We planted somewhere between 80 and 85 last year. Had maybe 15 people using them. Not nearly enough tomatoes to have sauce and ketchup to last until this year's crop. If you only wanted them for fresh eating and maybe a little sauce or salsa or ketchup, you could do with less. 

Also, the type of tomato you plant may have something to do with intended use. The big beefsteak type tomatoes are wonderful for sandwiches. But we liked the Roma type tomatoes much better for sauce and ketchup. Seemed like a lot less water to cook off. 

I like varieties like Pink Brandywine more for fresh eating but some use them for sauce quite successfully. The strains we've had did have more water in them than the Roma tomatoes we grew but I do not know if there may be different strains of Amish paste tomatoes that might be more or less watery. 

We didn't have enough cages for ours. We had every other tomato in a cage and then put up a sort of "trellis" in between the cages. I definitely need to look at making some for next time.


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## Jtown21 (Dec 15, 2014)

For those of you that plant an incredible amount of tomatoes, do you rotate them or amend the soil to replace the nutrients?


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## Werforpsu (Aug 8, 2013)

Jtown21 said:


> For those of you that plant an incredible amount of tomatoes, do you rotate them or amend the soil to replace the nutrients?


We rotate. Our 50x50 garden has enough room for a 2-3 year rotation of our 40-70 plants. The tomatoes take up between a third and half of the garden. We also deep plow and disk our garden using our tractor. That does a very thorough tilling.


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

We only plant a dozen or so. We don't like to eat them fresh, they all go in a sauce of some sort. Pizza(main one), spaghetti, ketchup, bbq, sauce and such. I couldn't imagine having to store and process the maters off of 20 or more plants.


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