Canning season

[crmauch]

I've frozen sauce in the past. In my personal experience, unlike canned sauce, I find you have to preplan your use. Sauce takes a looong time to thaw, and isn't that much faster in the microwave than thawing it in a sauce pan. I found it to be PITA.

But I have another question, (and I know production has been somewhat atypical for many of us this year), I had four paste plants [Roma] which have waaay out prodduced the 4 slicing plants (2 Golden Jubilee, 2 Husky Golds). I've gotten enough tomatoes to make two batches of spaghetti sauce, each just enough a one meal for my family of 5 (well actually for the first batch I had to add a small can of diced tomatoes and a can of paste). If I want to can, is there any approximation of how many plants it takes to produce how many quarts of sauce (figures for juice or other tomato products would be interesting too.) If there's an interim figure for how many plants can produce how many bushels or pounds, that would be useful too.

Chris

[Doug9345]

I think the best number to use isn't someone else's number but your own. Unless you can increase your production significantly you've found that 2 plants make enough sauce for a meal at your house. That means to have a sauce based meal once a week for 50 weeks a year requires 100 plants.

When I freeze sauce I put it in gallon ziplock bags and lay them flat in the freezer. I fill them so they are only about an inch thick. When I take them out I can run them under hot water to thaw them out enough to get the bag off then finish the thawing in a pan.

[manyplews]

We used to freeze our sweet corn(cut off the cob) because it tasted better than canned corn.
We have little experience freezing vegetables,except bell peppers,but for meats the vacuum sealer produces the best results for us.

[TomNJ]

Originally Posted by crmauch

If I want to can, is there any approximation of how many plants it takes to produce how many quarts of sauce (figures for juice or other tomato products would be interesting too.) If there's an interim figure for how many plants can produce how many bushels or pounds, that would be useful too.

Chris

What kind of yield you should expect per plant depends on many factors, including tomato variety, amount of sunshine, amount of water, soil fertility, soil pH, temperature, plant spacing, foliage diseases, etc., and can vary year to year. In my shady NJ garden I usually averaged about six pounds per plant, which is low, and ranged from 4 to 9 pounds depending on the variety and year. I think most growers expect something more like 10-15 pounds per plant, and commercial farms much more, some demanding 25+. I have heard of some growers here that yielded over 60 pounds per plant, although that was not typical. I suggest weighing your tomatoes each time you pick so you can develop a record of what to expect from your garden.

How many pounds you need for canning depends on how juicy the tomatoes are, how you prepare them, and how thick you want your sauce. In my case, I need 6 - 8 pounds for each quart of fairly thick sauce, and 4 - 5 pounds per quart for my salsa (which is thinner, chunkier, and has more onions, garlic, & peppers). I weigh everything and keep spreadsheets covering every batch each year (I know, anal - but I'm a scientist and it's fun)!

Now that I moved my garden to a sunny location at our summer home in Virginia I expect more like 10-15 pounds per plant, assuming I don't get late blight next year as I did this year!

TomNJ/VA

[tlintx]

Great thread!!! I'm using the information here to plan my spring garden for sure -- I too thought two plants would be sufficient.

You might consider a more prolific paste (or a bigger fruited one). I did Viva Italia this year and was satisfied (and it was still setting fruit as of today).

Have you read the "Let's Talk Sauce" thread?

[Father'sDaughter]

Originally Posted by TomNJ

What kind of yield you should expect per plant depends on many factors, including tomato variety, amount of sunshine, amount of water, soil fertility, soil pH, temperature, plant spacing, foliage diseases, etc., and can vary year to year.

TomNJ/VA

Yes, it is a moving target and can vary greatly from year to year. I planted 18 pastes this year just as I did last year--almost all dry, meaty varieties. Last year I think i canned about 18 quarts and stuffed a gallon sized ziplock full of dried tomatoes (not counting all the ones I snacked on as they came out of the dehydrator). This year I only filled three quart-sized jars and barely filled a quart sized ziplock bag of dried. I might get enough from the remaining plants to do another round of dried tomatoes, but definitely not enough to put the effort into canning them.

[manyplews]

Well,the cucumbers are really starting to bear,so the wife canned 14 pints of sweet pickle chips yesterday.This old geezer helped cut them into 3/16" slices but she did the rest.We'll likely get another batch or two.
BTW - we spent 5 months in Alaska in 2005 and I saw a lot of usage of metal cans,especially for salmon,moose.and caribou.
Sam's and Costco in Anchorage and Fairbanks stocked canners,sealers,and cans.

http://www.ehcan.com/CanSealers.html