We did this last year since the tomatoes went crazy (good crazy). We had several hundred pounds of tomatoes (40 or so plants) and we canned and froze enough to last until we had tomatoes again on the vine this year, rather late may I add. We have a small harvest this year, even though we started with as many plants.

Yes, it takes a ton of tomatos to make sauce. At least it does if you do it the 'old fashioned' way of cooking the sauce until it thickens. This means it loses water content so it cooks to almost nothing.

What we generally do is cook it on low for a few hours and then add tomato paste to thicken it and it is ready.

Nothing wrong with the old fashioned way of cooking it down, but it is only practical in the good years when you have a ton of tomatos. Also, growing paste varieties will make a thicker sauce than beef steak varieties since they have less water.

It would be more practical if you had paste tomatoes. Many think the only advantage of paste varieties is the higher meat to seed ratio (ie. smaller locular cavities). However, paste tomatoes also contain more naturally-occurring pectin than slicing varieties, which means your sauce should thicken faster with less cooking and thus less moisture loss.

Allenwrench,

1) If this is something you're thinking about doing seriously, you should check out the Harvest forum here, if you haven't already.

2) It all depends on yield, etc., but if you want to do some serious tomato canning, you would probably need somewhere between 50 to 100 plants for a family. Some of this does depend upon variety. For the most production, plant some of the really good paste types -- romas, Polish Linguisa, Amish Paste, Opalka, Striped Roman; and, also, plant some of the really productive canning types like Better Boy, Big Boy, Celebrity, Champion, Rutgers, etc.

Yield will vary. Last year, I planted around 100 plants total, and obviously, conditions were just right, because I had tremendous yields, the most I remember in decades, about 45 bushels total. This year, not nearly so good, plants had a lot of disease issues from the get-go due to the cool, wet conditions, but I still got about 25 bushels, from about 175 plants, certainly all that I need. I put up about 250 quarts last year, about 150 this year, a mix of juice, sauce, salsa, whole canned tomatoes, stewed tomatoes.

A lot of "how many" plants you will need is going to depend upon how many tomato products your family uses, as well as what type of product -- it does take a LOT more tomatoes to make thick sauces and salsa than it does to make canned tomatoes and tomato juice.

3) Canning is one of those things which may or may not save you any money, by the time you really consider the cost of your various inputs and your time, BUT it's one of those things you also do for the bigger reason -- the resulting products are SO much better than store-bought. I HATE store-bought salsa, tomato juice, etc., it's just nasty compared to my homemade.

Dennis
SE Michigan

allenwrench the answer to your question was was give on organic gardening message board last week.
6-8 lbs of tomato need to make 1 quart of sauce.
3-11 plant need to produce enough ripe tomatoes at give time to produce 1 quart of sauce.

I spent alot of time today canning tomato juice and sauce. It was the first I've done much of that in years. It took ALOT of time....is it worth it? Maybe, maybe not. I think if you do it frequently the time will be less because you learn much about doing things efficiently. Also, I looked around the harvest forum and they suggest various devices that separate tomato skins and seeds from the juice and pulp. With one of those the time might be more reasonable. For now I'll be glad I used alot of blemished tomatoes that would have gone to the compost pile if I didn't cook with them. And I'll hope the taste is as good as denninmi's and will also convince me it was time well spent :)

You can freeze washed whole tomatoes if you have enough freezer space. They can then be used for cooking during the fall and winter when the house can use the added heat. Run the frozen toms under warm water and you can slip the skins right off. Set them aside to thaw for awhile and then cook as desired. For me that method beats out canning when I don't have alot of tomatoes ready to harvest at any one time.

i disagree with some of the numbers here. Obviously, it is extremely inefficient to do it with regular tomatoes. And it is not only inefficient, regular tomatoes are too sweet and too watery for sauce. Even if you reduce it, it will be inferior, and the prolonged cooking will rob it of flavor. One needs plum tomatoes, as pointed out by others.

These tomatoes not only make good sauce, they are best for salsa, bruschetta (italian tomato sandwich), panzanella (bread tomato salad, on today's New York Times), and corn tomato chowder (our summer favorite). Basically, for anything that is not slicing.

So I plant some 15 San Marzano per year. I use maybe 5 during the season. Granted these are bigger plants than Roma, but with 10 you can blanch and freeze some 30-40lbs of the stuff, which tides my family almost through the winter. Perhaps I should go to 20-25 plants total, but no more. And under no circumstances I would plant less than 50% San Marzano (or other plum) tomatoes, because our usage profile is heavily weighted towards the sauce ones.

To can for the winter, dip the tomatoes in boiling water for 30 secs, then put in a ziploc, seal and freeze.

glib it might helpful if you stated which numbers you disagreed with.

Not sure if this will help, but I just made pasta sauce using 6 lbs of tomatoes (plus onions,etc) and ended up with 2 1/2 quarts of sauce. It was pretty thick, but I added 1 6oz can of paste. I use paste type tomatoes usually, Opalka, Speckled Roman, Amish Paste. This last batch was with Japanese Trifele and Orange Strawberry. I grow three plants of each variety and get more than enough at a time from one variety for a batch. My tomatoes keep producing all season long, so I can make more as the season goes. Is it worth it? Absolutely. The sauce is very tasty. I have a KitchenAid with a deseeder/deskinner attachment that makes it very easy to get the pulp and juice. Sassy's numbers are a little different than mine. I must have thicker/pastier tomatoes and plants that produce more or bigger tomatoes.

Bellatrix

We gave up on using romas for sauce a few years ago. We now use early girls and rutgers almost exclusively. Much quicker & easier. Blanch, peel, squeeze seeds out(into a very deep bowl) and put into a blender & puree mostly - not food processor. Might be alittle sweeter than romas but very very good! We add our fresh herbs, red wine and ground veal or italian sausage. Boil/ reduce for a few hours, cool and then freeze in vaccum sealed plastic bags. BTW, We have added corn starch a couple times over the years to help thicken the sauce - due to being impatient...but you'd never know/taste the difference IMO.

I often wonder about the cost effectiveness of some of the things gardeners do. I have only grown for my recreation and any harvest is just an additional benefit.

In this case, pasta sauce, how much does the fuel cost to boil the stuff? I've no answer to the OP. I am just restating the question. I can see making it for fun or to tweak the flavorings and for boasting rights but is it cost efficient?

Much of what we gardeners do isn't cost efficient ;) We do it for other reasons.

I agree that using a mix of varieties gives you the best tasting sauce. Roma varieties may cook down faster but the taste of even the best roma-based sauce can't compare with that of a mixed variety sauce. Especially so if you are making a relatively plain basic sauce. If your sauce is highly spiced/flavored then the tomatoes used likely isn't as important.

As to plant numbers? If I am going to all the work of canning and making home-made sauce then I want more than a few jars. So we grow as many plants as possible. Usually averages between 80-120 plants.

Important to keep in mind that there are very different safety requirements for sauce that is canned for shelf storage and sauce that is frozen.

Dave

albert_135 asked: "In this case, pasta sauce, how much does the fuel cost to boil the stuff? "

I have an electric stove (no gas service on my street, due to wierd utility company rules/regulations) -- my electric bill generally goes up about $30 to $35 in my peak canning month, which is generally either August or September depending upon how early the tomatoes ripen. For the number of jars I do, I think this isn't all bad. Electric rate around here is about $0.12 a KWH.

Dennis
SE Michigan

Sassy, I disagree with the 100 plants per family. of course, it would probably be OK for a family of 8, or if the plants produce very poorly, or if the family somehow eats 7-8 lbs of sauce per week through the winter.

We are happy with 2-3 lbs of plum tomatoes (not sauce) per week through the winter, one pasta for 3 people and one beef stew for several meals. 60 lbs appears to be all we need. It is a similar number to our fresh-shelled beans needs, and probably well below what our winter garden produces (we plant 250 radicchios, and similar amounts of kale). Both beans and winter greens are also much healthier than tomatoes, which is a factor in the dead of winter.

In regard to energy efficiency and cost, blanching is fairly efficient. A full freezer uses of the order of $30/year of electricity. I love traditions, but canning always struck me as something that needs to change based on modern technology.

I love traditions, but canning always struck me as something that needs to change based on modern technology.

glib - Whatever would make you think that home canning/food preservation is merely a tradition and that it hasn't changed with modern technology? Do you can?

Thanks to modern testing and research, historical home canning has little in common with modern canning techniques, recipes, books, equipment, etc. And I should know as the wife and I have been doing it for well over 40 years now. And the resurgence in home canning popularity has been such in the past couple of years that supplies are running short all over the country. Jars, lids, pressure canners, even lemon juice are sold out right now when they are most needed. Check out the many discussions on the Harvest Forum for more insight if you wish. Enrollment in the county extension courses in home canning have doubled over the past two years. Our local extension is having to xerox copies of the manuals because USDA printing office can't keep up with the demand for them.

While the initial outlay for equipment can be a bit high ($150-200), it is a one-time-only expense and is all reusable and recyclable. Storage is cheap, especially when compared to current food prices, and has the benefit of not only being higher quality, has a longer shelf life, is free from additives and preservatives, better tasting, but also makes certain produce available year round.

Properly done, home canning can cut annual food bills in half and that is not a baby one should throw out with the bath water. ;)

Dave

Glib, I think your comment about "if the family somehow eats 7 to 8 quarts of sauce a week" about sums my household up -- 3 adults and a large dog. We DO use that many, if not more, quarts of canned tomato products each week -- when I make a batch of chili, for example, I use 2 quarts of whole or stewed tomatoes. A pan of lasgna, a quart of sauce and 1 or 2 quarts of whole or stewed tomatoes, depending on how big of a pan. So, it really does depend on your useage and lifestyle. In my household, we just use a LOT of tomato products.

I would can even if there were some other technology. It's just something that's fun to do, and it really is an artform and a hobby as well as a method of food preservation.

Dennis

I've always wondered about this statement about cost efficiency. What else were you planning on doing with that time? It doesn't take long to can alot of stuff if you know what you're doing and the extra cost isn't that big of deal. Even figuring in the added cost for running the stove and extra water, you're bound to come out ahead. The biggest cost is your time but unless you would be using that time to generate income, it's wasted time anyway. And of course you have to take into account the ever increasing food costs and the fact that you have just made a high end product that is personalized.

Then if you just freeze things, blanching can be done while making a meal if you have small daily harvests. It's all just a matter of knowing what you're doing and being good in the kitchen. You spend the time now so that you don't have to spend it in the store later.........when it's snowing or raining or the kids are sick and the you're home alone.

If you don't think that preserving food is cost efficient, then explain how cooking at home is. A kitchen is a huge cost in a house and stocking it and all the other things that go with preparing and serving food are too. However, eating together in your own home as a group has been proven to be the basis for a strong family.

And don't even get me started on what the food companies put in that stuff on the shelves. It makes me shudder everytime I think about it. Breaking food down to it's components and then brewing up chemical soups. Science is good to a point but they've gone way to far.

It seems that the topic got "rustled" and turned into a discussion of the cost effectiveness of canning.
First, pasta sauce is practical, but I heartily suggest using a paste tomato. I've tried it both ways, and with a Roma or San Marzano, the end product is better. If necessary, I have thrown in a few Celebrities or other regular canning tomatoes to make up a deficit with no lessening of the quality.
Now, about the cost effectiveness of canning. Any of y'all been to the grocery store lately? I bet prices aren't going to go down! Also, when we lived in upstate NY, we were near a Del Monte canning plant. Semis would come in with a load of green beans, corn, etc. and dump it on asphalt parking lot. The veggies would sit there until picked up in a front loader and taken into the plant. Right after I saw that for the first time we got all the canning equipment we needed and started to preserve our own. Cheaper, cleaner, and better tasting, and for some us, FUN!

My wife has done most of our canning for years. But this year she is working full time. So, we have about equal time limitations. I decided to take on the tomato canning and she, has done most of the beans. I was pretty rusty. But it's come back pretty well.

Just last year my wife asked me to PLEASE grow some Romas for canning! I did it to humor her. After all, since getting into seed saving in the 80s, I have gravitated to heirlooms and not-so-common varieties. Well, I am impressed! They produced a large flush of fruit right when I wanted it. They were EASY to process (blanch, peel, etc.). I put out 6 plants. Next year I'll put out 12.

My all time favorite tomato is called Baker Family Heirloom, which is like a 10' tall Rutgers. This year, I also planted a couple Sioux. That's an excellent tomato, and good for processing. I'll grow Sioux again. But I want those plum tomatoes. They really do thicken things up a lot faster.

Oh, here's something I tried, which worked very well. I processed tomatoes as often as I could. Each time, I would fill our crock pot with juiced tomatoes and put it on to cook down. Once a day I would have a finished batch of thick sauce, ready to can. When I had a couple of quarts of thick sauce I'd then finish off the canner load with jars of canned whole tomatoes. This really worked well for our busy schedule.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Yes, I used to can, but freezing with or without blanching took over as the better way forward. Ziploc bags are cheaper than jars, and of course the labor intensiveness of canning is vastly reduced when freezing. It is september, you have to shell 50 lbs of beans, work your regular job, get the children ready for school, ready the house for winter, do you really want to can also?

Let me also mention that I have seen canning first hand since I was zero. My mother has canned all her life and still does despite her advanced age. She cans for an extended family of 40 or so, about 2 tons in total, one of tomatoes and one of assorted fruits. She has a quality industrial strainer, a large (about 5 cuft) pot, and cooks outdoors with a wood fire. It is still a lot of work.

I guess over time I evolved my tastes. I still have ten years old grape-pear jam in the crawlspace. It used to be pretty good, but somehow once I got a garden of my own my horizons expanded (I tried a lot of previously unknown vegetables, I discovered winter gardening) and I no longer need tomatoes and jam every day.

And freezing really works for everything I want, at a low cost and minimal disruption.

I agree that freezing is easier and that most things can be frozen - even many things that can't be canned.

However, it also affects taste and textures. Many find canned green beans preferable over frozen. Same goes for many other garden items. And the freezer shelf life for most items is much shorter than it is for canned goods.

Lastly, the freezer concept assumes a consistent electrical supply, something you may be able to count on barring severe weather but it's something many rural folks simply don't have. Lose the electricity for any length of time - a 3-4 times a year happening here - and much of the freezer content is gone. Canned foods don't need electricity for safe storage. ;)

Bottom line - there is role for both and for drying too. So please don't make the assumption that home canning is somehow out-dated or technologically retarded. That just isn't true. For millions of us, home canning at this time of year is not only fun and considered a very beneficial use of time but it is a normal part of life right up there with work, the kids, the PTA, not to mention mowing and baling hay and laying in firewood for winter.

Dave

In terms of canning vs freezing -- I do both, and I actually went out and bought 2 new freezers this year, for a total of 4 stand-alone freezers plus two attached to refrigerators. And, I've FILLED them all this summer. My current project -- working on about 20 bushels of peaches from my 13 trees. HELP ME!

I dry some things as well, mostly tomatoes, herbs, fruit.

Dave/Digdirt wrote: "Lastly, the freezer concept assumes a consistent electrical supply, something you may be able to count on barring severe weather but it's something many rural folks simply don't have. Lose the electricity for any length of time - a 3-4 times a year happening here - and much of the freezer content is gone"

Here in Metro Detroit, a major urban area (9th largest in the US, actually, with about 7 million people), our power is guaranteed to go out at least six times a year, and at least one of those periods will be 3 or more days, and a couple more of them at least 24 hours. So, while I don't like in the country, I understand the sentiment about unreliable electricty. I got fed up with it years ago and got a whole-house generator, something MANY people in the Detroit area do, since our utility is SO unreliable about line maintenance, tree trimming, etc. With the crappy service, you'd think our utility rates would be cheaper. WRONG!

Dennis
SE Michigan

This year I planted 15 tomato plants (a mixture of lemon boy--know some of you hate them, but I like them) and brandywine. They went crazy, even despite the cool, wet summer, and I have put up 40 quarts of canned tomatoes, 15 quarts of frozen tomatoes, 30 pints of chili suce (a must if you have a husband who goes through a pint every 2 weeks lol), and I am on my third batch of spaghetti sauce (which I do not jar or freeze for the winter, because I will make my sauce from the canned and frozen tomatoes), but just cook and eat fresh when I ge tired of canning whole tomatoes.

I am not sure why or how I got so many tomatoes from so few plants--they really were productive for me this year.

Digdirt, Dennis, I will concede the point: I posted as someone who thinks everyone has a generator. Then again, around Detroit everyone does.

I don't make traditional pasta sauce because it always seemed like a lot of work, and my attempts didn't taste very good either. This year I tried the roasted tomato sauce and found it to be super easy and tasty. I am a picky eater and thought I would not like a sauce with skins and seeds, but I don't even notice them. I didn't have any paste tomatoes this year, so the sauce was a little watery but very tasty. I used red cherry, yellow grape, rutgers, and other large slicing kinds. I rough chop them up real quick, and add a little garlic, onion, red pepper flake, olive oil. It can be roasted in the oven while cooking another meal so the oven is already hot. Then just whir it up with a blender or whatever and it is good to go.

I love many things frozen, especially beans. But we can our beans because we need to save space in the freezers for meat and milk (we raise goats, steer, chickens, turkeys & ducks). For me, the key with canning is to get the routine down so you can do it while you're doing something else. It is IMPORTANT however, not to lose track of time when the canner is on the hot stove! I try to stick right nearby when it's heating and sealed. This is not too hard for me, since I have lots of study to do, with my lap top. The kitchen table is a fine place for that.

George

I tried canning this year for the first time and decided it was very hot work indeed.:) Since I have a chest freezer that I never used, I decided to try that, and I have been making roasted tomato sauce in the oven and then freezing it. I can fit four pans in there, and I use all the different tomatoes I grow. Only one of them is a paste type. The stuff tastes incredibly good and makes the house smell good too. I do basically what molanic describes. I grew up eating homemade pasta sauce that slow cooked on top of the stove all day, and I think the roasted sauce is just as good and it's less work. Plus it is easy to freeze with no worries about modifying the recipe to suit canning rules. You get a lot more of a result when you process the skins along with the pulp also, and I do not find it causes any bitterness at all. I decided to confine my canning to low-risk stuff like fruit preserves.

I do think it is a good point that canned foods last longer. I think freezing ends up embodying more energy, but to my mind, frozen food generally tastes better than canned. I don't like things too cooked. Except oven-roasted tomatoes!

I had no idea that the electricity in Detroit was so undependable. When I lived in south Florida, it regularly would go out for the course of a day, but never for days at a time. I can't imagine what those poor folks in Galveston are going to do with no electricity for a MONTH.

Yeah, as Dennis says, this place is slipping. My side of Detroit is no different than his side. Sure, there are a lot of trees, with electric wires tunneling through, but three times a year on average is bad. One thing one can do is keep the freezer in the garage (mine is detached). At least in the winter, the food will stay frozen when the light goes out. In the summer my freezer sits empty, so I have some protection there too.