Your issues are common to many gardeners. I'll try to approach them as I understand those problems.

1. Your husband is right. Rain will cause the tomatoes to crack. Even washing and allowing the tomatoes to absorb water will cause cracking. But most people try to avoid cracking by growing varieties that are less prone to cracking. The varieties are mostly hybrids so you will need to start seeds rather than allowing what you have to reseed.

2. There are different aspects of canning that need attention to detail. In my opinion a longer water bath cooking is what you need. but if you didn't add extra lemon or vinegar; if you turned the rings on too tight; if you didn't run a knife along the jar sides for whole tomatoes you may increase the liklyhood of unsealed jars and/or unsafe product.

3. My answer to this question would be to start your plants from purchased seed and transplant them in rows ~30" between plants in row so that you get an earlier crop and a far more easily managed crop. As a followup IMO you are far better with a support to keep these plants off the ground.

Well, Teresa, I'm only about 5-6 yrs into gardening since DH and I quit smoking and decided to "get healthy"!
I don't have nearly as much of a garden as you do (especilly as a beginner!), but I have learned some things about gardens, maters, other veges etc.
I don't "can" as I used to. Seems like alot of work!
What I do is either "blanch" veges, then freeze, or sauce them then freeze in a "slab"
I have a "Foodsaver" that I freeze things in the slab, then vac the next day.
Love those fresh veges in Dec or Jan!
Love love love those fresh soups made with fresh veges hmmmm in January? Yummy stuff!

My curiosity has the best of me, Teresa. Can you explain your statement " My husband is a farmer by experiment"?

Hello!

Thank you so much, first of all.

On canning, we processed them for 45 minutes I believe with lemon and salt but I have no idea what the knife thing is. We are used to canning pickles which only take about ten minutes, should the lids be left a smidge looser when we're processing that much longer?

We have frozen them in the past but the volume can be overwhelming so we thought if we could get them in jars that we can put in the basement, the storage issues would be less.

And for the record, we share A LOT of these with all of our neighbors. :) They are very sweet and tasty, better flavor than just about any I've ever had from the store for certain. Part of the problem I think is that we don't always keep up, maybe if I got out there right away in the morning after a rain the splitting might be less?

And...what I meant by "my husband is a farmer by experiment" is that he has no farming experience, no farmers in his family, etc., etc. He just does what seems logical and occasionally will pick up a book on a particular subject if he's really at a loss. He's a physicist by education so that probably explains a lot in and of itself. :)

We have three acres, but currently are probably actively growing on a little less than an acre of it. We are slowly organizing and expanding as we learn.