How Many Tomatoes to Plant for Canning? Preserve a Year's Supply of Food, Garden Planning, Beginner

How much food to grow for canning? Well, there’s no straight answer because there’s too many variables. While canning recipes are consistent, plant yield is based on crop variety, season length, weather, soil type and quality, soil inputs, family consumption rate, etc.

But what we *can* do (no pun intended) to determine how much to grow is start by evaluating what you make for meals in an average week.
1. How often do you buy specific canned goods/ingredients?
2. From there, determine how many canned goods of a certain type you need.
3. Next we look at how many pieces of produce (on average) go into your desired can size.
4. Research crop variety average yields.
5. If we know how much food we need, we can better determine how many plants we need.

Here’s my calculations for what my family of four eats based on the following common items. Yours will look different and this is just an example.

TOMATO SAUCE
13 pounds are needed per canner load of 9 pints
3 Tomatoes per pound

39 tomatoes in 9 pints
4.3 tomatoes per pint
1 plant can yield 20 tomatoes (average)

104 pints needed
448 tomatoes needed
23 plants for preservation
+ fresh eating
+ donation
= 35 PLANTS

BLACK BEANS
175g (6oz) black beans in pint
1 pint per week
52 pints per year

175×52 = 9100g per year
Plant yield highly variable, can’t estimate weight so go by average plants per person

20 plants per person for a year
20×4
= 80 PLANTS

APPLESAUCE
28 medium apples = 9 pints
10 pints for the year
280 apples

125 apples per bushel, on average
I need 2 bushels for canning
+ fresh eating
+ donation

Single semi dwarf apple tree produces up to 500 apples in a season
= 1 SEMI-DWARF APPLE TREE

DILL PICKLES
3-4 average sized cucumbers to fill pint jar
25 pints needed for year
12 cucumbers per plant, average

4×25 = 100 cucumbers needed
100/12 = 9 plants for canning
+ fresh eating
+ donation
= 16 PLANTS

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The Sustainable Homestead: https://a.co/d/aJiktEc
The Little Homesteader, Spring: https://a.co/d/81clkYB
The Little Homesteader, Summer: https://a.co/d/81clkYB
The Little Homesteader, Fall: https://a.co/d/4NVXWcO
The Little Homesteader, Winter: https://a.co/d/hpQ8x7s
The Harvest Table Cookbook: https://a.co/d/00rW3uq

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Welcome to Axe & Root Homestead! I’m a first generation, self-taught permaculture farmer in Central New Jersey. If you’re looking for information on gardening, homesteading, canning, animal care, working with your land, or regenerative farming practices, I have lots of info to share:
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