108? Wow. I had 36 plants last year and it was way 2 many for just the 2 of us, even with freezing & canning. This year I've got 20 or so, and that's still too many. I found out about a local food pantry that takes home grown produce, so I'll probably take the excess there.

I grow 8-9 in the garden, a few more in pots and had all I could eat plus enough to can about 15+ quarts. Some seasons I did not have enough ready at the same time to can at all. I would love to have 20 or so and enough to give away lots and bring some to a local food pantry. Can't imagine what I would do with 100+ plants unless I was setting up to sell them at a farmers market or something. I love tomatoes but boy that is a lot unless you are selling them.

I have 8 plants this year and usually 7 plants. Seems to be adequate since I don't jar them. My grandfather has many san marzanos that he uses solely for jarring which last the family sparingly throughout the winter. There are times where there are too many to eat from the 7 plants. I wouldn't go for any more since my brother, father and uncle grow 8-12 plants as well.

This post was edited by spicymeatball on Fri, Jun 7, 13 at 4:46

I cut back to a few over 100 plants this year. Had planned on just 75-80 but had too many seedlings left over from sales to waste them all. If they all make it, great. If some don't, that's ok too. Wife and I do a great deal of canning and some dehydrating.

Getting too old to deal with the 3-400 we planted for years when we were active farmer's market vendors.

Dave

I plant 6-8 tomato plants (heirlooms, roma and cherry varieties) and am usually overwhelmed. Only 2 people in my house, but I make a few batches of sauce and I get all that I need and more to give away.

Wow, 108? That's a lot for 1 person to keep up with. I had about 150 last year (50 leftovers got planted late June and never took off). Planned on 119 this year, may be a few less (could only fit 20 determinates where I wanted 24). So far this year I've only gotten 43 in the ground with crazy weather and kids' schedules. 50 peppers to go in as well next week. But I sell at market (can only support 1 market but I'm only 1 person and have other veggies and berries too).

I have 36 in the ground in my backyard garden, plus another 158 in a 1 acre garden that a buddy and I are going to try to sell out of. I had 48 plants last year and was able to can a ton, eat a ton and sell some on a little roadside stand, as well as give lots away to family and friends.

CH

I have 73 plants in a 40x40 plot in my yard. 5 slicers(3heirloom and 2 hybrid) and 1 plant ea of 4 diff cherries. 8 C Purple by themselves in a small separate plot. This is my hobby. I give away 80% of them.

I only planted five plants, the same as last year. We only had three people in the house last year and that was too many to eat fresh, this year it's just my husband and me. I had three large colanders overflowing with tomatoes for a month or so. This year I'll try to can them if I get as many as I did last year.

Wow, based in the responses so far I should be swimming in tomatoes if all of them take off!! My goal is to can the bulk of them. Hubby and I eat a LOT of tomatoes: pasta sauces, chili, soups, salsa, salsa, salsa! So it would be great if I could have jars of my own home grown tomatoes instead of the cans from the store. Although I will miss the cashier always looking at me like I'm crazy when I fill half my cart with them :-)

Here's what I'm growing (didn't get to choose, just took what was given to me):
1 Sweet 100 cherry
1 Roma
9 Better Boy
9 Super Steak
7 Rutgers
6 Beef Steak
8 Mountain Pride
43 Delicious
12 Mr Stripey
10 Jubilee
2 Unknown variety

I have 17 planted... mostly heirlooms including 2 cherry and 3 sauce. We enjoy tomatoes... in brochette, salsa, and pico de gallo, on sandwiches, in salads, on the grill... or just with salt and pepper.

Our 12 tomato plants from last year didn't produce more than "just enough" to have some with dinner. I overhauled the soil, making modified mel's mix and now go up to look at the garden morning and evening!

I have 22 varieties, 68 plants. I really cut down this year. Way too busy to grow the number I usually do.

Betsy

300 this year on the main plot + 28 in the garden. Half of all are Sungolds, the other half are Brandywine, Black Russian, Sungrape, Black Cherry, Rosada, Ruby, Rainbow blend (Katiebell, Flamingo...) and Gardenberry (Tomatobery Garden).

A better perspective:

First planting is about 290

First Cherry tomato planting of 88

First outdoor planting 140

Second outdoor planting 102, sorry no picture

Last outdoor planting, in one of my movable building spots, 80 plants. They will be planted around June 15th.

Last planting of cherry tomatoes of 45, they will go in around June 15th too.

Yes we sell at farmers markets.

Jay

I think we'll have about 12 plants this year. I have 6 going right now and a bunch of seedlings from direct-sowing that will be ready to move to a raised bed in a week or two. My goal is to keep them all alive and healthy - my track record isn't the best and I am glad I found this forum!

I ended up with 8. I still remember the year that I had many more than that and by the end of the season I was miserable because it was too much to keep up with for me in the Texas heat.
I've finally found (for me, not for others) just the right amount of veggie plants in the garden that will give me plenty of harvest, enough to eat and some to freeze.
I've finally learned that I can admire the gardens of people who have a hundred or more tomato plants and all sorts of varieties in beautiful rows without having to try to emulate what they have accomplished.

This thread caused my curiosity to do a count. For me this year, it will be 293 plants involving 109 varieties. This includes my activities in the Cross Hemisphere Dwarf Project and my usual plethora of containers, The main garden is 107' X 40'. More than half of it is used for tomataoes. This year, I also have half a row of Beets, half a row of Okra, and one row each of Garden Peas, Blue Lake Green Beans, and White Half Runner Beans. Small side patches of Cucumbers (pickling, burpless, and Lemon) occupy a small strip down one edge.

And, like Dave (digdirt), I'm getting too old to keep up this pace. I'll be cutting back to about 100 tomato plants next year.

Ted

Ted - How many of those 293 are in containers?

Just curious.

Betsy

About 60 or so. When I chose my handle for these tomato forums, I was living in Georgia - northeast of Atlanta. I was surrounded by Bitter Hickory trees and couldn't put anything into the ground because of the juglone in the soil. Everything had to be in containers.

Now, I'm in Northeast Tennessee and have a nice, large, inground garden which I cut out of raw pasture. It is wondrously fertile and my plants seem to "jump" out of the ground. I still have all my containers and use them up near the house for certain tomatoes and most of my sweet peppers.

Nowadays, most of my container tomatoes are from the dwarf project.

Ted

I've got a little over 50 but with a rambunctious tomato thief of a dog that might not be enough. As someone suggested if you find you have too many you could always donate the extra.

This year I have 140, about evenly split between Celebrity, Brandwine, Porter Improved and Jet Star, which much to my disappointment is not Jet Star. The truss has from 12-25 blossoms and the fruit is elongated like a grape tomato or Porter. Nothing to do but wait and see.
We eat a lot, can, give lots away and take a lot to church every Sunday.

I cut back this year to 12 plants. Two cherries (Sungold and Sun Sugar), two slicers (Brandy Boy), eight paste (San Marzano, Rutgers, Opalka).

That is more than enough for the 2 of us to have lots for fresh eating and canning with some to give away (as long as we don't get Late Blight again!).
I can't imagine taking care of 100+ plants!

For those of you with more than 100 tomatoes, just wondering, do you grow much of anything else, do you have help? I had about 150 last year (just had to plant the leftovers that didn't sell), was trying to prune some of them to single stems (the leftovers) to train on a string, the others were FL Weave between T posts and most were just tied to fence behind them. Between watering, picking off the hornworms and any spotted lower leaves, spraying copper (early LB scare even in drought), digging new potatoes in July-Aug, picking squash and cukes and marketing it all (had a bad year for berries so at least I wasn't picking those all day for days on end, or making jam), I just couldn't keep up with pruning the main crop and eventually got LB (even with spraying).

I'm still trying to figure out the upper limit on everything - and tomatoes is what I grow the most of (or plant the most of anyway). But we just can't live on tomatoes alone - unless I wholesale them and cut other crops down to just what we'd eat fresh, no preserving.

Looks like bumper year for the wild blackberries so I hope I don't get in the same time crunch with pruning the tomatoes I did last year. That is, if any survive this wet weather - just got done planting and may have to re-plant from my leftovers since the ones I planted last week were already showing signs of edema yesterday with over 2" of rain on Friday. We got probably another 2" yesterday, 1" more expected today and maybe just as much again on Thurs.

ajsmama ===> For those of you with more than 100 tomatoes, just wondering, do you grow much of anything else, do you have help?

For myself, I don't prune for the sake of pruning. I take away yellowing or sick foliage, but with the exception of an occasional sucker, my tomatoes are allowed to show us what they should look like. Many times, I allow them to sprawl - especially those where I'm only looking for seed production.

I make and can a lot of "tomato juice". Everything goes thru the BTB strainer and then to the stove and is reduced by ~40% to a very thick "juice". A teaspoon of canning salt into each quart and then to the pressure canner. From this, we make sauces, salsa, picante', and whatever else come to mind.

Right now, only about half of my garden is dedicated to tomatoes. I always give away a lot of veggies. The reason I give away so much is "because I can". We live in one of the poorest counties in Tennessee and are blessed with the ability to help our neighbors when things get hungry.

Ted

Thanks Ted - I don't prune for the sake of pruning but just to try to control the sprawl (confine them to the beds so I don't step on them) and the foliar diseases But more than 100 tomatoes, 50 peppers, 50-60 potatoes (or this year it's beans which could be worse) a dozen cukes and a dozen squash plus the berries (and last year we didn't really have berries) are a lot for me to keep up with. I think I need to cut down - I'm not getting any younger either.

Usually I have 30 plants for our family of 4. We eat fresh and I can quite a bit. This year I gave up space for the kids to have a garden area, so I'm down to 22 plants, 8 varieties. Most are in the main garden as usual, one is a yellow slicer the kids chose for their area and the saladette found a spot in a flower bed closer to the house.

Ajsmama, while I don't grow enough to qualify to answer your question, I would want to add that those of us who are lucky enough to have no pest or disease challenges would probably have an easier time maintaining 100+ tomato plants. All I ever have to do with mine is keep them on their supports. No bugs to pick. No diseases to keep at bay with pruning or spraying. No (extended) excessive heat to mulch against. That said, our plants don't grow as big as they do in warmer climes either. One always has to trade something. :)

This year 20, but every year the number grows as I get better at canning and the restaurant takes more. So far I've been getting by with CRW cages, but I'm going to have to master the weave I think, if the trend keeps going.

Edit: meant to add that I really like the picture of the setup djole. Gives me ideas. :)

This post was edited by sunnibel7 on Fri, Jun 14, 13 at 11:02

we did about 50 plants this year. With over a dozen varieties. The healthiest looking so far is cuostralee, which is a new one for me this year. I have dreams of growing bigger 'maters than my neighbor. :)

Hi, So, in my 22 x 16 foot garden have 24 plants total. This roughly comes to a plant being about 3 feet apart and 18 inches from the outer surrounding fence. With Heirlooms, even with cages, stakes, and tying them up, it's good to have them 3 feet apart. This will improve air circulation, sunlight exposure, no plants growing into each other, and picking and walking distances between plants. I will not plant them closer. Basil I put between them and I'm convinced they both love each other. Think the strong aroma deters pests and mammals and boy, it's nice to give someone a big plant for them to make their own pesto. Basil = $$$$

This is my first year doing tomatoes ! My daughter and i both love roma tomatoes.. I bought 4 about 3 inch tall roma plants from my local co op .... I have two in large pots they are quite big now and two in the ground ( i wasnt sure if i would be moving i know im not now so i may transplant the two in pots into the ground as well .. ) one of my potted ones has 3 ripe ones on it i will be letting my daughter pick them this afternoon there are just enough. For she my son and i to have one each ... !

A also plan on planting a few green bean plants but thats for another forum ..

We usually pick up about 10 from hardware stores, but this year i grew my won and have 24 tomatoes in our "flower beds" and 20 pepper plants in buckets... :)

I realized I was getting serious about tomatoes one year when I counted the number of tomatoes in my garden, and in flower beds (and any available space around my house), and found that I had 78. Now, 4 houses later, I have generally been putting between 150 to 200 into the garden. But that was too many. (Yeah, between me and the bank we owned them all, and sold them all. But I made sure each house had a garden.)

I generally start 250 to 300 from seed. This year, I decided to plant out 116 plants (and I replaced about a dozen that didn't make it, so I still have 116). But I have decided that isn't enough. I think next year I will do 138 plants (I already have my planting scheme/pattern in mind), and I think that will be about perfect.

People ask me what I do with all the tomatoes. Do I bottle them, etc? Nope. I taste them, eat them, give away whatever I can to whoever wants them, and watch the rest fall on the ground. Mostly I just love comparing the different flavors, colors and characteristics . . . and breeding them.

I grow tomatoes because you just can't get great tomatoes in the store, or even in the farmer's markets (they always grow BLEECH tomato types), and I love the taste of great home grown tomatoes. But breeding them is my hobby and passion. THAT is what really makes tomato growing interesting to me.

This post was edited by fcivish on Thu, Jun 20, 13 at 1:06

fcivish - what types of tomatoes do you grow? 116 different types, 58 different types? Just wondering why so many plants. I can see starting more than you need but if you're just going to let them fall on the ground then why plant so many, why plant more than a couple of each type?

And what types are you finding at market? B/c a lot of farmers grow Brandywines and Cherokee Purples around here, I am trying different things but I don't find that a lot of the market tomatoes are BLEECH. As long as they're vine ripened, I find even a hybrid will taste better than a grocery store tomato.

This post was edited by ajsmama on Thu, Jun 20, 13 at 12:29

Here are most of what I have in my garden this year. Each name on the list is at least a slightly different strain, though the names may be similar, and represents 1 to 6 plants. My biggest problem is I have so many different types of tomatoes growing from crosses going back over a decade, in some cases, that I just don't have room for all of them. MOST of the crosses I have aren't even represented in this year's crop, because I can only work on a few dozen every year.

Obviously, some of those I list here are also commercial hybrids, OP varieties or Heirlooms. I grow them either because I LIKE them, and I want something standard, or I want something to compare to what I am growing, to see how mine stack up. I generally do it that way every year.

One problem I find in growing out the crosses is that sometimes you will go along with a 'new' strain that looks promising, growing it for several years, and then the next year it changes (as you bring out recessive traits) and takes a step back in color, size, flavor, or some other characteristic, and I need to go back to seeds from a previous year and try to again bring out the traits I liked. As you can see, among other things, this year I am emphasizing some EARLY strains and some cherry tomatoes, trying to see how they stack up.

4th of July
Amber Sweet (a cherry I am developing)
Andalusia H 4B1-2 (From tomatoes I got in Spain)
ARGG
Black Krim X Galinas red S4-G (in development)
Black Krim X Galinas (Red H) (in development)
Black Krim X Galinas Red 3B5-6
Black Magic (in development)
Box Car Willie
Brandy X Polish M5-S
Brandy X Polish F3A H
Brandy X Stupice
Brandywine Cherry
Brandywine OTV
Brandywine X Kotlas
Brandywine X Polish H. PL 5A3-4
Brandywine X Polish PL 5A7-8
Brandywine X Stupice
Capitan H
Cherokee Chocolate
Cherokee Green
Cherry Master (in development)
Comandante Zero (in development)
Dulcinea Med Red (in development)
Dulcita Small Red F4 (Smaller seeds than Dulcinea) H 4A7-8
Early Goliath
Early Wonder
Galinas X Black Krim Yellow (in development)
Galinas X Black Krim Yellow (strain #5)
Garden H 4B5-6
Green Zebra
Isis Candy
Islas Canarias (from tomatoes I got in Spain)
Kotlas
Little Lucky
Lucky Cross
Lucky Cross Pink
Marianas Cross F4 Lg Red Cherry
Marianna's Peace
More Capitan 1 5B5-6
New Black Plums (F3 growout)
New Yellow Cherry
Oh My Pink Heck (Medium) (in development)
Orange H (in development)
Orange Meaty medium sized tomato from Mariann's Peace and Jaune Flamme cross.
Purple Russian
Racimo de Espana (another one from Spain)
RED Beef F3
Red H (in development)
Red Large Beefy (in development)
Rescue H 5B3-4
Rose Quartz
Small Black Cherry (from 2010 cross)
Sunfire? H
Super Sweet 100s
Super Sweet Yellow Pear (in development)
Super Sweet Yellow Pear F3A (from 2012)
Super Sweet Yellow Pear F3B (from 2012)
Sweet Orange Golf Ball (from crosses I made)
Sweet Yellow Gold F4 (From Galinas x Black Krim H 4A5-6)
Yellow H (in development)

This year I am slightly over 30 varieties, with about two of each plant in our veggie garden. All of them heirlooms/OP, am partial to dark ones.... mmm, I already have 18 new varieties for next year trial so this year competition will be tight.

In the Years past, where I had bigger garden , I used to grow upward of 20 plants of various kinds.
This year have about 13 of them, mostly small fruited, because in PNW summers are cool and large fruited maters take too long to ripen. I just have 3 large fruited: BrandyWine, Black Krim, and Early Girl. The rest are grape, cherry, etc. USDA zoning is just irrelevant. Our 7B is more like 5A somewhere else.

I'm growing two plants in containers this year, since the soil near my house can support weeds and nothing else. My two plants are Big White Pink Stripe and Cherokee Purple.

I have more then I can handle! They end up being in pots anyway. I think it's 2 Lemon Boys, a Roma, 3 Mr Stripeys, a Mystery Tomato Plant, a Golden Honey Bunch, and one Cherokee Purple.

Big grow out year. I have 155 heirloom varieties. Total plants 320. Trying to find what will grow well in my part of nc, and what we like. I have an old farm to play with and will give most away. Also trying to save seeds. Maybe even try to cross some. I did not like tomatoes until a cousin gave me some granny Cantrell a few years ago.so many varieties and so little time. This spring was cold and too wet. My plants are about a month late. I can not wait to get up each morning to see what is happening.

Big grow out year. I have 155 heirloom varieties. Total plants 320. Trying to find what will grow well in my part of nc, and what we like. I have an old farm to play with and will give most away. Also trying to save seeds. Maybe even try to cross some. I did not like tomatoes until a cousin gave me some granny Cantrell a few years ago.so many varieties and so little time. This spring was cold and too wet. My plants are about a month late. I can not wait to get up each morning to see what is happening.

Hi, I think we're all waking up each morning to see what is going on. It's going to be a late tomato season I think. Weather is just so bizarre. I'm growing about 20 plants, probably 12 varieties. This year I started from seed for the first time in many years and went crazy trying all types. All heirlooms, many of them "black tomato" varieties, and withnthe exception of Black Cherry, i haven't grown any of them before, so it should be interesting. just hoping the weather stablizes.
I ended up with about 100 seedlings in my house. I gave the majority away to family and friends. I almost wore myself out moving the trays from windows to grow lights. Almost all of mine are in containers. I've always had better results. Also growing some eggplant and Cukes. Last year the cucumbers just died overnight.
So good luck everyone.