Variety doesn't make any difference as the same methods apply to all varieties. So it depends on how you would use them the most. Canned plain tomatoes can be used for any number of recipes so the instructions for canning crushed tomatoes (linked below) is one of the most popular methods. If you'd use more tomato sauce than whole or chopped tomatoes then you can turn any tomato into sauce and using anything other than Romas will deliver a better tasting sauce. Most use a mixture of many different varieties to make sauce for either canning or freezing as it will deliver a far superior flavored sauce. Canning salsa is probably the next most popular method but it can be tricky since it also includes low acid ingredients so only tested and approved recipes can be used for it. Of course you can also freeze them plain and use them for cooking if you don't want to get into canning. Check out all the canning and freezing instructions for them at NCHFP Hope this helps. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Canning Crushed Tomatoes with no added liquid

"So you are saying that Early Girl is a hybrid, (yes I just checked, its called Early Girl VFF Hybrid #2783) and one of the parents of the type I bought is a potato leaf?" ---------------------------------------------------------- Yes, one of the parent lines of Early Girl and Early Girl Improved is potato leafed (PL). Like you, I have found PL seedlings in plants I have started from Early Girl Improved seeds bought from commercial vendors in sealed packages bought from racks like Burpee, Northrup King, Ferry Morse, etc. All that means to me is that someone in some Southeast Asian seed production plantation mistakenly picked one of the tomatoes from a PL parent plant that had not been cross pollinated by the RL parent line and those pure line PL seeds got mixed into the whole batch of properly harvested F1 seeds. I've also found PL seedlings in Early Girl plants started at commercial greenhouses and set out for sale. This too is rare, but when I examined all the plants at this one particular nursery, no a single other variety the man has started was a PL variety. I confirmed this with the owner. I have also grown PSR-37, which Peters Seed Research absolutely described as an open pollinated derivation of the old Early Girl (prior to Early Girl Improved) and said it should be stable for PL and it was. All of these tomatoes that were PL were similar or nearly identical in all respects to one another by comparison. The fruit all was small to medium, red, pointed at the blossom end and zingy/sweet with no depth of flavor. I'd compare them to Bloody Butcher, Matina, Tamina, and those kind of Western European, PL, early season, open pollinated varieties that are popular here in the states for early tomatoes. Here is a picture of one of the faux Early Girl (PLs) side-by-side with Early Girl Improved. The tomato on the right is Early Girl Improved with its leaf shape and the tomato on the right is one of what I consider to be from stray seed of one of the Early Girl parents. Again, this one on the left is typical of what I got on two occasions as mistaken EG, what I got when I grew out Early Girl Improved F2 seeds (25% of the total), and what PSR-37 looks like. Oh there may be some minor differences in the fruit as some are more pointy than others; but that could be climatic conditions too. And again, I consider these rare stray PL plants from seed packs or in nursery flats to be the result of sloppy seed harvesting at the breeding fields. Nothing to get excited about unless you, unlike me, find something outrageously delicious.

If all you have is 4 gal you can do it but it is true there is a trade off and it is certainly at the lower limits of feasibility. Big containers can't be moved or managed as well such as changing out soil, moving into protected environments or better season light conditions. Even the size is not the only factor. What is the shape and soil mix? I would rather have a potting mix in 4 gal than 5 gal of top soil. If the container is not high and vertical than the drainage characteristics of the soil may need to change. A low wide container my hold too much water while a high container will give the same soil better drainage. I had a black cherry in a 3 gal last year in part because I often lose track of what is what. I thought it was a Roma which I thought would give me some decent production out of a 3 gallon pot. It turns out it was a black cherry seedling with very reasonable production with 2, 6 foot vines. It really was a decent plant. Now the down side of the smaller container were quite rightly mentioned to be water and nutrient loss from run off. In a dry hot climate its going to work against you more. I am in a 5a zone which is not like LA or Vegas. I also went with self watering 5 gal container with potting soil. The self watering addresses both problems. Bottom watering does not wash away nutrients and I need to water less frequently.

Dave, As a matter of fact one plant is older than the other. The larger of the 2 is younger. The smaller one had several sets of true leaves and 2 blooms when I got it. The other came home with 2 sets of true leaves and didn't start fruiting until 2 1/2 weeks ago. I had thought about mislabeling but the pair are identical, fruit, leaf and structure, other than height. That is the reason I was asking more knowledgeable folks that may have grown early girl BUSH. Is my first year growing the bush type.