Check the National Center for Home Food Preservation and/or the Ball sites for safe recipes. Or pick up a Ball Blue Book. If you've got the freezer space, you can make anything you want and freeze it. You can add veggies, mushrooms, meat, anything you like in your sauce. If you decide to can it, please use a safe, tested recipe! If you don't want chunks, you can always puree the sauce just before you can or freeze it. Deanna

OK, several questions here. First, yes, you can process plain tomato sauce in a boiling water bath. If you check the link below that will explain processing times, etc. Pickled peppers and eggplant can also be processed BWB, but for regular plain peppers you would need a pressure canner. Plain eggplant is not recommended for canning because it basically turns into an unappetizing mush. In fact, it's not recommended for freezing either, though you could freeze it as part of a casserole or a sauce. Regarding the other question, a pressure canner costs quite a lot more than a boiling water bath canner, but the advantage is you can use it for both pressure canning and water bath canning, so you're getting two for one. This is also an advantage if space is limited. You only have one large kettle to store rather than two. Carol Here is a link that might be useful: Standard Tomato Sauce

Carol, I agree. I would truly leave out that oil. Yes, you would still add the bottled lemon juice since you are adding other ingredients. I think that much garlic is too much, also. This one has 20 lb. of tomatoes and only 8 cloves of garlic. Plus, only 1 T. of oil. Canning your own recipes is not suggested due to safety issues, it can put you at a risk for botulism. I would not can what you are telling us, but freeze it instead. I think it is best if you stick with the recipe from Ball Blue book that has basil in it if you wish to can one . Basil-Garlic Tomato Sauce Ingredients 20 pounds tomatoes 1 cup chopped onion 8 cloves garlic, minced 1 tablespoon olive oil 1/4 cup finely minced fresh basil Bottled lemon juice Instructions Prepare Ball® or Kerr® jars and closures according to instructions found in Canning Basics. Wash tomatoes; drain. Remove core and quarter tomatoes; set aside. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until transparent. Add tomatoes. Simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Put tomato mixture through a food mill or strainer to remove seeds and peel. Combine tomato purée and basil in a large saucepot. Cook over medium-high heat until reduced by one-half, stirring to prevent sticking. Add 1 tablespoon bottled lemon juice to each pint jar. Carefully ladle hot sauce into hot jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Wipe rim and threads of jar with a clean damp cloth. Place lid on jar with sealing compound next to glass. Screw band down evenly and firmly just until a point of resistance is met-fingertip tight. Process 35 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Yield: about 7 pints. For altitude adjustment increase processing as indicated below: 1,001-- 3,000 ft.....5 minutes 3,001-- 6,000 ft...10 minutes 6,001-- 8,000 ft...15 minutes 8,001- 10,000 ft...20 minutes Nutrition Information Per 1/2 Cup Serving: Calories 73 Protein 3g Carbohydrate 15g Fat 1.5g Cholesterol 0mg Sodium 28mg Potassium 702mg % USRDA: Protein 6% Vitamin A 21% Vitamin C 102% Thiamin 12% Riboflavin 9% Niacin 10% Calcium 2% Iron 8%

San Marzano is indeterminate so yes will need caging/trellising. How is the bed situated? You can put them along the north side if that's the long side and make a trellis of EMT with rebar driven into the ground and conduit slipped over it, then clamped to the outside of the bed. You will need to prune them to get 8 plants in 16ft. If you have true Romas (a lot of mislabeling of any type of paste/plum shape as "Roma" out there) then they are determinates and could go along the south side of the same bed, I'd say 1ft in so good 3ft between them and the SM but if you have an unused bed that gets full day sun I think your tomatoes would do better if you split them between the beds to get more than 2ft between them. I plant mine 2ft apart but have very deep raised beds - 2ft deep of amended soil, 2-3 ft wide and a single row of tomatoes. I just built a new area with a 4ft wide center bed 2ft deep of composted manure (no native soil mixed in it at all) and am planting staggered rows of indeterminates app 18-20" apart as an experiment this year since my dad grows in a few inches of the same over his old side lawn (but my area was very rocky acid soil that was leveled and compacted with a bulldozer to put up a hoop house so I had to put compost on deeper). So I think your original plan would work if your raised bed is deep with well-amended soil, or if you had decent soil underneath that was double-dug or tilled to loosen it. But if you've got poor soil (the reason for raised beds to begin with?) and less than 12" of good mix in the bed, I'd give the plants more room - and more water - than they would take planted "in ground". Think of that type of bed as a big container. Don't prune the Romas if they are determinates. Oh, and don't worry about rooting suckers from the SM - you're not likely to have room for more plants. Though you could do it if you want to give some away to friends/family. If you do use both beds for tomatoes, you may want to put some slicing tomatoes in there - anything you like for fresh eating, I recommend determinates, not only may you want some for salads/sandwiches but a lot of people on the Harvest (canning) forum think sauce tastes better with a variety of tomatoes included. Just don't put any purple/black ones in unless you want mud-colored sauce (you'd be amazed at how 1 tomato can change the color of a whole batch) LOL! This post was edited by ajsmama on Fri, Jun 13, 14 at 9:25