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Canning Tomatoes...it might not be worth it.

G

Greg1959

Well-known Member
I have been canning the produce from the garden. Canned a little over a couple of hundred quarts.

Today, I took a relative to a Sam's Club (they had a Sam's Card). The Sam's Club was about an hour away. Anyway, while I was in there, looking around I found 1 gallon cans of diced or whole tomatoes for $2.38 per gallon.

Heck, here I have been working the garden all summer to get tomatoes to can and I find them at Sam's for this price. :roll Not including the costs of water and electricity I used to can these quarts. I can't do it for this price.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love the taste of home canned 'maters but I can only taste the freshness when I use them in macaroni and 'maters. So I guess I'll save them for that and use the Sam's canned tomatoes for making chili, spaghetti, and other meals.

I guess my discovery has shown me I may be wasting money trying to raise and can a lot of my own produce.

What do you think?
 
I can only see growing tomatoes so that you can eat them in the fall, on burgers and sandwiches. I dont see the point of canning tomatoes.
I would rather can beans, or corn or something like that when it comes to canning.
 
Greg1959,

Agreed, you can very often buy commercially prepared foods for less (especially considering cost for seed, gas to till, expense of canning materials and gas/electricity...not to mention the time you spend in the garden all summer and time spent canning).

BUT as you said, commerically prepped food NEVER, EVER TASTES AS GOOD as home canned.

I do the same as you... most years can a bunch of chopped tomatoes, also juice. But I also buy either the crushed tomatoes or the petite cuts for chili or goulash. Sometimes I use a combination of store-boughten and homecanned when cooking...like to obtain thicker spaghetti sauce.

I think home canned is still the best.
 

Living here, you can get fresh (not greenhouse) veggies from pretty much year round and real cheap in the aldi store and plenty of others.... Makes absolutely no sense for us (wife and I) to plant a garden... We have these wholesale stores where restaurants shop at and we can shop there because we are registered as a business.... Kinda cheatin, but we've bought the big cans (buckets sometimes), seasoned the stuff a little, then resealed it in pint/quart jars. I like a type of potato that grows all the way north, and can buy them on ebay and have 20 pounds shipped cheaper and faster than planting them.......
 
I'll take my home grown, chemical-free produce over anything else, regardless of the price. Yes there is a lot of work to it - but that is where the satisfaction comes from. Working in the dirt is refreshing. Ofcourse to each his own- that is what makes the world go round as they say.
 
Kornfused-I too, love 'working' the dirt and the smell of fresh plowed dirt, growing the plant from seed and reaping the harvest. Also, the pleasure of knowing that you can preserve the product of your labor (just like when I butcher my hogs, cattle or chickens).


I guess I am just looking at the cost side of this versus the cheaper side of buying it outright.
 
Sams Club tomatos are going to be hydroponic, from Brazil , Mexico or beyond. The roots of the plant never touch God"s green earth where all the flavor and goodness comes from. Your spagetti sause will taste like cardboard. I will take vine-ripened any day.
 
Best to keep your gardening and preservation skills fresh. The day may come again when if you can't grow it , you may not be able to get it.I'm glad my parents taught me how to.(long time ago:))
 
Commercial tomatoes are usually peeled in acids.DDT is still in use outside the US.We grow tomatoes for the taste, not shipping qualities.Buy a can and taste them.Wife and I have had a garden for 54 years.We had beef cattle,milk goats and Jersey milk cows.Did it because we wanted better food for our children.There are hydro ponic tomatoes in the stores here.They look wonderful but are tastless and tough.
 
What do I think? I think that that darned garden, has occupied my fishing time too much, since retiring 3 yrs ago. The boat and tackle thinks they are orphans!
 
I would rather grow and can my own produce than use the gas ripened produce from the store,[cardboard] Put them in the jar and cook in the microwave but keep the lids approx 1.5 inches apart..
I like to know where my veges are grown.
 
Only put in a cpl mater plants for eating in season this yr cuz of the bugs and slugs and blight. Last yr 16 plants and the blight got 1/2 them. Like others said flavor isn't good but price is right. This soil needs so much work before trying a large amount agian. Can't sink a shovel without hitting stones.
 
I know where your coming from! But I can and freeze from our own garden almost everything we eat, over 300 quarts last year and it will be more this year,just bought another 5 dozen jars. I grow it, I can it, I eat it, I know where it came from!!Have 37 tomato plants this year, I love salsa, whole canned tomatoes, and gallons of tomato juice, I love home canned juice in my home brewed beer.
 
Many excuses for not having a garden.being lazy is the top reason.We sell potatoes for 60 cents a pound, you can buy the cheaper but they are poor tasting.We grow a German potato called Satina.Most of the rows are Kennebec.
 
Whether its worth it depends on if you care whats in the food you eat and how it was grown,now if you pour on the chemicals and commercial fertilizer you may as well buy at Sams
 
(quoted from post at 00:55:26 08/26/12) Many excuses for not having a garden.being lazy is the top reason.We sell potatoes for 60 cents a pound, you can buy the cheaper but they are poor tasting.We grow a German potato called Satina.Most of the rows are Kennebec.
Click to expand...

call it what you want.. just don't make sense for two folks with full time jobs and plenty other stuff to fill the off time. We put out 5 or 6 tomato plants usually but this year skipped it.
 
buy DonPipeno at Sams club grown in the ground and under the sun in south jersey, picked, processed and packed local
 
Plenty of ways to "have your cake and eat it too" so to speak. There are plenty of gardeners in most rural counties that have WAY too many tomatoes for themselves and sell them along the road or in their yards. STILL HOME GROWN and still cheaper than you can do it . Buy from your neighbor!! Solves all your dilema! Can still go fishin' and do anything you want 'till cannin' time then just help out your neighbor and yourself too.
 
My wife and I have had a garden for 53 years.She worked as a secretary for 20 years after the children left home.I was very busy in my repair shop and worked at regular jobs for 8 years.Had a 3/4 acre garden for many years, grew feild corn for the cattle.Down to 1/3 acre now ,sell some sweet corn roadside and provide vegetable for our children and good friends who are helpful to us. Still at it at 75 and 71.
 
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