Q+A: Canning Tomatoes

Any ideas on how many 1L bottles it would take to do a bushel of Roma tomatoes?

A tomato-canning booklet by Bernardin, a supplier of canning jars, says:

• “An average of 21 lbs (9.5 kg) is needed per canner load of seven 1 L mason jars. A bushel weighs 53 lb (24 kg) and yields 15 to 21 L – an average of 3 lb (1.4 kg) per 1L jar."

In past years, I have found the following:

• 1 bushel of tomatoes yielded 6 x 1.5 L + 13 x 1 L jars (along with some left over that we used to make salsa.)
• Another year, 2 bushels gave us 15 x 1.5 L jars + 14 x 1 L jars

(I credit my wife Shelley with the record keeping. When we can or try new recipes, she puts notes in the recipe book so that the next time we use it we remember what happened.)

HOW MANY JARS YOU GET PER BUSHEL will vary based on how tightly you pack the tomatoes, whether you pack them whole (there will be less space between chopped tomatoes,) and whether you pack them in tomato juice instead of water (in which case, some of you tomatoes will be needed for making juice.)

Steven Biggs
Gardener, Garden Writer, Garden Coach, Horticulturist

Read my article about growing tomatoes.

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