Sauce & Canning Garden
A 10×4 passata factory: eight paste tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, celery, and the allium-herb row a sauce recipe expects.
About This Template
This bed exists to fill shelves. Eight paste tomatoes — San Marzano and Roma, the two workhorses of the sauce world — line the entire north edge, joined by a plum tomato and a tomatillo for salsa verde batches. Paste varieties carry less water than slicers, which means shorter simmering and more jars per bushel. The middle row grows what the pot expects next: bell peppers and a jalapeño, celery for the soffritto base, and basil and oregano in cooking quantities. The front row is the allium supply line — eight onions and eight garlic, planted tight — plus parsley and the traditional marigold corners. Plant in May, simmer in September, and skip the tinned-tomato aisle until spring.
Benefits
- 1Paste tomatoes cook down in half the time of watery slicers
- 2Eight plants deliver sauce in canning-batch quantities, not dinner portions
- 3Everything a marinara needs grows within two steps of the tomatoes
- 4The tomatillo adds salsa verde to the same canning weekend
- 5Determinate paste varieties ripen together — exactly what batch work wants
Growing Tips
- 1Roast the tomatoes instead of boiling for deeper sauce with less stirring
- 2Freeze whole tomatoes in bags until you have a full canning load
- 3Cure the onions and garlic two weeks in the shade for winter storage
- 4Water evenly through fruit set to keep blossom-end rot out of the crop
Included Plants (13)
San Marzano Tomato×4
Solanum lycopersicum
Spacing: 60 cm · 24 in
Roma Tomato×4
Solanum lycopersicum
Spacing: 60 cm · 24 in
Plum Tomato
Solanum lycopersicum
Spacing: 60 cm · 24 in
Tomatillo
Physalis philadelphica
Spacing: 60 cm · 24 in
Bell Pepper×3
Capsicum annuum
Spacing: 45 cm · 18 in
Jalapeno Pepper
Capsicum annuum
Spacing: 40 cm · 16 in
Basil×2
Ocimum basilicum
Spacing: 25 cm · 10 in
Oregano
Origanum vulgare
Spacing: 30 cm · 12 in
Celery×2
Apium graveolens
Spacing: 25 cm · 10 in
Marigold×2
Tagetes patula
Spacing: 25 cm · 10 in
Onion×8
Allium cepa
Spacing: 15 cm · 6 in
Garlic×8
Allium sativum
Spacing: 15 cm · 6 in
Parsley×2
Petroselinum crispum
Spacing: 20 cm · 8 in
Ready to Start Growing?
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