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Question by moo.hampshire: How do I plant a “tomato sauce” garden and have everything work?
I have a 4 foot by 8 foot vegetable garden without any vegetables in it yet. I was thinking about a tomato sauce garden. Does anyone know what I should plant at what times ? or whether to start seeds or buy plants? thanks I hope it works
Best answer:
Answer by kandi_ivy4
first the tomato plants
then you need herb plants
when to plant? depends on where u live seed packets usually tell you using zones
good luck
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It’s just about time to put the plants outside now depending on your area. April 15 in Virginia. I would buy the plants now. Roma is what most people plant commercially for sauce. But I would plant a big tomato in your little space. That way you can make a sandwich too. I would plant two pepper plants too.
I go to my local nursery and pick healthy punnets of established seedlings, and just put them in where theres space, that way all the hard work of picking seasonal veges, and getting them to grow is taken out. I occassionally have fatalities, so out they come and i go and buy a new punnet of seedlings to put in. I have quite a variety of veges in my garden, and i have quite a few recipes for preserving the results. Im a very casual gardener, but it works for me, i have just finished bottling a tomato, basil and eggplant relish, yummy. And im about to stuff and preserve a variety of chillis, I have already done a batch of blue cheese and peppercorn paprika chillis, anf the next will be cream cheese and smoked salmon bell chillis. They are so great on an antipasto plate.
It is most likley too late to start from seed this season. Tomatoes and peppers are easy. Then plan ahead fro next year. Onion basil oregano.
Tomatoes from seed usualy start two months befor you plant them out side. Or you can plant seeds in the ground about the time other people plant there two month old plants out. They take a while to catch up.
You will need 2 or 3 paste tomato plants -roma is the easiest to find. You will need a couple of sweet pepper plants (these will grow green peppers that will ripen to either red or yellow). You will need 1or 2 basil plants. Oregano is also essential but unlike all the other plants this is a perennial meaning once you plant it it should come back every year for at least 5 years and get bigger each season. Oh yeah and a couple of Italian flat leafed parsley plants (do not get the curly leaf parsley as that is not nearly as good for cooking/making tomato sauce.
if you plant hem at the same time they will eventually all have ripe ready to use fruit and leaves. The basil will be ready first so you will need to cut it back at least once a week to keep it going (these things seem to love to be cut back pretty severely). Than the parsley will be big enough to cut and like basil will grow better if regularly harvested. Than the green peppers will be ready (but best to wait until they are ripe and finally the tomatoes will be ready to go by the end of August/early September if you plant mid May. Everything should keep on producing until frost.
Get plants and wait until all threat of frost is over before planting these outside as all (except the oregano) are very tender and will die if the temps get below 35F. Just about any garden center will have this assortment including the box stores. I suggest going to a locally owned nursery as they will be able to give the best advice of what kind of plants to get and how to plant them for best results in your area.
Bon Chance and Bon apitite
Assuming you are in the Boston area, you still have time to start tomato seeds, but unless you’re already set up to do so, I wouldn’t bother.
For a tomato sauce garden, I guess you would like to grow tomatoes, basil, oregano, onions, and garlic. If you want, you can toss in a couple of pepper plants and call it a pizza garden instead.
You can buy and plant the tomatoes, herbs and peppers all at the same time. My suggestion would be to shoot for about two weeks after the average last frost date for your area. (See the link.) It may seem like you’re missing out on a lot of nice weather, but all it takes is one frost to killl all of those plants. Besides, the peppers won’t even think about thriving until it’s actually warm out.
As for the onions and the garlic. I plant garlic in the fall, although you could still probably plant some right now and get some results by mid summer. The hard part will be finding a source of garlic bulbs that will be appropriate for your area. (The supermarket kind doesn’t do all that well in the Northeast.) I’ve never actually grown onions for the sake of getting onions, so I don’t have advice for you on them. I do know that I will plant onion sets (not seeds) for scallions any day now in my salad garden. I’m pretty sure that if I took the right steps with them, rather than eating them in May, they would turn into onions. You shouldn’t have a problem finding onions to plant in your garden centers right now.