Just read that a single tomato plant can need up to 30 gallons of water a season, found it in an old extension service pamphlet | Backyard Veggie Patch - Chatter Central
Remembering a time I tried to track my garden watering with a rain gauge and a bucket... ended up just guessing most days. I think @mary_foster92 is right though, the difference matters a lot because if you water on top of a heavy rain you might drown your plants. I killed a whole row of peppers last summer by not paying attention to how much rain we actually got. The soil felt wet so I skipped watering, but it was just surface moisture... my poor tomatoes were bone dry underneath. Sometimes I wonder if the people giving out these numbers even garden themselves or if they just crunch numbers in an office somewhere.