Instant Tomato Plant

Our tomatoes in the green house are growing like crazy. Most of them are taller than me at 5'4". We've got trellises going everywhere. I'm pretty happy about their size at this point. They were planted late because we had to wait for the green house to be finished. We waited quite some time for some supplies that were on order. The tomatoes weren't planted until about a week into June. Next year we should be able to start them by May and they will be much further along this time next year. We did pick the first ripe tomato on Sunday and more are starting to ripen. Yeah!

This is the tomatoes on July 24th

Same tomatoes three weeks later.

So what does this have to do with instant tomato plants? Well we had some room for some more plants in the green house. It is just way to late to start any from seed. What is one to do? Take tomato cuttings.

The cuttings are actually the little suckers that grow in what is called the crotch of the main tomato stem and the leaf. If you look at the picture on the left you can see the main stem with a little flower shoot coming off on the right side. Now look for the clip. Right above the clip is the crotch of the main stem and the leaf. The leaf is just above the clip going almost straight out to the right. Now look between the stem and the leaf in the middle of the picture. The sucker stem is bare all the way up to just past the bloom on the main stem.

Hopefully you know what I'm talking about now when I say sucker. The sucker is cut off where it starts and placed in water to root. Usually they are put in a pot with potting soil to root, however,  I've never done it that way. I like to put them in water so I can see the progress of the root growth and better determine when a good time to plant them is. They need a good root-mass to do well when they are transplanted.

Here they are ready to transplant. You can see they have nice, healthy, root systems. This takes about two weeks to accomplish. Far quicker than a minimum of 6 weeks to get a tomato plant of this size if you started them from seed. So I guess they aren't quite instant tomatoes but they are pretty darn close.

One thing that you have to be careful about when you transplant them is the temperature. If it is really hot it is going to be hard on them while they are getting adjusted in their new home. Green houses are hot but the Lord blessed us with a few cool days in a row so we took the opportunity.

I planted them the evening before the run of cooler days. They did pretty good but we did lose a few on the third day when the temps went up again.

They all had blooms on them when I took the cuttings but I snipped them off so they would focus their energy on their root system. Now, two and a half weeks later, some of them are getting blooms on them again. That is pretty quick. They are in the green house so they still have plenty of time to grow and produce fruit.

Starting tomato plants from cuttings can save you money on seeds and space during seed starting time. Maybe your friend has a variety you would like to try,  just take a cutting and you are on your way.

I did this with plants that were already producing fruit but you can do them with small plants as well. Remember that they do need their leaves to absorb light and produce food so don't go overboard with taking cutting from a plant. The smaller the plant the less you can take.

Happy tomato eating!

Jaci