Down on the Allotment

Matron grows vegetables and fruit in a Hampshire garden. I've been growing veggies since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Some traditional varieties and old favourites as well as new ideas. I share my garden with my allotment assistant Daisy the Labrador. On Twitter as @MatronsVeggies

Friday, May 29, 2009

Taking Cuttings from Tomatoes

Earlier in the Spring I was lucky to do a seed swap with Dan at his Urban Veggie Garden in Ontario, Canada. Sadly the unusual Pink Berkeley Tie Dye tomatoes did not germinate but I do have one precious tomato Dixie Golden Giant. It is good practice anyway to remove the side shoots that develop between the leaf joint and the stem. I like to refer to these shoots as 'armpits' and I remove them so that the tomato plants grow up one single stem, or cordon. It is possible to plant these side shoots to multiply your precious plants.
All you need to do is to plant them deeply in a cuttings compost and treat them in the same way you would any softwood cuttings. This Dixie Golden Giant cutting will root in a couple of weeks and I will have 2 plants instead of one. When you think about how expensive the F1 hybrid seeds are, you can take as many cuttings as you like from just one plant!

2 Comments:

At 3:09 AM, Blogger Dan said...

Your Dixie Golden looks great. I will look forward to hearing how it grows & tastes. This particular variety was a free packet that tomatofest.com included in my order. I didn't have space for it this year but would like to try it next season. It really is a shame the pink berkly did not germinate, I heard a few other people had the same problem with this particular variety. I will be saving seed from my plant so I will send you some fresh seed once it fruits.

 
At 4:13 PM, Blogger Vaiva said...

A great idea, just will this new young plant will have enought time for giving fruits before the frosts come? Or do you bring them back home?

 

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