Propagating Your Tomato Plants

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Propagating Your Tomato Plants - Part 1 & 2

You Get New Plants for Free

By Denise McCann - Photos by John D. McCann

Part 1

I read an article about propagating your tomato plants by removing the side-shoots that develop from the angle between the leaf stems and the main stem of the plant. Removing these side-shoots helps the main plant develop more fruit, but it also would give me more tomato plants FREE! I thought, why not try it and see if it works? I had nothing to lose, but everything to gain.

The side-shoot is the small one between the main leaf stem and main stem.

This is how it works. The side-shoots develop from the angle between the main leaf stems and the main stem of the plant. These smaller side-shoots are the ones you remove. After you remove these side-shoots, you place them in a jar of water, and within a week they will develop roots. You then plant them in pots, and within 2-3 weeks they are ready to plant. This gives you more tomato plants from the ones you already have. John and I just had to try this

Here are some pictures of our experiment.

Again, the smaller side-shoot is the one you remove by pinching off or cutting.

These are the side-shoots after one week in the jars of water.

This is a close-up of the roots that developed from the side of the shoots.

After a week, Denise prepared the pots to plant the shoots.

Each Shoot got its own pot..

The shoot is placed in a hole made with a finger.

Shoot potted and in 2-3 weeks should be ready for planting.

All five shoots potted... The waiting begins...

After three weeks the plants are healthy and flowering.

_{A close-up of the flowers after three
weeks.}

Well, within three weeks the plants were doing well and began flowering. It is now time to go plant our new FREE tomato plants in the garden with the rest. These will be our late season tomatoes!

Part 2

Well, the new plants have really grown, and we now have late tomatoes (Which are right on time as our regular plants in the garden are just about done). Here are some pictures.

The plants were placed in the ground.

Cages and straw were added.

The above two photos show some tomatoes already getting ripe!

Here are some still green - Future Tomatoes!

Flowers still coming!

Just goes to show... The process does work! We really enjoy this type of thing.

We hope you enjoyed this tip, and as always, Be Prepared To Survive!

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