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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

I tried to describe this in words and realized I was doing a poor job so I 
finally remembered to take the camera to the garden. 

This only works well with indeterminate tomatoes.  They grow by making a 
node, a joint, where the main stem will keep on going, there will be a 
fruiting 
branch growing there, and in the crotch between the two, a sucker will form  
thus:

www.geocities.com/one7thfarmer/sucker.jpg

If you broke off any part of a tomato plant, it would likely root.  But these 
suckers at the nodes of indeterminate tomatoes are gentically, or cellularly, 
or whatever predisposed to think that they are a new independent plant.

Put the sucker in a cup of soil.  Water works too but not as well.  In less 
than a week it will have doubled in size and roots will be to the edge of the 
pot.  Transplant it like any tomato transplant ... but ... it will not sit in 
the ground and stare at you like a seedling.  It will immediately begin to 
grow 
and bloom.

Here a third of the way through August we are in the 99% sureness of having 
tomatoes from suckers potted today.  But the end of August, the odds drop but 
still are 50%.   It's worth a shot.

Also, since I had the camera .... do you recall a discussion on Brussels 
Sprouts in the spring.  I had resigned myself that I was doing the hopeless 
by 
trying spring sprouts, but did some experimentation.  I planted some sprouts 
in 
sparse ground, hard ground, and shaded ground ... all things that were 
suppose 
to increase the odds of getting sprouts.  As a control group I planted the 
last 21 plants in loose, very fertile ground in the full sun.

Yep, the experiments all punied or died.  The sacrificial control group .... 
yep, you guessed it.  Against all odds, spring, hot weather, full sun, loose 
fertile ground ... they made the first firm harvestable sprouts in this 
garden!

www.geocities.com/one7thfarmer/bs.jpg

Still ratty, but hey, they are real sprouts.  All 21 plants are bearing a 
full complement of them.  Go figure.   </HTML>