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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

Thanks for the explanation.  The pictures really help.....bobford


--- On Sun, 8/10/08, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:

> From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> Subject: [Homestead] Fall tomato cuttings
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Sunday, August 10, 2008, 7:10 PM
> 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>
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