Propagating Tomato Plants Via Suckers

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Propagating Tomatoes via suckers - 1 week in the water

Old school tomato growers remove every "sucker" vine that appears between the main stem of tomato plants and each leaf. I keep about 3 of these suckers for each tomato plant (particularly for my Cherokee Purple which do some weird genetic oddness), which still has me cutting off quite a few suckers. Like, several per day.

Let them grow 6" or so, cut them out, plunk them in water for a week, and you have a plant with 1" roots!

Propagating Tomatoes via suckers - 1 week in the water

Once you've got ~1" long white roots, then you can pot the plants up in potting soil.

Propagating Tomatoes via suckers - 1 week in the potting compost

A week or so after that, their roots should be growing long enough to start pressing through the bottom of the pot. Now they're ready to have their lowest leaves removed, and then planted deeply in the garden.

Propagating Tomatoes via suckers - 1 week in the potting compost

This makes for some tomatoes that mature later in the summer. Perfect for a friend who's just getting started a little later...Free heirloom tomato plants! I've worked up 4 Purple Cherokee Tomatoes, and 4 Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes with this method.

Volunteer Chives, now potted

They've also got some self-seeded chives, transplanted to a pot, coming their way. Chives just end up *everywhere* in the garden. More free plants for friends!

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