Talking Tomatoes

When you start to grow tomatoes, all you need is one good healthy plant about twelve inches tall and you are all set for the season. Faster start if you have several - then you can get a dozen growing in no time.

This is a sucker. They grow out of the crux of the tomato branches. Once you start getting tomatoes on the plants, you want to remove these and toss them. Otherwise, they will suck all the nutrients, trying to expand the size of the plant, and in turn they will stifle the growth of the tomatoes.

These should be taken off as soon as you see them during fruiting season. But notice the little fuzzy spikes on the suckers, or anywhere else on tomato stems for that matter...

Early Season

Before you start to see flowers, you can take suckers off and just put them in the soil. I talked about the fuzzy spikes you see on the stems, right? Well when those spikes touch soil, they will turn into roots instantly (within a day or two).

To increase the number of tomato plants, just find a sucker that has 5 to 8 new leaves already and a inch to inch and a half of stem below the first leaf.

Pinch it off...

Then just take a pencil or something and make a hole where you want a new plant.

Pop that sucker in the hole and gently push the soil to surround the stem, then water it regularly. It is best not to sprinkle water on the whole plant. Tomatoes do best when watered from below after they have roots. If it rains on them, they survive, but it is generally a good idea to keep the leaves and stems dry on sunny days.

These are cherry tomato plants and they can be grown in a garage or basement with a grow light. They produce lots of tomatoes and can be kept at only four to five feet tall for the whole season. If they get too tall for your comfort, you can snip off the entire top part of the plant and put it in soil just like we did today with this little sucker. They always grow!

I will do an update on this little sucker when it starts to grow tall.

Thanks for your interest and good luck on your garden.

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