One of our favorite readers, Lisa from Tasmania is at it again. I love when she sends over stories and pictures from her life in Australia. She’s shared amazing pictures of her garden and even a cute Easter craft. This time she’s talking tomato laterals:
Hi Mavis!
Your garden is looking amazing {as is all the work on the house- despite the HOA} 🙂
I am experimenting with growing tomatoes over winter this year… I took some laterals off a cherry tomato bush to use. I have nurtured a tomato over winter before, but I didn’t give it much love or attention. This time I aim to do better.
Free Tomato Plants
Before moving to Tasmania and diving all four feet into gardening with little experience, I had no idea how easy it was to grow tomatoes from laterals. To be honest I didn’t even know the difference between the leaf part and the lateral. Once I sorted that out and was shown what to do, I was hooked on growing more tomato plants from the existing ones. Also, I am not sure if it is true, but the plants I have grown from the laterals seem more vigorous than the ones I bought as seedlings or grew from seed.
You can easily see the lateral growing up in between the main stem and leaf. They are what you are meant to pinch off lower on the plant to promote bigger and more tomatoes on the remaining plant!! Sigh – one day I will actually get around to doing that!! Smile
When you find one of a reasonable size, pinch it off near the base and either stick it straight into the ground or a pot, or for lots more fun, in a glass of water on the kitchen window sill so you can see the action!
The first lateral I did, I chose one that was possibly too big and just shoved it in the veggie garden and proceeded to water it. It immediately fell over limp and sad and remained that way for about 2 weeks. For some optimistic reason I kept watering it. It finally came good and then just charged along and produced the most beautiful tomatoes! It was like magic!
The ones I have just had sitting on my kitchen window sill come from a cherry tomato plant.
The stems seemed to get a little hairy, but today I noticed the white roots just starting to show. Its taken about two weeks to get to this point. This was done with just plain water, but today after their photo session I gave them a bit of my kelp juice mix to give them a boost.
From here you can put them in the garden if the weather is warm enough. I am going to try to nurture these indoors over winter and hopefully I will be able to get a good number of laterals off them early next season. {I am pretty keen on my tomatoes!}
Often I have bought a couple of different tomato seedlings if my seeds are not doing what they are meant to do {grow} and have taken laterals off them once they are a bit established. Quite an inexpensive way to get lots of tomato plants!
I look forward to seeing lots of gardens via “One Hundred Dollars a Month” while I am sitting snugged up in front of the fire and you are enjoying your summer!
Cheers
Lisa
Rosaleen says
Very cool! Who knew?
Deborah Herman says
As I live at 5280 ft. elevation, we don’t get our gardens into the ground much before Mothers day.
I have a small raised bed garden and always plant tomatoes. This year I will be on the lookout for Laterals to transplant. I’ll let you know how it goes. Whirled peas out.
Starbeamer says
They also call the laterals ‘suckers’. The other way to get a plant from the sucker is to tie a ball of soil around it and water it as you would the main plant. After a while, it will grow roots and you can cut it off of the main plant. Tomatoes are amazing at growing new roots from any part of the plant that gets a constant source of water.
Lisa Millar says
You can certainly get your money’s worth from them!!
I think a similar thing has happened to me when some of the self seeded plants have sprawled all over the ground… the laterals have just taken root!
Laura says
Mavis, love the site. Don’t love the redesign! How does one go to the next page? I clicked all around at the bottom of the page, but no luck. Used to be a prompt that said “go to next page” that you clicked on but that is gone now and the page bottom is simply blank. Uggh. Please share the “secret” or I won’t be able to follow your awesomeness!
Thanks!
Leanna says
Laura,
You should be able to scroll down and at the bottom there is a link to “more of the blog”. I was able to go several pages back. If you are not able to try clearing your cookies and then clicking on Mavis’s logo in the upper right with her picture and that should take you to several posts that are in succession.
Leanna says
UGH!! I am such a leftie. Upper left.
Laura says
Worked today, but that phrase wasn’t there yesterday (tried multiple times). Not sure what happened, but I didn’t end up clearing cookies. Maybe it was a short bug? Not to worry, now I can maneuver better.
Still not sure I like the new layout as much as the old one, but maybe it will grow on me, lol!
Thanks for the tips though!!
Deborah says
That is so awesome! I’m going to try it right away. 🙂
Thanks for sharing, Lisa.
Lisa Millar says
No worries! Have fun with it!!
Gina says
Definitely will be trying this – this year. How fun!
I somehow always think that “free” and “bonus” plants like these are the most fun to try.
I have found about 8 “free” marigolds growing in between the bricks on my patio. They are the cutest little baby marigolds and I carefully pull them and put them in my pots. So fun!
Thanks for the great blog and posts!
Gina
Shawn says
Wow! I knew that the little hairs on the tomato plants could turn to roots, but I had no idea that you could start new plants! My wife and I will definitely have to keep this in mind. Perhaps we can extend the season this year…
…even though we already have 14 tomato plants in the ground, which should supply enough tomatoes for 2 adults and a baby, right (lol)?
Lisa Millar says
lol – Seems like plenty! Although since making sauce and relish etc, I am now thinking I can never have too many!
sarah says
I’ve been growing winter tomatoes this way for years in northern Minnesota. I make cuttings from my toms in the garden in August. Root in water and plant in a big pot. I usually do one cherry tom and one small tom like Cascade. I put them in a sunny south facing window. When you choose an indeterminate tom they get very tall and I have to trellis and tie them up with twine. They taste amazing and nothing like what the store offers in December.
Sarah
Madam Chow says
Wow!
Lisa Millar says
That’s great to hear!
I have been away so the roots on my laterals on the window sill are lovely and long! Time to go into big pots now!
I thought I might water with warm water too…
diane @smartmoneysimplelife says
I think I’ve missed the boat for this winter (yes, another Aussie)… but I’ll definitely propagate tomatoes this way in the future. And, I’m going to try nurturing a plant or two through next winter. I don’t know why I haven’t thought of that before?!
Thanks for the tips Lisa.
Lisa Millar says
Hi… where are you? I don’t think it would hurt to try, even this late in the season. The worst that can happen is that they don’t grow!! 🙂
It will only take a couple of weeks for the roots to show.
Good luck!
Vicki says
Here in the sunny Southern US, they call “laterals” suckers!
Mavis says
Ha! Suckers. That’s awesome.
Preppy Pink Crocodile says
In New England we call them suckers too. 🙂
Lisa Millar says
Love the deviation of the English language around the world!!
Ronnica, Striving Stewardess says
Interesting! I’ll have to try this in the fall…nothing lost, right?
Lisa Millar says
Exactly what I thought… can’t hurt to try and costs nothing!
Ellen in Clackamas says
I knew you needed to expose and plant a lot of the tomato stem when planting but had no idea you could actually plant the “suckers” or laterals until last year when I broke off the top of an heirloom I had purchased. Planted the root part like normal and then stuck the broken top into a pot. Had just about the same amount of tomatoes from both!
Preppy Pink Crocodile says
I do this all the time too. BUt no need at all to fuss with the water. Simply sitck the tomato cutting directly in the soil where you want it to grow. Do it in the evening so the sun isn’t a big issue at first. And water well. BUt seriously no need to deal with the two weeks of water. It will root itself just fine in the soil. Free plants!
KK @ Preppy Pink Crocodile
Lisa Millar says
I agree there is no need to worry about the glass of water, but its lots of fun watching the roots grow the first time you do it!
Also because its late in the season here I wanted to make sure the roots were really growing along well before potting them and trying to winter them… during spring and summer just stick them in the ground and ‘voila’
E in Upstate NY says
When planting tomato cuttings [laterals or suckers or Oops broken plants] I let the cut/open dry just a little bit, to keep rot down. When using water to start roots, if I can, I’ll put a fresh cut willow/pussy willow twig in the water . That genus secretes an enzyme that promotes growth – earlier version of growth hormones. If I’m putting the stem directly in the ground, I’ll use growth hormone powder to encourage growth.
When I plant petunias, after in the ground, I’ll nip back the plant and use the cutting with hormone to get more plants for the original investment! Sometimes am able to double or triple my plants.
Lisa Millar says
Great advice about the willow etc!
Apparently honey works well as a rooting hormone too so I am going to try that for the first time on these!
Practical Parsimony says
I have known about this for years, but for some reason, I just have never planted the suckers I remove. It’s probably because I am so hot and tired when I finish caring for my tomatoes.