Enouragement for those with lanky tomato seedlings

[Primrose]

I had 2 tomato seedlings which had grown excessively lanky but didn't want to waste this year. I snapped the top six inches off & planted them in moist compost in a shady place. They quickly developed new roots & have regenerated themselves into healthy looking plants.

I've tried this technique in previous years with equal success & find that you actually don't lag behind too much in terms of normal growth in the process, so anybody with spindly tomato seedlings which may not amount to very much want to try this.

[John P]

What a good idea Primrose,Ihave followed your example about an hour ago with three spindley plants I had left over and await the results. I have been growing vegetables for about fifteen years and this is a new one to me,again one of the reasons I frequent this forum.You never cease learning.JP.

[solway cropper]

You can also do this with the armpits (side shoots that you pinch out). Pop them in a cup of water and after a week or so they'll have lots of root hairs and you can then pot them up. This is useful if you are growing an F1 variety with expensive seeds. It's easy to get a dozen plants from one seed and they are all perfect clones of the original.

[Urban Fox]

Don't forget when you prick out your tomato seedlings, for potting on, you can plant them quite low down in the pot. I usually put the seed leaves to the level of the compost.

Then when you plant them out in the soil you can plant them deep again. They will grow roots along the stem which makes them a bit more stable and sturdy in the wind.

My problem is I lost quite a few plants after potting on as they either got wilt - and keeled over and died - or the cold seems to have stopped them in their tracks and they are just not putting on any growth.

Luckily I sowed too many seeds (as usual) so I think I'll have plenty that will go on to produce some nice toms....eventually

next year I'm going to rig up some cheap grow-lights and start them off a bit earlier.

Christina

[Primrose]

Yes, I've also tried this with sideshoots too, (and you're right, Solway about trying this with expensive F1 plants, as I've done this with Ferline, the blight resistant variety. The only problem for me is that by the time the plant is producing decent sideshoots, we're fairly well on into the growing season, so these plants will crop later, and by then I've also usually run out of growing space!

[Weed]

A few years ago I remember seeing tomatoes planted on their sides for few inches, the buried stems produced a large root structure

[Johnboy]

My father used to grow his Tomatoes using the Trident Method.
Basically you allow the first pair of sideshoots to grow to about 4-6" and then put a growing ring around them and fill with soil. This eventually gives you two extra stems which will bear easily three extra trusses each.
He used to get 12 trusses per plant. Six on the main stem and three of each of the side stems. The side stems were stopped at three trusses and the main plant stopped at six trusses. He found that he could get more trusses but the size and quality of the fruit would suffer.
He initially left the first pair of side shoots to grow making a true trident but soon realised that the plants were suffering because of insufficient root area and by burying those side shoots they provided the amount of root necessary for the well being of the plant.
I suspect that he probably invented the method becuase he was full of ingenious ideas, some worked and some didn't but the Trident Method was used from about 1935 until 1992 when he popped his clogs at 99 years of age. I have never seen this method published.
JB.

[Colin Miles]

One of my seedlings got totally slugged. All that was left was a little stem with no growing point. I got rid of the slug and left it. Now have a very bushy plant with lots of trusses on it.

[Nature's Babe]

That sounds a good idea Johnboy, interesting Primrose, useful to know they will root in soil too, like solway cropper I usually make more from sideshoots popped into water to root, then potted up with some fungi around the roots.
When pruning my fruit bushes I do similar, just thrusting some shoots into the soil in a shady place, and by springtime most have roooted well giving me some nice new plants.