Growing Tomato Plants From Lateral Cuttings

Years ago, someone told me to put my laterals into soil. Just pinch them off as you do and put them directly into the soil and they'll grow.  I tried it and while I got some small plants, life happened and I didn't look after them very well. 

Every year I try to do it, but never really pay enough attention to them.  I'm quite terrible really, I start off with the best of intentions and lose my motivation to do more than water them and pick the tomatoes.  I think there's also a fear of doing something wrong, I never trust myself to actually know what I'm doing.

This year, I decided to really go hard on the tomatoes.  I wanted to grow a lot of tomatoes and determined to look after them properly. The best place to do this is in the tunnel house.

After a fair bit of work, taming the tunnel house, I planted out my tomatoes.  They are all in tyres, filled with a mix of sieved soil, chicken manure and tomato mix.  With some lawn clippings and sawdust as mulch on top to keep the moisture in and the weeds down.

I gradually bought tomatoes and planted them out as I cleared and filled each tyre.  I have Brandywine Pink, Black Krim, Russian Reds and my all time preference, Beefsteaks.  There are also two varieties of cucumbers, a rock melon, an eggplant, two chillies and several red capsicums.

They mostly have strings from the roof to grow up and each day as I water, I've been true to my intentions.  I give them a twist on the string, I pick off laterals and make sure the roots are still covered. 

One of the capsicum plants got broken off (or eaten by something) just above the two first leaves that each plant gets.  It's still alive, it just hasn't done anything more.  So I stuck a lateral I'd just pinched off into that tyre.

I've been hearing from people with all the urban wisdom that laterals might grow but they don't fruit.  This one is now six foot tall and bearing fruit.

So now, I have pots for my healthy laterals to go into.  They are almost all rooting well and several have flowered and are now growing small green tomatoes.

My plan is to see if I can keep the tunnel house growing tomatoes throughout winter.  If I can have a year round supply, it will save a lot of money - we eat a lot of tomatoes.