free tomato plants

I’m sure there must be some newcomers to the world of grow-your-own out there who are unaware of the cheap and easy way to increase your stock of tomato plants.

The way I do it is this. When growing cordon (single stem) plants you need to pinch out the side shoots that grow in the bracket formed between a leaf and the main stem. These are unkindly known as ‘armpits’ and can be treated in the same way as cuttings from other types of plants. I let them grow to three or four inches then nip them out and put them into a cup of water. After five to seven days you should see small root hairs developing and they can then be potted on into multi-purpose compost.

Keep them well watered and they will soon start to grow away. I prefer to mist mine as well three or four times a day with a fine spray of water as it lessens the likelihood of the plant drying out. After another week your plant should be looking healthy and ready to play catch-up with its parent.

This plant is two weeks old...try doing that from seed!!

The beauty of this method is that it is much more reliable than growing from seed, especially for beginners. It works especially well for F1 varieties where the seed can be quite expensive. Sow one seed or buy one plant from a garden centre and get yourself half a dozen free ones.