On Sat, 03 May 2003 21:28:09 GMT,
(Frogleg) wrote:

On Fri, 02 May 2003 15:34:37 -0400, Pat Meadows
wrote:


Has anyone here ever produced new tomato plants from
cuttings? Tips, advice?

I have some mini-tomato-plants (Red Robins) and would like
to produce more of them without buying the expensive seed.

I've often rooted 'suckers' in a glass of water and had a second
'crop' of plants that produced tomatoes in our long growing season.
Tomatoes in mild climates (or greenhouses) may live well over a year,
so presumably, without frost, one could continue to root and grow for
quite a while. Get to work on that greenhouse, Pat. :-)

We've got to survive the May planting rush first - this is
going to be tough, as we also need to construct raised beds.
Once we get THAT over (assuming we survive), then the very
next project is the greenhouse.

I won't be able to have tomatoes in the greenhouse all
winter though: it's going to be an unheated greenhouse and
it can (and does) get to be minus 20 F here. We had
temperatures in that range a couple of time last winter.

But I can sure extend the season on each end: spring and
fall. Our season here is very short: last frost date
around June 1 (actually we had killing frosts somewhat after
June 1 both years we've lived here), first frost date in the
first week in October.

The greenhouse should extend my growing season so that it
stretches from March through December, instead of just from
June through September.

I'll *try* to overwinter some hardy greens in the greenhouse
by covering them with row cover, but I'm really skeptical
about the ability of even the hardiest greens to survive
minus 20 F. We'll see.

The other solution, which you know, is to grow non-hybridized
varieties you can save seed from. I was delighted to discover that the
'Tommy Toes' plant I bought yesterday is an heirloom variety, touted
as "easily re-seeding."

Right. That's nice.

Pat