Tomato Grafting Reveal on April Fool's Day

Silly Rabbit.

 Grafted tomatoes give you the best 

of both worlds......

We love grafted tomatoes, especially for 

new or inexperienced gardeners, as well

as for seasoned gardeners who are having 

trouble with tomato harvests due to any number of

diseases that can negatively affect yield of tomato plants. 

It is the perfect marriage of a vigorous, disease resistant plant with 

a delicious heirloom variety.  

And, lest you think that hybrid tomatoes offer the same, hybrids

are missing the one and only reason there is to grow tomatoes in the first place:

FLAVOR!!

Cutting is done at a precise angle with 

a stainless steel blade.

This photo, above, shows inserting the heirloom 'top' or scion

into the silicon grafting clip and joining it with the rootstock.

 It doesn't seem possible

that the grafted tomato plants we grow are 

TWO different plants that have been grafted and have grown together.

This shows the tiny, grafted plant which will need to 

be nurtured and misted and babied whilst the

graft heals.  For obvious reasons, the

mortality rate can be quite high.

 Here is a grafted Black Krim, properly healed and 

ready to pump out luscious Russian tomatoes 

all summer.

Another close-up shot of a graft

just about ready to throw its clip.

 

This is one, single, grafted tomato plant from last summer.

 The only thing that you have to remember about grafted tomatoes

is that you never, ever, ever bury the graft!!

Do you know why?

This photo shows you why.

This was an experiment I did last summer, where I

grew just the rootstock.  What grew?  Nasty little green tomatoes
that smelled all the world like cat pee. (right, Wende?)

Vigorous is an understatement,  I had to prune it with a chainsaw.

 

You can read up on the many benefits of grafted tomatoes

HERE 

We'll have several grafted heirloom tomato varieties
this spring -  just don't be a fool and bury the graft.