Look, I think this is the best news. We can turn one tomato plant into many tomato plants, and do it super quick, so we get more tomatoes for free!
The other day I posted up on my Instagram asking if anyone had propagated their tomato suckers before, and it didn’t seem like many people had given it a try – so here I am to spread the word!
Tomato propagation has got to be one of the easiest way of cloning our plants to increase production. Have you ever noticed if you don’t string up your tomato plants, they often fall over and start sprouting roots where they contact the soil? They do. They are so keen to grow roots. This is what makes them super easy to propagate successfully, so here is how.
Propagating Tomatoes – How to clone plants
Ultimately, you need to start with at least one tomato plant that is somewhat established (if you haven’t picked which tomatoes to grow yet check out this post). I recommend using an indeterminate variety as these are the most successful clones. Determinate, or bush style tomatoes may not produce much of a crop from their clones.
Once a tomato plant is established it will start growing what we call “suckers”. Suckers are the branches that sprout in between the tomato plant’s branches and main stem. These side shoots come out of what I call the “armpit” or “elbow” of the plant – see the photo for an example.
Now as gardeners, we often pull off these when they’re tiny, to encourage our tomato plants to grow tall and produce lots of fruit in an easy to manage way. However, if we let them grow just a little bit, we can prune them off and use them to produce more plants.
Once a “sucker” is about 7-10cm, snap or snip it off, remove any lower leaves on the sucker and place it in a small glass of water (I used a shot glass). Keep it’s stem submerged for a few days, and sitting in an indirect sunlight spot inside. Replace the water every couple of days.
After a few days or a week it will begin to form roots. Once those roots are around 2-3cm long you can plant it out in a little pot to grow bigger, or even straight into the garden! This is a really really quick way to get more tomato plants up and running with zero investment.
The plant you get is a direct clone of the tomato plant you took the cutting from. It will grow the same fruit as the original plant. However, if your cutting came from a grafted tomato plant which had a special rootstock, the rootstock of your new plant will not be the same as the roots of your original plant.
Do I need to prune off my suckers?
No, you don’t. Once your plant is established it can happily grow as many suckers as it likes, and will probably produce more fruit that way. But be careful! Unpruned tomato plants can get pretty unruly. If things start to get too crowded you might end up battling with diseases like powdery mildew which can bring your tomato plant to an early decline.
I generally prune my suckers off, to keep good shape to my plants and airflow around the foliage. Though come the end of season they’ve usually gotten away on me and turned into a tomato jungle!
Give it a go! And please drop me a line in the comments below if you do, or over on Instagram. Happy to answer any questions you may have.
