Re: [tomato] Growing tomatoes indoors
Thoswagner@aol.com (Tomato@GlobalGarden.com)
Sun, 31 Oct 1999 18:23:13 EST
In a message dated 10/31/1999 5:36:17 PM US Eastern Standard Time,
ralleia@yahoo.com writes:
<< Unable to stand the long winter without gardening, I broke down and
planted 18 tomato seeds indoors. Since they're perennial, I'm hoping I can
keep vines going indoors and simply take cuttings to make new plants when it
comes time to plant out in spring. Has anyone tried this technique before?
I planted sweet 100s and some Brandywines, just because I had some old fruit
going to rot.
Can I do this with any of the other nightshades?
-Kristina
>>
Kristina,
I have made cuttings of tomatoes for wintering over before on numerous
occasions. I had my best luck with a greenhouse or well lit sun room. I
wouldn't suggest doing it unless you really want to play around with tomatoes
all fall, winter, and spring. If you don't have good light and/or artificial
light to get 16 hour days, you may end up with spindly tomatoes and will have
to wait until warm spring days to make cuttings. You may experience foliar
diseases, damping off, Botrytis,.....you name it.
I have made cuttings in the fall to get greenhouse vines quickly that
would bloom so that I could get pollen parents for existing vines that I
wanted to cross to. Often times I wanted to make backcrosses or cross to an
unusually great breeding selection from the field. I use a rooting hormone
to speed up the rooting process. I simply take a 6 to 8 inch cutting, remove
some bottom leaves and stick it in perlite under a misting unit with frequent
timings of mist. You can do it by covering with plastic, but watch out for
foliar problems.
I have done cuttings on other so called "nightshades" such as 80
different tuber bearing wild solanum species. I got varied results with
potatoes because of the early tuberization of cuttings. Some potato species
like S. chacoense work great because of the late onset of tuber formation.
Tom