I have seen some use a liter pop bottle with the top cut off and hole punched in the bottom. If you can find a 2 liter even better. Also keep in mind that you can strip off the lower leaves and gently coil the stem as you bury it.

Best is to just clip and root cuttings from the plant and grow those instead. You have plenty of time to do that and end up with a much better plant.

Dave

Remind me of the problem with planting leggy plants? Thanks for reminding me about the liter and 2 liter bottles, I think I have some.

Yes you can trench them in and if immediate planting is needed you may have to do that. But the primary problem is the compromised circulatory system that thin stretched stem represents. A weak circulatory system can cause problems for the whole plant for the entire season. When one can avoid that by rooting cuttings and has the time before plant out, why not?

Dave

Thanks for the explanation about leggy plants. I've always known they weren't good but didn't know the reason. It's sad though, these could be planted in 3 weeks and instead a cutting won't be ready to plant for probably 6 weeks.

Cuttings can easily be ready for planting in 3 weeks time or even less depending on the conditions provided. Rooting them in small containers of damp potting mix gives me cuttings ready to be transplanted within 8-10 days.

Dave

Sounds wonderful! I've done cuttings many times over the years most of them failing. Here are the steps I would take.

Small container - a little bigger than a cell from a 6 cell pack.

Damp potting soil - still trying to figure out difference between damp and too damp

Only few small leaves on top, two nodes underneath

Cut at angle, rooting hormone shake off excess

Pencil to make place for cutting to go into soil

Gently insert cutting into soil

Water in gently

Cover with clear plastic cup

Place in bright light (always a challenge)

Do you mist daily? I don't but look for condensation on inside of dome

You can see I've read up on how to do this but as I say most fail.

I would love it if you could give me your steps, especially how they will be ready in 10 days!!

Thanks so much!

Ginny

Your procedure is a bit precise. :) If I were to write instructions it would be more along the lines of: Take a cutting, strip off the leaves from the bottom half, stick it into moist potting mix, water, and wait. Tomatoes root all along their stems so you don't really need to pay attention to nodes. No rooting hormone needed. No cover needed. No misting. They are one of the easiest things to take cuttings of.

Rodney

Wow! I have to say I never take cuttings of tomatoes but I will today. Thanks for your advice and encouragement.

Like Rodney says very simple. No rooting hormone needed, no bright light needed and should be avoided, no plastic cover needed (unless outside in the wind and low humidity maybe). Cut, snip off leaves, bury all the bare stem in a 3-4" pot of wet then lightly rung out with fist potting mix, firm around the buried stem, set in the shade, let it droop for a day or so and then water. as soon as it perks back up it is ready to plant in another 5-6 days.

Dave

No leaves, amazing. Does it matter if I take the top or one of the side branches?

'No leaves' can be a bit confusing. I like to leave the growing tip and just one or 2 leaves towards the top at the internode just below the growing tip. The idea is that the plant needs to do a little photosynthesis, but too much leaf surface area is just opportunity for evaporation.

You can use zip ties or to hold the pots together. If the pots are partial conic you might not need anything . Maybe stick few paint mixers in the lower one and use wood screws to hold them together.

tomatoes are one of the easiest plants to root. they will start rooting in 3-4 days if you follow my patented secret: insert in a 8oz cup and fill 3/4 way with water. no direct sunlight and keep humidity very high, preferable inside of a humidity dome of some sorts and mist them a couple times a day. you do not need to keep a lot of the foliage, the more foliage you trim off the faster they will root.

"No leaves, amazing. Does it matter if I take the top or one of the side branches?'

I don't think anyone said "no leaves". You can only root growing tips. You cannot root leaf branches. So you cut off the growth tips, remove the leaves growing up along the stem but of course you leave the top cluster of leaves on the growth tip stem.

The only problem with rooting in water rather then in potting mix is the type of roots that develop - tap roots vs. fibrous roots. Fibrous roots are necessary, tap roots are not. So when you root in water and then transplant the plant then needs time to develop those fibrous feeder roots.

Personally I don't advocate using a humidity dome or misting as both encourages fungus disease issues on the foliage. But try it both ways and see which works best for you.

Dave

> Personally I don't advocate using a humidity dome or misting as they
encourages fungus disease issues on the foliage. But try it both ways
and see which works best for you.

i generally would agree, but tomatoes root so much faster by keeping in a humidly dome that it's not likely any type of bacteria would be a problem.

i suppose if you're that concerned you could mist with a diluted chamomile tea brew, or even a tsp of peroxide in a gallon of water, but using a dome really improves chance of successful rooting, especially if one hasn't been so successful in the past ;-)

Humidity domes can be beneficial, but what it often comes down to are your specific conditions. Because I root in a heated house (wood heat being the primary source,) I use domes in intervals. If I were to leave the domes on 24/7, I might face issues resulting from too much moisture. If you are in a greenhouse for example, or in an area that has moderate to humid air, then domes can cause more problems than they solve.

Know that they exist, have one on hand, but experience will help you to decide when is the right time to make use of it.

When taking the growing tip of a leggy tomato plant for rooting, what type of temp is required for best results? Should the tip cutting be kept indoors or if outside, what might be suggested as a min temp overnight.

I have leggy tomato plants that I plan to grow in earthboxes. I started them indoors under lights (obviously too early) and moved them to the greenhouse hoping the cooler temps would slow down their growth. Just looking at them, I think they're more leggy than they should be, now it's time to transplant.

Burying deep won't work because of the limited depth of the earthbox. The tomatoes are the ones from the Florida University tomato program, 2 Garden Gem (semi indeterminate) in one box and 1 Garden Treasure (indeterminate) in the second box. I only have one spot that receives adequate sun (6 plus hours) for attempting to grow tomatoes. In studying online photos of these two varieties, I think these tomato plants might naturally be a bit more wispy than most so perhaps what I'm seeing is close to normal for these particular tomato plants.

Do you think taking tip cuttings and rooting would be better than planting out these leggy tomato plants? Based on the time frame, do you think it would delay fruiting or does the tomato plant take it's cue to produce from the original planting date?

My thanks,

Mary thanks for your post. It's good to know I'm not the only one with this question and I've been growing tomatoes for 38 years!

ginjj, I so admire all of you who grow tomatoes. My daddy always had a big garden and even when he had to give up his garden, he grew a few tomatoes in one of my mother's flower beds. He always had such wonderful tasting tomatoes. I can grow flowers and native plants fairly well but I've been a total failure with my few attempts to grow tomatoes. Ever the optimist, I'm trying again this year! :-) ... Mary

As for the temps of cuttings... just think about their condition... they are very susceptible to, well... everything lol.

So, while there are few hard and fast rules, the idea is to minimize stress and give them every opportunity to recover a root system.

To the 'days to maturity': cuttings/rootings basically set you back almost to the beginning. While essentially a clone of the 'parent', it is an entirely new plant.