Propagating Tomato Plants From Cuttings

I have to give a hats off to Texasprepper2 on Youtube.  I never would have thought to try and root a tomato cutting this way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLWB7XiKuF0

I decided to snip a sucker that was about 10 inches long and try to root the cutting.  I placed it in water and in about a week you can now see the roots appearing out the stem.  Pretty Cool!

I wonder what else you can try and do this with?  I'll try some other plants as well.

Garden Update....So far so good.

It's been a little while but I've been a bit busy lately!  The garden is doing well and I have a lot to update.

Some new developments:  I have two blueberry bushes to go in near a fence and some strawberry's to replenish my strawberry patch.

EDIT:  Just to note about the corn, I have two stalks coming up already.  Normal germination is 4-12 days.  I soaked the seeds for a day and a 1/2 and planted 7 days ago.

First, all the corn was planted on Feb 24.  Should be in good shape, no frost or overly good weather in the future.  Do have an 80+ predicted for tomorrow though.  The corn all went into the three sisters 5x5 garden.  Had some seeds left over and didn't want to waste them so I planted about 25 in each of the grow bags behind the bed.

To the right of the corn, you can see the Topsy turvey I mentioned in an earlier post.  I ended up planting 10 jalapeno seedlings into it.  Again, it shouldn't be too cold for them.

The potato's are growing well.  It is interesting that some are growing so much better than the others and the red potato's are growing the best.  I did have a little cold weather damage but the plants have pushed through and created new leaves.

The tomato's are doing pretty well.  I have lost a few, but those were the hot weather variety that I probably should have waited to put in.  The okra, on the bottom right, could have probably waited as well.  It's pretty sickly looking compared the the okra directly to the left that I just transplanted today.

The buds on all the cuttings look like they are going to produce leaves so I'm excited about the 42 that I planted in the quart containers.  There are buds on the vine that look about ready to say hi as well.  It was about this time last year the first growth appeared.

On the bottom left of the picture I planted four horseradish roots.  They were pretty well developed so they should do well.

So, on to the 4x4 garden.  As they say, a plan is not a plan until you run out of time for changes!  The asparagus roots just didn't seem to make it through the winter.  Might have been too wet as the roots were decomposing.  Had to change the plan.  So now there's celery, peas, lettuce, greens, beets, and radishes.  I am succession planting here.

In the grow bag is the cucumber and below that two other tomato plants.  

Succession planting can be very powerful.  I can't count how many times we had garden food rot because everything matured at the same time.  Decided to get smart this year.

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

  4 Cel   4 Cel    16 Pea

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

  5 Let   5 Let  5 Let   5 Let

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

  5 Grn 5 Grn  5 Grn   5 Grn

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

      32 Radish     16 Beets

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

The back left half will be 8 celery, planted 2 at a time every 10 days.  

The right half of the back is 16 pea's which all went in at once.  

The next row 3 lettuce planted today, then alternating 2/3 every 10 days.

The next row of greens done identical to the lettuce.

The radish is planted 4 at a time every 10 days.

The beets planted 8 a time with 20 days between.

Thanks for visiting.  If you have any tips or advice or questions don't hesitate to post them.

Grape Vine and Garden Update

First, the grape vine.  Finished pruning back the vine to take the shape I wanted.  I have three main vines trailing up to about five feet and have run wire across the trellis for this years growth.

Here's how I have been replanting some of the pruning to try and root some more vines.

You can see below that I've trimmed the piece of vine into two sections with two to four solid buds on each one.  Also, at the planted end, I stripped it to the core before dipping it into the 'take root.'

I was pretty liberal with dipping the root end.

And here, the finished product.  Only about 38 more to go!!!!!!

For the Garden, first the potato's are coming in really well.  Every planter potato has bloomed.

I've prepped the 5 foot by 5 foot bed that the Three Sisters is going to be planted in.  I added 3 forty pound bags of composted cow manure and mixed into the top 4 inches.  Watered it well and am letting it settle.  Plan is to plant the corn the 24 of February.

The first casualty of the year is one tomato plant.  The two year old fell and butt planted on one of the Manaluce tomato's!  No worries, I've got four more.  The cucumbers have all started to appear and I moved the bag to take advantage of the trellis by the 4 by 4 bed (top right corner of the photo below).

Lastly, here's two heads of cabbage I started from seed in the garden in October.  The heads are about the size of baseballs so these should be ready in the next four weeks.

Took the plunge

Ok, I took the plunge.  The weather has been so good and the outlook is continuing to be better so I said what the heck.  I put the okra and the tomato's into the garden today.  With the way the weather is looking I thought I would take a chance.  We'll see how this pays off.

You can see in the top left, I pruned the olive tree and have planted 3 cuttings with a root actuator so I may get three more tree's.

Gearing up to prep the grape vine

I had always heard that Texas is great for growing vines.........just not so great at producing quality grapes.  When we moved-in in 2010, we decided to try and grow a vine.  Bought it at Lowe's and put it in.  I knew it wouldn't be until the 3rd growing season until we would see any grapes.

Summer 2012 was the third.  The vine began to shoot leaves in early March and buds appeared.

By April the canopy had come in nicely.

June 4th the grapes began to change color.

The best part about growing them was my son eating them like he was Cesar!  It produced about 12 lbs......after the birds got their initial share and I netted it in!

I never pruned the vine since inception.  I am going to drastically prune it this February.  I learned that grapes won't develop above about 5 feet so all the extra vine was a waste.  I buried a section of vine last year in hopes that it will root and I'll have a second vine.

When I do cut this one back I'm going to replant 30-40 shoots in quart containers and expand the grapes.  I'm going to work three levels on the trellis and see how it goes.