BY LINDA DIGGELMANN

Previous editions of the Thymes included articles on growing a tasty cherry tomato plant from cuttings taken in November, 2020 (catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them). The plants thrived and produced several tomatoes.

The first harvest occurred on St. Patrick’s Day. The tomatoes are tasty but quite a bit smaller than the ones grown outside last season. The fully ripe tomato is a robust red in color and maintains an intact skin even when quite ripe. The yield is small, as expected, due to my decision to choose the simple pollination method of flicking each stem with my fingers.

Lessons Learned

• Use a bigger pot (one gallon or larger) when planting the rooted cuttings. The mature plant consumes a lot of water in a day.
• Use an alternate method for enhancing pollination of the flowers, such as painting each stigma with pollen from the flower.
• Spray the plant with organic insecticide to control white fly infestation following the directions on the container.

Since it is nearing time to plant seedlings, today I dismantled the four tomato plants growing through the wire shelving I use for seedlings. I took cuttings of these tomato plants to plant in this year’s garden. This was a fun experiment to do during winter and the COVID-19 isolation we experienced!