Thunder Road, Tomato Slayer

Tomato limb after storm

It is extremely difficult to keep up with a garden. There is always something to do. My lethal mistake this month? I insufficiently supported my tomato vines. After a drenching, violent rain and wind storm I went out to the garden and found three limbs that were completely or mostly severed from their mother stem. I was not happy with myself and the rains that came.

This type of thing has happened before. It was hail last year. Not only did I lose limbs but there were countless hail punctures to many beautiful green tomatoes. Those green tomatoes where not long for this world and soon became rotten. Storms are difficult for any garden.

Unlike last year, I reacted to the downed limbs quickly this time around. I randomly had a pot with soil in it, soaked the soil in the container with even more water, then stuck the branches deep into the soil and water mixture. I even cut off a few branches to get the stem in the soil as far as possible. I tied them to a stake and let the healing begin.

They wilted bad at first, to the point where I thought my experiment was a lost cause, so I sacrificed one of the two stems and uprooted it to see if it was creating new baby roots. Indeed it was! The jury is still out about whether this will truly work, but I figured the experiment was well worth a try.

Rational: I had experienced and read that tomato vines have the ability to create their own roots. (Many gardeners even claim that tomatoes should run along the ground for growth rather then be staked and tied. I do not happen to go with method but know there are many who have success with it.) In order to encourage the root growth I made sure to keep the pot well watered, almost muddy even, and I cut the flowers off so the plant could concentrate on feeding itself and not the fruit.

I will certainly include an update if this experiment succeeds. But for now, I still get to be pissed at that storm.