A Tomato Growing Trick That Seems Insane, But Works Like a Charm

If you like the flavor of heirloom tomatoes but the performance of a hybrid, grafting tomatoes is a surprisingly easy and fun way to get the best of both worlds. By combining a rootstock tomato like the 'Fortamino' with your favorite heirloom, you can boost its resistance to disease, the number of tomatoes per truss, and even the leaf cover to help prevent sunscald.

IN THIS VIDEO

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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro
00:30 - What Is Grafting
01:51 - What You Will Need
03:06 - 1. Top Grafting
07:10 - 2. Cleft Grafting
10:46 - Post Grafting

DISCLAIMER

[anainjamul]

We did it! I purchased the Fortamino rootstock seeds and started some of our favorite heirlooms. Mortgage Lifter, Paul Roberson and Brandywine. We've tried to graft tomatoes before, but my husband and I almost killed each other. We are now retired, I follow you and others and we did it! We actually planted ours in the ground already and they are doing great! You and Jacques have really inspired me to up my game and I am always starting seeds for my garden. Thanks for the inspiration and encouragement.

[aloeme]

Since we're talking about tomatoes: a few weeks ago I could educate my mum on how to propagate tomatoes thanks to one of your old videos. She's been gardening for over 30 years and didn't know that was possible.

Her tomato seedlings didn't make it and she was pretty sad about it. She couldn't find that specific variety in the shops, only online. But they were too expensive for just two small plants, due to it being a rare variety. I told her that I followed your advice on propagating tomatoes last year and that she could give that a try. She did and now she has 4 for the price of 2. Her props have taken off pretty well and she's happy again. Thank you!

[ThatgirlinSeattle]

Thank you! A gardening video for gardeners who are not newbies! I learned something from this and I’m definitely going to try this next year. This is why your channel is so successful, you understand that not all YouTube garden channel watchers are new to gardening. It’s refreshing and exciting for folks like me who have gardened for a long time to come across a technique that I haven’t tried. Grafted tomatoes are $20 at garden centers near me so I’ve never purchased one, next year I’ll make my own. Great channel, Kevin!

[deathstack]

Hey Kevin, Have you ever thought of grafting a tomato onto a potato, they both belong to the nightshade family and you will get both potatoes and tomatoes, however yes you'll get less of each but it is a fun experiment and would make for a great video, you should try it sometime. Happy Gardening.

[sunniewright]

Good morning and a Happy Boxing Day to any Brits following this channel! This video is so fun to watch. I learned grafting in two of my Ag classes at Bakersfield College: Ornamental Horticulture and Plant Science. One of my professors was amused that one student had so many Ag classes, yet wasn't an Ag major. Well, those classes satisfied science units for my AA-T in English and Literature, and I graduated in May and am currently at CSUB. But I digress! I love gardening, horticulture, botany, etc. Since I will be launching a channel soon, mainly cooking and baking videos to start, and I'm in the process of over-wintering and prepping garden space at my cottage (home), I'll be redirecting followers to your channel, along with a few others I follow, for all their gardening needs for the time being. Love your videos, keep 'em going!

[vaporfacts]

Grafting plants holds so much potential, organic grafting and mycelium👀😵‍💫✨

[mphil]

I’ve been gardening many years and I had never heard of grafting! Thank you, very interesting 👊🏻🙌🏻

[clarencesmith]

This was next level for sure! I have never heard of doing this for tomatoes and now I'm fascinated to watch future updates as to how things turn out. Loved the detailed and thorough demonstration by both you and Jacque. Outstanding work. Thank you!

[nunyabisnass]

I'll try this next year. If I remember. My dad always ends up having about 10 extra plants with no homes, so it looks interesting, and everytime I try something new in the garden I just lord over it intently, so it'll likely be a fun experience.

[SomewhatLazy]

I live in Florida and have a lot of issues with bacterial wilt. I can't grow most varieties as a result. I found the Neptune tomato, that is resistant and have successfully grafted over a dozen tomato varieties to the Neptune root stock. 100% success so far. Just finishing hardening them off now.

[Psilo_]

Love to see you talking about the benefits of grafting. Super fun to do, even better after you see the results! 🌵💛

[OleensEmbroidery]

Dollar tree has the best little garden bell shaped cloches with an open/close vent on top.

[ellenkuang]

I remember James Prigioni grafted 2 together onto 1 root stock so he had 2 leaders on 1 plant. It was pretty cool.

[kaitlynblaylock]

Would be so cool to see one of the carbon tomatoes growing next to a grafted carbon tomato! I'd love to see a video showing the difference in yields!

[abs_official]

I was today years old when I learned I can graft tomatoes. Thanks for the awesome content!

[FurNaxxYT]

You can dab a little bit of aloe around the graft point and it helps the healing process quite a bit

[SD-Dan]

Interesting experiment - it'd be cool to see a side by side comparison of grafted vs non-grafted to see how effective it is. I imagine that there's also some rootstock compatibility at play where some varieties will take off on certain rootstock more than others

[gregmasciola]

I think I saw James Prigioni on The Gardening Channel do something like this last year. If I remember correctly, he basically made it so he was growing 2 different tomatoes on the same plant by grafting one as a second leader.

[michaelmatuszewski]

I decided to give grafting a shot after I saw the video where you introduced the fortamino seeds. I ended up buying fortamino, estamino, and super strong rootstocks and grafted my seedlings when they were a little younger than the ones in this videos. Of the 30 I grafted, 28 took and I have em hardening off outside now that it’s warm enough here. The ones that failed were smaller than the rest and I don’t think they got to make good contact with each other in the clips.

[thehappypegasus]

this is so cool!! i'm so excited to see update videos on how the fortamino rootstock impacts these tomatoes!!