Free Tomato plants from just One

You can easily get free tomato plants for your garden... or almost free.  

Now, of course you can always save the seeds from a ripe tomato (more about seed saving in another post).

BUT, you don't have to wait until the end of the season to save seeds, you can get free plants off of your tomato right now.

There are two types of tomatoes:  Indeterminate and determinate.

An indeterminate tomato will keep growing all season long and will produce tomatoes continually throughout the season. This is the type we will be working with.

A determinate tomato will grow to a predetermined size and will only set a determined amount of tomatoes.  

This tip will work only with the 'indeterminate' type of tomato.  

If you've grown tomatoes, or even if you're a newbie to the tomato growing world, you'll notice a couple of things about tomato plants.

First, the tomato stems have little fuzzies up and down the stem.  These will be future roots if given the chance. 

Second, most (if not all) indeterminate tomato plants will grow little new stems within the crook of the main stem and a branch.  This little 'stem' can be cut, placed in a cup of water and all the little fuzzies that I mentioned before will become roots. 

Once you have a nice amount of roots, it can be planted in the ground.

Voila!  A new tomato plant.  You can do this as many times in a season you want; just allow enough time for the new plant to grow.