{"id":7283,"date":"2012-06-08T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-09T02:25:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-13T18:16:57","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T22:16:57","slug":"this-summers-biggest-blockbuster-its","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardern.co.za\/2012\/06\/this-summers-biggest-blockbuster-its\/","title":{"rendered":"This Summer’s Biggest Blockbuster? It’s a Tomato in Red Tights."},"content":{"rendered":"
\nIt’s a bird, it’s a plane….it’s a Mighty Mato\u00ae. Relax, he far from genetically modified. No spider bite turned this passive solananoid into a superhero, he’s simply a mere, wimpy heirloom, cut, and glued in lab onto a naturally-bred beast – Nope, it not a movie, but it just might be this summer’s biggest blockbuster – and he’s grafted!<\/p>\n
I’ve read that Grafted tomatoes are the answer to many of our soil and air born diseases, especially with heirloom varieties of those plants within the genus Solanaceae, – I mean – we all have to be careful that we don’t trigger another outbreak of fungus that caused the potato famine ( the same disease that our heirloom tomatoes get very easily- Phytophthora infestans). Grafted tomatoes are simply heirloom or hybrid varieties, grafted onto a stronger-growing root stalk ( last year when I tried, I used the variety Maxifort, which is bred to grow strong roots for commercial greenhouse culture where grafting has been the modus operandi for years). Now, in just a years time after we home gardeners discovered that grafted tomatoes and cucumbers were the answer, we now can buy some – at Home Depot, no less. But act quick, these plants are not easy to find, which is not surprising, since a grafted tomato plant will grow twice as large and produce twice the fruit than a traditionally rooted plant will. This is my pathetic head grafted onto the body of Iron Man. Hoo wahh!<\/p>\n
\nIt’s not too late to buy these nice, young and grafted tomatoes right now, to do your own home test. In fact, mid-June is the best time to plant tomatoes, I even planted some seedling ones last week. Grafted tomatoes just might be the greatest advancement in home vegetable gardening since floating row covers. especially helpful if you want to grow your plants organically. The PR folks at Home Depot emailed me to see if I would like to test a few plants and write honestly about my thoughts on this blog, so I decided to take on the challenge. I’m not always open to such opportunities, but I decided to accept this offer since they encouraged be to “be honest’. I was a little concerned that I would get a big box in the mail with one of those giant, steroided out monsters soaked in hormones and fertilizer.<\/p>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||
MY PLANTS ARRIVES IN GREAT CONDITION, IN THIS INNOVATIVE SHIPPING CONTAINER. THESE MAY LOOK SMALL TO YOU, BUT FINALLY, A RETAILER UNDERSTANDS THAT THIS IS THE PERFECT SIZE TO PLANT IF YOU WANT LARGE, HEALTHY PLANTS.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n <\/p>\n
|