Tomato Grafting in the Home Vegetable Garden

Home vegetable gardeners and organic gardeners can now grow disease-resistant heirloom tomatoes and keep them producing throughout the season, thanks to the Tomato Grafting Kit from www.BetterHeirlooms.com

Greensboro, NC (prHWY.com) March 29, 2011 - Heirloom tomatoes have won a place in the hearts of home gardeners everywhere because of their superb flavor, unique beauty and link to history and tradition. Unfortunately, home vegetable gardeners are also discovering that these delicate varieties are also quite susceptible to soil borne diseases. Heirlooms also tend to give out quickly, sometimes yielding only two or three fruits in a season.

Thanks to Cooperative Extension programs across the country, commercial organic tomato growers are discovering that the answer to higher yielding and disease-free heirloom tomatoes is the traditional agronomy technique of grafting. In this practice, growers use specialized grafting clips made specifically for attaching heirloom tomato stems onto hardy, disease-resistant rootstock. And, until recently, tomato grafting was available only to commercial organic and conventional tomato growers because supplies were only available in large bulk.

Now, for the first time, home gardeners who practice seed starting at home can also enjoy growing high-yielding disease-resistant heirloom tomatoes, thanks to the affordable Tomato Grafting Kit from http://www.BetterHeirlooms.com. Grafting is especially important for vegetable gardeners who want to practice organic gardening, or reduce their reliance on chemicals. It is also used to prevent soil-borne diseases from gaining a foothold, which is an important consideration for those who must garden in the same small space from year to year.

Rootstock seeds from BetterHeirlooms.com include Maxifort and Beaufort hybrids that have been bred specifically for grafting. They are popular with organic growers because they are highly resistant to most soil borne tomato diseases, including some of the most common, such as fusarium and verticillium wilt.

The Tomato Grafting Kit from http://www.BetterHeirlooms.com employs the same rootstock seeds, equipment and techniques that commercial tomato growers use, but in a scaled down, low-tech version for home use. Each kit contains four popular varieties of heirloom tomato seeds, reusable grafting clips and enough supplies to grow 12 grafted heirloom tomato plants. Rootstock and heirloom seeds are also sold separately. Grafting tomato seedlings is not hard, but it does require specific conditions. Detailed, illustrated instructions are provided, along with important trouble shooting tips and advice on how to plant grafted tomatoes to retain disease resistance.

Finally, gardeners can enjoy luscious heirloom tomatoes all season long. The Tomato Grafting Kit provides what every home gardener needs for success with these delicate but very rewarding plants.

###

Tag Words: tomato grafting, tomato grafting tips, how to graft tomatoes, grafting tomatoes, grafting heirlooms

Categories: Home And Garden

Press Release Contact
Laurie Gengenbach Heirloomveggies@gmail.com or 336-685-4443

Link To This Press Release:

URL HTML Code