Topic: Pomato challenge?

[galina]

Well in the end mine did not make it, but I now own a scalpel and a set of blades for next year.  MIL grows most things in pots and she lavishes water and fertiliser on her plants.  It would save a lot of space for her to have duals and of course I want to create several for myself too.  Next year I will make a proper effort.

Very much looking forward to Jayb's and Goodlife's final reports and evaluations 

[sgbfly]

I was a bit late starting mine (making the graft at the end of June) but I have a Sungold - Marfona growing quite nicely.  It's first fruit are setting now so I'm hopeful I will get something before the first frost.

Simon

ps.  I'll try and add some pictures later

[winecap]

For what its worth, I thought I'd give an update. To re-cap I tried a brandywine tomato on top of pentland javelin. The first serious problem was that it was a bit of an afterthought, so I ran out of space in the greenhouse to accommodate it. I ended up squeezing it in rather close to the cape gooseberries which have left it in the shade. Anyway, my intention was to keep the tomato part above ground so all the roots were from the potato. The plant had other ideas and sent aerial roots out from the tomato which quickly found the soil. At the moment there are two rather small tomatoes   on the plant, disappointing compared to the other plants, which have produced many tomatoes weighing over a pound this year. No idea whether I have potatoes under there, but will have to wait a while for the toms to ripen. Think I will have to give this a more serious attempt next year.

[sgbfly]

I harvested the potatoes this week.  Time for the pictures:

This plant was a bit of an after thought and I started very late.  Only aim was to test the idea and hopefully get some fruit so yield was never an issue for me.

The graft was made late June using a clip bought from eBay.  I only tried one plant.  The tomato top was a Sungold side shoot and the potato root was a Marfona shoot removed from the parent potato and grown into a small plant of 2 or 3 inches high prior to grafting.  The graft was a clean diagonal cut made with a hobby snap knife.  This was then covered in polythene and left outside under the shade of a garden bench for a week to heal.  The bag was removed and the plant began to grow.

[sgbfly]

It was planted into a potato bag with a few marigold companions. The graft was buried by a couple of inches because it is doubtful the potato stem can support the tomato top weight.  Also it allows for extra roots to grow along the tomato stem which can only help.  It flowered early August at which time a few potato suckers were produced (I snipped these off).  The first fruit began to set mid-August.

[sgbfly]

And finally the mature plant:

August was not a kind month for growing outdoors thanks to cold wet weather.  Thankfully it survived the blight.  The first fruit ripened towards the end of September.  The mature plant gave a useful crop of tomatoes.  Come the end of October blight was beginning to take hold on the top so I called time and harvested the potatoes.  Again a useful crop from one plant.  I think things would have been much better if I had only started with the graft at least six weeks earlier.  Also, two plants per bag looks a possibility.

[goodlife]

I never got round to do the photos!!??
Well..what can I tell you...? It wasn't totally waste of time and it certainly was interesting experiment. BUT, my decision to use bush tomatoes did work from tomatoes' point of view, they cropped fine, the issue was that I didn't realize how small variety they were. My fault...should have read the packets more carefully. I actually used more of 'dwarf' type rather than 'ordinary' determinate bush. Tops didn't grown any taller than 1 1/2 ft. ...and I spaced the plants too wide thinking they were going to bush out ..they didn't need all the space nor the fancy support cages 
And then the potatoes..I'm thinking that the small tops did restrict the growth down bellow...I did get spuds but not very many per plant..but, they were perfectly edible 
So what did I learn?
1. crafting was quite straight forward
2. perhaps more stronger growing tomato variety if in need larger spud yield    OR     if still using these really low growing varieties, plant more closely!
I still have one tomato plant alive..signs of blight is there but I just picked few 'clean' tomatoes. They don't taste or look great anymore for being so late in the season but I'm not too picky.
I might do the same craft again next year...but it would be interesting to plant it in quite dense row using normal seed potato spacing and let the plants support each other. Then the space used would really be worth while..providing blight will not spoil the fun.
If my plants would grow in similar fashion next year, yielding similar amounts...I would think of the tomato crop as the 'main' one and any spuds as nice bonus.

[jimc]

I would like to try this during our coming summer months. Just got to work out how I can grow potatoes in the area reserved for tomatoes (which is fruit fly protected) without adding contamination to the soil.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Has anyone tried this the other way round? I read somewhere that growing potatoes on tomato roots makes them produce more berries, but does it work?

[galina]

sgbfly,  thank you for your super photos.  I am now definitely determined to give it a better try next year.  Both yields were very respectable.  Well done