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I will be post pictures on how to lay down your plants to root from stem.
for those who get and early start.
watch this space 

 :o I'm watching. Never heard of this and yes I'm an early starter.

Tomatoes are incredibly easy rooters (the only crop that's better is another solanum - the pepino melon-pear).

Tomato laydown at planting out time is a well-known method to take advantage of this to get more crop per 'plant' - though each one takes more space, so it only makes sense if you aren't working from seeds or cuttings in the first place.

I've used laydown inside as a quick way to turn every axil sprout into a rooted plant - very useful provided you divide them up at planting-out time to get optimum spacing... though I normally use some big early plants bought-in in March rather than trying it with seedlings this early.

I'd not be happy risking damping-off this early - it's difficult (but not impossible) to get the necessary temperatures and light levels without that damgerous humidity...

Hopefully I'm wrong?

Vinlander  strange i never have problems with damp off

Tell us how you do it, Plainleaf.
Does it really get you more crop then? I'm not sure I understand why.

I have seen it on tv recently, may have been gardener's world, there are root producing cells on the stem so if you lay it for  say 6inches you get a lot more roots for the plant which increased its uptake of water and nutrients as well as giving it a more stable base - I wish I could remember which programme it was I saw it on. :-\

Quote from: plainleaf on February 04, 2011, 00:06:57
Vinlander  strange i never have problems with damp off

I don't think you live in Britain do you?  And you probably have much better light levels than we have.

Oh I never knew that - where are you plainleaf?

Thanks for info about it Tulipa, it makes sense that they get more nutrients, and I think in the wild they sprawl along the ground, don't they? You'd have to keep an eye on slugs and snails though - very handy snack for them if the fruit are at ground level!  :o :o

If you bury them deep every time you pot them up, you get a lot of extra roots, but I've never taken it further than that.

bigger roots = more fruit, simples!!