This year I'm grafting tomatoes. Why would you graft a tomato, instead of say getting a hybrid? Well, when you graft you're getting the heirloom or open pollinated tomato variety that you want, but with better production and disease resistance than you'd get growing just the heirloom tomato. Heirloom tomatoes taste so much better! There are a few problems with them, they're slow (generally) to fruit, and they don't have much disease resistance. Hybrids can be pretty tasty but nothing matches a brandywine, san marzano, caspian pink, prudens purple (i could go on) for flavor. So, to get the best of both worlds, grafting is a choice. It's not easy! I'm doing side grafting this year. Side grafting is done by cutting a slice into each tomato stem about 3/4 of the way through the stem, and joining the 2 stems together. Side grafting has a few benefits and some drawbacks. One of the benefits is they don't have to have a healing chamber (which most grafted vegetables do). One of the drawbacks, you transplant both plants into the same pot/container, and wait for the graft to heal. Then you have to cut the rootstock top, and the scion (the top bit which is the heirloom) root.. it can be hard to tell which is which. So i've tied a piece of thread to the scion root, so i know i want to cut that. And to the rootstock top, so i know i want to cut that. I love learning new things, getting the most out of my garden. This isn't easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. I'll keep you updated.