Monday, April 1, 2013

I finished grafting all the tomatoes yesterday. You have to have patience (not one of my strong suits) and a gentle hand to do this. I couldn't have done it at all without a grafting knife. Grafting knives are very sharp, with a very thin blade. Remember you're slicing through a tomato seedling stem that's only a few millimeters thick. Without this special tool, it would have been impossible.  I'm doing side grafting, which entails cutting 3/4 of the way through both the rootstock stem and the scion (top part) stem and joining them together. Needless to say i said "ooops" a couple of times, which resulted in a rootstock being beheaded. I did get most of them grafted, and i'm hoping the graft holds and heals. After a few days, i'll start cutting back the rootstock top, and the scion root. I've marked both parts with yellow thread so I can tell which part comes off. The reason I'm doing side grafting instead of the typical top grafting (where the scion is attached to the rootstock) is there's a higher degree of success with this method, and I don't have to use a healing chamber, which both other methods require. I've also been planting out in the garden, seeds only at this time of year. Taking the mulch off my garlic and getting ready to feed it. I'll take my camera with me on wednesday and try to get some photos.

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