[polly nator]

Round about late November/early Dec I found some neglected tomatoes straggling in a polythene grow house. I think they were a fairly anonymous cordon large cherry but I’m  not sure. They did however have a considerable number of sideshoots and I decided to experiment with overwintering via these side shoots.
1.   Removed four side shoots (about 12” in length”
2.   Put them in a jar of water in order to see root formation
3.    Four of them developed good root systems – discarded the weakest one
4.   Put the remaining four into small pots of fairly rough compost from the council green waste recycling plant. Left on living room window sill
5.   By February these four appeared to be growing really well and producing new leaves
6.    March – disaster struck – one plant failed – discarded this one.
7.   Another plant showed severe black rot at soil level – discarded this
8.   Remaining two showed signs of rot developing at soil level so I took them out and cut stems above the rot  (and root!) level, dipped stems in some rooting powder and repotted
9.   Hurray! When spring finally began to arrive the remaining two plants spring into action and are now in a small glass pyramid house outside
They are flowering and looking healthy. I’m interested to know if they will have  a shorter lifespan than this years sowings.  The healthiest plant actually has two stems now so I may split.
I realise that people with proper greenhouses who know what they are doing would have plants at this stage from 2013 sowings but I was please with my homespun experiment and 40% success rate and am already thinking through ways of improving it next year. I might also try different compost as my living room was full of little flies all winter!

[devonbarmygardener]

Any gardening experiment is interesting to hear.

Why not.

[Auntiemogs]

Yes please.  Anything leading to an earlier crop is useful. 

[Wiltshire Worms]

yes please

[Mark's Sussex Allotment]

Go for it, its always interesting to see how nature responds to such experiments

[A Reyt Tayty]

Last year, I experimented with overwintwring some Shirleys. I kept taking sideshoots and brought them on in the house on  a window sill. As soon as the new plants developed sideshoots of their own, I potted these up and ditched the older plants. I kept doing this up to about 5 generations when they decided to throw the towel in. Perhaps if I left each generation a little longer, I might have got away with it.

[Mark's Sussex Allotment]

SUCKERS!! 

[Auntiemogs]

SUCKERS!! 

[DD.]

This year as an experiment I sowed 6 seed of Shirley in February.

I've now got 6 splendid plants in the greenhouse.

It was hard work mind you. I had to pot them up once. 

[starry]

This year as an experiment I sowed 6 seed of Shirley in February.

I've now got 6 splendid plants in the greenhouse.

It was hard work mind you. I had to pot them up once. 

Could you please define splendid DD that could vary in height and quality !! 

[A Reyt Tayty]

I only did it for something to do. Just to see. But thank you for your appreciation, I hope it brightened your day.

[polly nator]

Not sure how I got two identical photos on the original post - here's a different photo showing both plants