A tomato plant has died, leaving a gap in the row of tomato plants. It’s too late in the season to sow. What now?

You could leave this gap for the whole season, but of course, that would be a shame. You can fill thegap by letting a side shoot grow out from the plant next door, or by planting out a side shoot removed from another plant.

As you know, the tomato plant grows a side shoot or sucker in the axil of each leaf. You should remove these suckers. Read how to do this in the article: “How to prune tomato plants”.

But you can also make a new plant out of a side shoot. The best one to use grows on the leaf straight underneatha cluster. This one is called the ‘Sucker below flower cluster’ and is stronger than the other side shoots. Because the plant sends the most sugars to the developing tomatoes, the side shoot growing closest to acluster benefits the most and grows faster than the others.

On either one of the plants growing next to the gap, pick out a nice cluster thief to propagate a new vine. Let it grow out for about 20 cm, then bind it with string to the stake left in the ground for the previous (dead) plant. Make sure that the stringis attached higher on the stake than the top of the side shoot. Bind the stringto the underside of the shoot, carefully twistingit around the stem and making sure it is growing at a 45 degree angle toward the stick. 

Once the shoot has reached the bamboo stake, it can be guided straight up, just like all the other tomato plants.After a few weeks you will have a new plant and that gap will slowly fill with leaves and tasty juicy tomatoes.

Another possibility is to take a cutting, using a Sucker below flower cluster. Later in the season it will take far too long to grow a tomato plant from seed, but with cuttings you can get a mature plant farsooner.

Look again for a Sucker below flower cluster, between 15 and 20 cm long, on another tomato plant. If you haven’t got one yet, let one grow. With a knife cut out the Sucker below flower cluster in the axil of the plant. If necessary, remove some its leaves, so that you can put the stem of the thief in water 5 to 10 cm deep without any leavesdangling in the water.Then put the thief in a vase or bottle filled with water.

Make sure to place it in the light but not in direct sunlight inside. Regularly top up the water in the vase or bottle. Once roots begin to grow from the stem, you can transplant the thief to a pot with a diameter of at least 12 cm.

The plant can go outside or into the greenhouse 5 days after potting. Water regularly to ensure that the soil in the pot does not dry out. When the first roots grow out of the bottom of the pot, the new tomato plant can be carefully transplanted to its new location. Now you have a new tomato plant and that gap is slowly closing.