Ok, new science question

[saraha]

So my neighbor had a tomato plant last summer that struggled, so at the end of the season he moved it to a pot and brought it inside when it got cold.

1.The pot he put it in had flowers before, but never tomatoes.

2.He doesn’t remember what kind of tomato it was, just that he bought the plant from the Amish 

3. the plant grew all winter and in February started setting flowers, he has harvested about 15 red tomatoes a little smaller than my fist.

4. The other day he noticed some yellow cherry tomatoes! He traced the stem of it to an off shoot of the first plant. Pictures to follow

 

[saraha]

Plant as it looks now

[saraha]

brown caterpillar looking thing coming out of the dirt in the center of the picture is the original plant stem. Green stem coming out of the dirt by itself on the right of the picture goes to the yellow cherry tomatoes. 

[saraha]

My theory is that the original plant is a hybrid and one of the crosses was a yellow cherry tomato, but not sure if that is even a thing in science haha. We’ve got some weird genetic things going on around here! First cats that are their own twin and now mutant tomatoes.

ETA: I have pictures of the tomatoes if that is helpful 

Edited June 4, 2021 by saraha

[Tap]

Since they are just growing in the same pot, I would assume that there was a wayward seed in the original soil that germinated. 

[saraha]

11 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

 

Holy Smokes!   Feed Me Seymour, Feed Me!

Right?!? He figures if he straightened it out it would be 12-15 feet high

Edited June 4, 2021 by saraha
Wrong number

[saraha]

1 minute ago, Tap said:

Since they are just growing in the same pot, I would assume that there was a wayward seed in the original soil that germinated. 

My first guess too, but the pot had been indoors when he took the plant in it out to replace it with the tomato and he has never grown yellow cherry tomatoes!

[saraha]

From feeling the dirt, the stem of the yellow cherry tomatoes feels connected under the dirt to the original plant stem, but he didn’t want me to aggravate it too much because he has become attached to this plant and wants to see what happens next!

[Tap]

2 minutes ago, saraha said:

My first guess too, but the pot had been indoors when he took the plant in it out to replace it with the tomato and he has never grown yellow cherry tomatoes!

It could have been there from the Amish farmer's garden.  It looks like a San Marzano tomato plant but without seeing the fruit it is hard to say.

[Tap]

I have had volunteer plants surface because my compost doesn't get super hot. A random squash, pumpkin or tomato are the most common I find in my other veggies. 

[saraha]

Just now, Tap said:

I have had volunteer plants surface because my compost doesn't get super hot. A random squash, pumpkin or tomato are the most common I find in my other veggies. 

red tomato although on the small side of some he has harvested 

[saraha]

9 minutes ago, Tap said:

It could have been there from the Amish farmer's garden.  It looks like a San Marzano tomato plant but without seeing the fruit it is hard to say.

I meant to quote this one! Sorry and I don’t know why there is two of the same  picture

[maize]

A seed from the original planting soil is my guess; cherry tomato volunteers come up all over my garden.

[maize]

If it really is growing from the original tomato plant, it could be a bud sport--this is how many new fruit varieties develop; a bud of one plant grows from a mutated cell and produces fruit different from the parent:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_(botany)#:~:text=In botany%2C a sport or,be a chance genetic mutation.

It is also possible that your friend got a grafted tomato, though such plants are usually labeled as such and are more expensive than regular tomato plants. Tomato grafting is becoming more common and is used when a desired variety tends to be less vigorous; the top of the plant is grafted onto the stem and roots of a more vigorous variety. In such a case the rootstock could put out shoots of its own and they would produce a different variety of tomato from the top graft. 

Tomatoes can even be grafted onto potato plants (since they are relatives), yielding a hybrid plant that produces tomatoes above ground and potatoes beneath.

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by maize

[maize]

If anyone wants to try it, here is information on how to graft tomato plants:

https://gpnmag.com/article/a-guide-to-grafting-tomatoes-cornells-tips-for-success/

[Ausmumof3]

We had a tomato last year that started producing cherry tomato sized tomatoes and then progressed to full size.  It was weird - maybe soil conditions or something.  But producing a different colour seems odd unless there’s some kind of weird soil deficiency.

[Junie]

Was it originally growing near a monolith?  Do you live near @Terabith?  This is the kind of thing that would happen in her neighborhood.

[Terabith]

I can't get over how big that plant is!

[saraha]

2 hours ago, Junie said:

Was it originally growing near a monolith?  Do you live near @Terabith?  This is the kind of thing that would happen in her neighborhood.

No but I wish I did! How exciting 😊

[saraha]

2 hours ago, Terabith said:

I can't get over how big that plant is!

He brought the spindly plant indoors in the fall and it just kept growing and growing! I think that means it’s an indeterminate variety and he and I have loved watching it grow. He is a widower and I bring him dinner once a week and we visit for an hour. It’s been so fun to watch it grow!

[saraha]

3 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

 

Holy Smokes!   Feed Me Seymour, Feed Me!

Isn’t it crazy that is a tomato plant?!?

[TheReader]

9 hours ago, Tap said:

I have had volunteer plants surface because my compost doesn't get super hot. A random squash, pumpkin or tomato are the most common I find in my other veggies. 

Oh, I'm so glad to read this! We get all kinds of random volunteer things, and we had loosely traced it back to our compost (which also doesn't get all that hot), but weren't 100% sure, so this is good to know. 

Interestingly, our compost volunteer plants do better than things we plant, at least in the squash/melon family. We planted specific squash & melon this year.....not growing at all.....but have a huge volunteer butternut squash vine w/so far 2 squash and several flowers. We have a random melon growing in the raised bed with the strawberries. We have spinach that popped up in 2 different places. It's crazy! 

I told DH we need to go to the farmer's market, get the kind of squash we keep trying to plant (that never grows), and just toss it in the compost. Next year we'll then hopefully get it as a volunteer and it will be great. 

[PeterPan]

9 hours ago, maize said:

Tomatoes can even be grafted onto potato plants (since they are relatives), yielding a hybrid plant that produces tomatoes above ground and potatoes beneath.

Can I just say you blew my mind? 

[PeterPan]

6 hours ago, saraha said:

He brought the spindly plant indoors in the fall and it just kept growing and growing!

That's really cool! I had no clue you could do this. I thought fall/frost was the end. My dh has some tomato seedlings growing on our deck. They don't get quite enough sunlight to grow rapidly, but I could bring them in before frost and see what happens. 

[saraha]

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

That's really cool! I had no clue you could do this. I thought fall/frost was the end. My dh has some tomato seedlings growing on our deck. They don't get quite enough sunlight to grow rapidly, but I could bring them in before frost and see what happens. 

He wasn’t sure it would work either, just an experiment. He says it drinks a LOT of water and he has to water it every day 

[alisoncooks]

This is fascinating! Oldest DD is obsessed with plants (always has been), and it's rubbed off on DH this spring. They've started a  garden, and now DH had fallen down the rabbit hole of YouTube gardeners.

They'll love to read this post -- but they are totally NOT bringing their tomato plants in this fall!! 😄 

[saraha]

3 hours ago, TheReader said:

Oh, I'm so glad to read this! We get all kinds of random volunteer things, and we had loosely traced it back to our compost (which also doesn't get all that hot), but weren't 100% sure, so this is good to know. 

Interestingly, our compost volunteer plants do better than things we plant, at least in the squash/melon family. We planted specific squash & melon this year.....not growing at all.....but have a huge volunteer butternut squash vine w/so far 2 squash and several flowers. We have a random melon growing in the raised bed with the strawberries. We have spinach that popped up in 2 different places. It's crazy! 

I told DH we need to go to the farmer's market, get the kind of squash we keep trying to plant (that never grows), and just toss it in the compost. Next year we'll then hopefully get it as a volunteer and it will be great. 

One fall one of the kids came in yelling “we have a pumpkin tree!” When we went out to investigate there was a pumpkin vine growing up a tree just outside the hog pen, we had thrown pumpkins out to the hogs the fall before! It was so cool to watch these pumpkins hanging from the lower branches of the tree turn orange! We had to cut them down when they started to get too heavy. We have an old school developed photo of it around here somewhere...

[saraha]

57 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

This is fascinating! Oldest DD is obsessed with plants (always has been), and it's rubbed off on DH this spring. They've started a  garden, and now DH had fallen down the rabbit hole of YouTube gardeners.

They'll love to read this post -- but they are totally NOT bringing their tomato plants in this fall!! 😄 

Oh come on, you only need to bring in one! Then you can have fresh tomatoes in the winter 😆

[maize]

33 minutes ago, saraha said:

One fall one of the kids came in yelling “we have a pumpkin tree!” When we went out to investigate there was a pumpkin vine growing up a tree just outside the hog pen, we had thrown pumpkins out to the hogs the fall before! It was so cool to watch these pumpkins hanging from the lower branches of the tree turn orange! We had to cut them down when they started to get too heavy. We have an old school developed photo of it around here somewhere...

I saw a pumpkin vine growing up someone's spruce tree a few years ago, the pumpkins looked like ornaments on a giant Christmas tree!

[TheReader]

39 minutes ago, saraha said:

One fall one of the kids came in yelling “we have a pumpkin tree!” When we went out to investigate there was a pumpkin vine growing up a tree just outside the hog pen, we had thrown pumpkins out to the hogs the fall before! It was so cool to watch these pumpkins hanging from the lower branches of the tree turn orange! We had to cut them down when they started to get too heavy. We have an old school developed photo of it around here somewhere...

Oh, that's cool! We've never tried pumpkins, nor gotten them by accident, but I bet that would be amazing!

[ktgrok]

My guess is there was an accidental tomato seed put in when the Amish planted it. By the time he bought it, it was already growing and the roots got tangled with the other tomato plant. So when he replanted, they were already entangled and got replanted together. 

[saraha]

7 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

My guess is there was an accidental tomato seed put in when the Amish planted it. By the time he bought it, it was already growing and the roots got tangled with the other tomato plant. So when he replanted, they were already entangled and got replanted together. 

I wonder why it didn’t start setting fruit til last week when the other started setting fruit in February? It’s fascinating, I asked him if he named the plant and he laughed and said that would’ve been a little nutty 😆

[ktgrok]

17 minutes ago, saraha said:

I wonder why it didn’t start setting fruit til last week when the other started setting fruit in February? It’s fascinating, I asked him if he named the plant and he laughed and said that would’ve been a little nutty 😆

needed different conditions, is my guess. Length of day or something. 

[Emba]

It’s cool to know that a tomato can survive indoors over the winter and produce. I wanted to try that last year, only not bringing in a whole plant just some cuttings to root. The cuttings didn’t root, though. I want to try again this winter, though. 
 

i accidentally pulled up a volunteer tomato plant in my garden thinking it was a weed. I immediately replanted it, but we’ll see if it survives. It’s been two days and it... isn’t dead yet. It doesn’t look great though.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Emba