Tomtato – This plant grows Tomatoes and Potatoes at the same time
Online based U.K.-based horticulture company Thompson & Morgan has developed a plant that grows both cherry tomatoes and potatoes called the Tomtato. The product was first announced in 2013, and now it’s finally commercially available. It’s been available now in Canada for at least a year now. A New Zealand horticulture company has also created their own Tomato/Potato hybrid plant too.
Tomatoes and potatoes are members of the same plant family. This makes them perfect candidates to be grafted together to create a new line of plant. Fruit growers and horticulturists have apparently been using this technique for centuries.
Thompson and Morgan claims that this is the first time the TomTato has been produced commercially successfully. They grow their Tomato and Potato plants separately, then when they are a few weeks old, the plants are fused together naturally by cutting their stems and combining them.
“Here’s another major horticultural breakthrough from Thompson & Morgan! Specially hand-grafted plants producing potatoes AND tomatoes are now available to UK home gardeners for the first time. Above the ground harvest over 500 cherry tomatoes with a Brix level of 10.2 – that’s sweeter than supermarket tomatoes. Fruits also have just the right level of acidity that only the tastiest tomatoes have,” writes Thompson and Morgan on their website.
PHOTO: THOMPSON AND MORGAN
