Grafting tomatoes

I find grafted tomatoes do a lot better in the greenhouse soil than on their own roots. Last year, only 8 plants took out of about 15 I grafted. I think I was too optimistic regarding the germination rate of the rootstock. I sowed seed on the 3rd March but didn't get the first ripe tomatoes till mid July probably and had only 3kg off these 8 by mid August while 9 not grafted in a small greenhouse had yielded 18kg by the same date. So last year it looks like grafting set the plants back about 3 to 4 weeks. One of the 8, an orange banana, didn't do at all well but I lost the bottom 4 trusses to slugs which seem to really like plum tomatoes.

So this year I will probably sow the seeds about the 21st Feb. along with peppers, chillies and aubergines. I'll sow a few peppers, chillies and aubergines tomorrow as they are slower growing than tomatoes and, if I have any rootstocks spare, I'll try grafting some of these onto  tomato rootstocks to see if it helps them as well.

As an experiment, I'll plant some Roma VF where I know tomatoes do not thrive in the greenhouse s they are supposed to have some resistance to soil diseases. If they do OK, I would then try using them as a rootstock.

So one job tomorrow is checking I've still got enough silicone grafting clips. I bought 50 a couple of years ago. Hopefully not too many are lost as not likely available in time due to covid ordering restrictions.