Gardeners Swear by This One Trick for "Infinite" Tomatoes

Published on July 20, 2025

At the height of summer, it's hard for many gardeners to imagine a world without fresh, peak season tomatoes at their fingertips. So it's no surprise that recent TikTok posts on an "infinite tomato hack" are racking up millions of views. The idea, however, is one that's been around for as long as gardening: Propagating your tomato plant to create new (and free!) plants. We turned to tomato-growing expert Frank Hyman for his tips for success.

How to Propagate Tomato Plants from Cuttings

Propagating a tomato plant involves taking a cutting and letting it root in water before planting. "Tomatoes don’t climb, but they are vines—and vining plants will root easily from a sucker in water," says Hyman. Here's the process:

1. Choose a healthy-looking sucker, which is the new growth that emerges between a main and side branch, of about 6 inches long.
2. In evening when the weather is cooler, pull the sucker toward you to snap it off. (Using your fingers is fine—no need for clippers.)
3. Remove the cutting's lower leaves and place it into a cup of water.
4. Place on a window sill, changing the water often. "Indirect light—as on a window sill—helps, where direct, hot light would be too much before they’ve grown new roots," says Hyman.
5. When the part of the stem that's underwater is covered in white roots about a half inch long, transplant to a pot or garden bed outdoors. 
6. Keep your newly planted tomato cutting well watered, says Hyman. "The new sucker transplants will be thirstier than store-bought transplants once in the ground, so mulch them well and make sure their soil doesn’t dry out." 

Which Types of Tomatoes Can Be Propagated

Propagating suckers is only recommended for indeterminate tomato varieties, which grow fruit all season long. Removing suckers from compact determine types, which produce tomatoes within a shorter amount of time, can result in a smaller yield of fruit on the parent plant.

In some cases, it's technically illegal to propagate a tomato plant because of patent protections. If you're growing an heirloom variety, you're good to go. If you have a hybrid and are not sure if it falls under the strictest patent protections, you can look it up on the USDA PVP site.

Wait, So Can I Really Get "Infinite" Tomatoes from Propagation?

While propagating from suckers is generally an easy and effective way to grow more tomatoes, there are some limitations:

• Fruit production: Yes, you can keep producing plants through propagation, but some gardeners report a reduced number of fruits, or smaller ones, with each successive plant.
• Space: While your appetite for tomatoes may be boundless, your garden space is not. Indeterminate tomatoes are big, sprawling plants. Only create as many new plants as you can fit in your garden while still providing them the room for the air circulation they need to stay healthy.
  
• Timing: No region is warm enough year-round to grow tomatoes outdoors. Depending on the type of tomato you have and the length of your growing season, it may only make sense to propagate tomatoes until mid-summer to give them enough time to fruit before the temperature dips. But if you have a kitted-out greenhouse and are willing to take the extra care needed to grow tomatoes indoors, you can keep using this method to grow them into infinity.