A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum The Tomato Forum 4 Dec 1875: The Garden Vol 8 p.489...

I ran across this reading up on old tomato varieties and thought some of you would find this interesting. Possibly the origin of the Brandywine?

"Tomato Grafted on the potato. - My experience of grafting the Tomato on the potato does not coincide with that record at p. 460*. Three years ago I tried the experiment - the Tomato produced a large yield, consisting of some nineteen good-sized fruit in an 8-inch pot; the potato made several attempts to throw up a stem of its own, but was not allowed to do so, and when turned out of the pot not the slightest appearance of any tubers could be seen. The fruit was pronounced to be excellent. - A. Hossock, Ragley.

*p. 460:
"Curiousities of Grafting

"...In the 'Gardeners' and Land Stewards Journal,' 1847 (p. 85), is given a short account of an experiment in which a Tomato scion was grafted upon the stem of a potato, and the scion developed its fruit and the stock formed tubers. We are not told precisely how the stock and scion behaved under the circumstances, but this experiment seems better worth repeating, since the results cannot but be highly interesting, from whatever point of view they are considered."

Now that's wild. I thought that potatoes were bad to be around tomatoes. something about either a fungus or a fight for nutrients.
But it was grafted?
That's really interesting.
I know when my husband put in potatoes next to my tomatoes, it wrecked havoc with them. They got all crinkly and holes appeared on all my leaves and my fruits grew as if they were hollow and rotted right out.
The previous year, I pulled more delicious fruit that I could deal with.
Have planted beans all over that area this year and they're doing well.