Grafted vegetable plant growing guides

Growing grafted vegetable plants is similar to growing regular varieties, although you’ll need to keep the grafting scar above the soil line and feed these turbo-charged plants a little more frequently. Specifically tailored to each vegetable variety, the following growing guides will help you get the most from each of your grafted vegetable plants:

Growing guide: grafted tomato plants

Tomatoes are a popular crop to grow at home, and easy to start from seed. But if you’ve missed the sowing window or simply don’t have the time or space to raise your own, grafted tomato plants are a great shortcut to extraordinary harvests. High yielding, packed with flavour and resistant to disease, the parents of our grafted tomato plants have been carefully chosen to produce excellent results.

Unlike regular tomatoes, you can’t plant grafted tomatoes quite as deeply because the grafting point needs to remain above the ground. Water your plants thoroughly each night and apply a high potash fertiliser as soon as the first flower buds appear. Read our article on how to grow grafted tomato plants to make sure you get the most from these super-charged varieties.

Growing guide: grafted pepper and chilli plants 

Sweet peppers and chillies need a long, hot season to produce ripe fruits. If you’re raising your own from seed, a heated propagator is a useful way to get a head start. If that’s not an option, ordering a few grafted vegetable plants is a clever alternative. By grafting delicious varieties onto super-strong rootstocks it’s possible to get fast-growing plants that fruit earlier and produce up to 70% more crops. Perfect for container growing, our grafted sweet pepper and chilli plants are even strong enough to grow outside on a sunny patio.

For the best results you’ll need to grow your grafted plants on at home, transferring them into larger pots to avoid the roots getting pot-bound. For more practical advice, read our full article on how to grow grafted pepper and chilli plants.

Growing guide: grafted aubergine plants 

Grafted vegetable plants are not only more resistant to disease, they also fruit earlier than non-grafted varieties and have longer cropping times. Our recent F1 ‘Scorpio’ grafted aubergine has been so successful that it produces glossy black fruits two months before its regular counterparts. If that isn’t reward enough, it continues to crop for far longer as well.

Grafted aubergine plants require full sun and more feeding than regular plants – up to twice a week through the fruiting period. For more tips on how to grow grafted aubergine plants, read our full article.

Growing guide: grafted sweet potato plants 

Although our sweet potatoes aren’t technically ‘grafted’, our horticultural team has developed a unique propagation technique to help you grow bumper crops of this nutrient-rich veg. Rather than traditional ‘slips’, our team takes ‘cuttings’ from mature plants which are then carefully nurtured in warm and humid conditions until they develop into strong-rooted plants.

When compared to slips, these plants produce a bigger yield, an earlier harvest and the crop shows greater resistance to disease. Read our full article on how to grow sweet potatoes to pick up practical tips on growing these sweet-tasting tubers at home.

What are grafted plants?

Grafting is when the fruit-bearing part of one variety is attached to the roots of a different one. It allows you to take a rootstock that is strong, vigorous and resistant to pests and diseases and attach it to a variety that grows exceptionally flavoursome fruits. It really is a way of getting the ‘best of both’ in one plant.

For many years commercial growers have used grafting as a way of foiling pests and diseases, however another significant benefit is that it produces vigorous plants that are stronger, healthier and crop for longer. Currently over 60% of tomatoes grown commercially in the UK have been produced on grafted stock.

How are plants grafted?

The Suttons Nursery team in Yorkshire has developed a hand-grafting technique that ensures these exceptional plants reach you in peak condition.

Two plants are grown simultaneously; a tasty fruiting variety and a super-strong rootstock. The tops of the fruiting variety and the strong rootstocks are carefully and skilfully sliced at an angle by hand using a small blade. Then the rootstock bottom and the top of the fruiting plant are grafted together using a special clip which drops off naturally as the plant grows.

Our grafted vegetable plants are sustainably produced without the use of pesticides or peat. They are then nurtured in carefully controlled conditions fuelled by biomass energy.  

Video guide: How to get the most from grafted vegetable plants

The Suttons range of grafted growing plants will have all of the best varieties of fruit and produce from chilli peppers to cucumbers. Each with unique bonuses to them when compared to non- grafted plants. You really can’t go wrong with these fantastic innovations in growing your own produce.

To view the whole range and for more information on individual varieties, click the button below.

Last Updated on January 29, 2025 by Suttons Horticultural Team