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I've always found growing tomatoes tricky. Every year, I make a new attempt, but the results are inconsistent. One year, I'll get a few worthy of a salad, the next it'll be a total fail.And as I sat out in my yard recently, I stared at this year's yield – tomato plants that had stopped growing entirely. So, I did what I love to do and headed online to social media to see if I could find an answer.Fortunately, tomato growing hacks are never hard to find, from using this common kitchen scrap for zero-waste gardening to trying out an ingenious tomato-watering trick, but this time I was looking for something that would switch up my tomato growing game altogether.Then, I found a TikTok that told me I've actually been doing it all wrong. It turns out we should all be planting our tomato plants horizontally. It might sound crazy, but it's actually a stroke of genius. Here's how it works.How does it work?I'm a sucker for TikTok creator, @creative_explained's videos and I'm not the only one. With over 7.5m followers, he's known for consistently sharing quick home and garden hacks with an enthusiasm that's infectious. I should know; I've been using his money-saving hack for giving my plants a boost this year, and I've been shocked by the results.But it's this tomato planting hack that caught my attention this time. As he demonstrates, you take a tomato plant and strip all the leaves off the stalk, leaving just the top shoot with one leaf.Then, you dig a trench in your garden bed. After exposing the roots of your tomato plant and breaking apart the soil at the base, lay the entire plant horizontally into the trench.Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.Bury the entire stalk with soil, leaving just the top shoot and leaf exposed. Raise just this part and hold it vertically with soil.He explains: "What's going to happen now underneath the soil is that the tomato will grow roots all along its stem.It'll start to grow new shoots. The stem pretty much transforms into an entire root system." Genius.Here's what happened when I tried it
