Re: Supporting tomato vines.

[Hattie the Hen]

Hi eveyone!

I'd like to you to have a look at this information I found when trawling around on my laptop. It's on another forum & it's a long series of posts but I found it very interesting & well worth the long read.

http://forums.seedsavers.org/showthread.php?t=625

What do you think?

HAPPY READING.............................and gardening!


:rose Hattie :rose

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think there are more ways to support tomatoes than there are tomato varieties. It is always good to see another version.

One key to this, as I see it, is to get a string, rope, wire, whatever, that has and maintains the tensile strength so it won't collapse under the load, especially during a high wind. If I used wire, I think I'd want a flexible wire so it would not kink or fatigue through. I would not trust a natural rope material as it may rot during the season.

Another key is the anchoring system for the tiebacks. The turnbuckles are a nice touch to maintain the tension, but the anchoring points would have to be really well done.

The vertical posts themselves also need to be firmly supported in the vertical direction by the soils. I could see that they would have a lot of compression on them and could sink from sight under what would be a high compressive load. Depends on your soils type. The author has his anchored in concrete, which will work, but it means he has tomatoes in the same spot every year. I tend to move mine around a bit. Of course, you could support pole beans here the next season, or maybe cucumbers.

This method does address the storage problem associated with cages.

An interesting article. Thanks.

 

[digitS']

I have tried so darn many methods, Hattie!

What this fellow is using looks a lot like what we did in a rose greenhouse where I worked years ago: Steel posts were sunk in concrete at each end of 4-foot wide beds and wire was stretched between a ladder-like arrangement of cross-poles on the posts. Over the 150-foot beds, vertical support was provided in places.

Rose varieties for cutting are a little different from tomatoes (which are more like "rambling" roses :/). So, when I tried this technique for tomato plants, the weight of the plants and fruit was just enormous. The posts were secure enough even tho' they weren't set in concrete but whatever support I tried was severely challenged.

Wire and string weren't up to the task. For one thing, the branches tended to break laying over the sting or wire. I finally went to 1" by 2" boards but by this time my "contraption" was taking so much building time that I became discouraged.
Cylinders of livestock wire fencing are easy but as one grower on that forum pointed out - storage is impossible .

Those Texas cages fold but the kinds you buy at a Big Box can stack together. Too bad they fall over so easily in the garden. I've found it necessary to drive 3 posts in the ground to hold them up. Sometimes, I've just used the 3 posts and run baling twine from post to post - works just as well.

I don't even live where tomato plants can make much growth during the summer. A single, study metal bar, driven in the ground to a reasonable distance, can be used for support. The leader on the plant can be tied quickly with cable ties but that must be done frequently. I don't prune off the lateral shoots so the plants can still get a little out-of-control.

With a lot of space and because my rocky soil provides something of a "stone mulch" after running the sprinklers 4 or 5 times - I have just let the plants "sprawl" these last several seasons. It isn't the preferred technique but with 50 or 60 plants each season - it's an easy route.

Gardener "routing" is difficult as the season progresses, however. I get to a point where I can't be trusted inside the tomato jungle. I prowl the perimeter like some kind of wild, tomato-foraging beast while DW, with much, much smaller feet, ventures in to the Interior to pass tomatoes out to me . . . .


Employing small children for this task is also a possibility. Seems like I once had this childhood role many, many moons ago.

Steve

 

[vfem]

Oh our local farm has metal poles at the end of there rows which are hundred of feet long. Then they run some nylon down those pole to each end of the row to support their tomatoes.

New year... I think I'm going that route since that MONSTER brandywine grew through the cage (and its BRANCHS have grown around the cage mesh, I even had to move ripening tomatoes so they didn't develop around the metal).

I did not think I would end up with tomatoes 6' tall and 3-4' wide. I was doing the sq ft gardening method in that bed thinking 1 tomato per 12x12 sq. NOPE... bad idea! LOL



Thanks for that link Hattie.... I'm going to cruise around their forum some.

 

[obsessed]

Thanks Hattie.. I will check that site out.

 

[dipence71]

I to have tried a ton of different things until quit by accident (garden too wet one yr) so I planted all my tomato plants along my fence row and weaved them in and out of the fence as they grew and wahla I will never plant them in the garden again. They grow really well and also make for a "privacy" fence during pool season lol. And sooo much easier to pick. row

 

[digitS']

I know of one gardener who claims that she grows tomatoes beside her evergreens in the yard and "pushes" them into the arborvitae (or whatever it is ) for support.



I don't know . . . maybe it would work.

Steve's digits