Staking Tomatoes, How?

[majorcatfish]

hoodat that's a pretty dang cool idea.

monty how do you get your tomato's to climb ?

anyone else have pictures?

 

[MontyJ]

The tomatoes don't really climb the poles. Although I have to admit, in the pic it does appear that they are. Once they are tall enough I just tie them to the poles. One advantage I have discovered, besides stability, is that the plants shade the fruits better because the fruits hang down and the foilage grows up.

 

[hoodat]

Tomatos aren't climbers by nature; they are sprawlers. Left to their own devices they will just spawl all over the ground but that wastes a lot of fruit and garden space. Contact with the ground lets decay organisms into the fruit and is an attractive spot, offering both food and shelter, to rodents.
So far as the tomatos are concerned that's fine since decay and consumption by rodents both help spread the seeds but for the gardeners who want the fruit for their own use it isn't that great.

 

[Ridgerunner]

My photo is not worth a darn. You cant really see what is going on. I rip some 2x4s into 2x2s, cut those in half to 4 length, then sharpen one end. I drive those in the ground about 9 to 12 on each side of the row, maybe 8 apart. I cut one horizontal off the 16 long cattle panel so I can stick the vertical pieces in the ground, then use baling wire from my wheat straw to attach the cattle panels to those posts.

Then I take another cattle panel and attach that to the top couple of feet of the first one. That raises the total height to close to 6 with cattle panels on both sides of the rows. Then I take some short pieces of the ripped 2x4s and wire them to the top of those panels to hold them apart at a specific distance and give them more stability. Again a lousy photo to try to show that. If I remember Ill try to take some better photos before the tomatoes grow this year.

I rip an old t-shirt to get strips maybe to wide to tie the tomatoes to this if I let it go too long, but after they get a start, I try to just weave the tomato vines through the holes in the cattle panels. It takes a bit of effort early in the growing season, but they are pretty self-supporting and dont really take much tying if you keep up with this. You can see I got behind last year.

For storage I lean the panels against the garden fence.

 

[the1honeycomb]

My MIL had the best method. She used one metal 4' high fencing stake for each tomato and constucted wire cages from 4' high cattle fencing. If you know anyone with unused cattle fencing--like me--see if you can buy it. I still have about 35 ft from a 100 ft. roll left. (New stallion fencing replaced our need to fix horse fences.) The holes are about 4" square and it's easy to pick the fruit.

That is what I do and the tomatoes are really kept up well. I put picking holes in the sides intermittently like you did and it works wonderfully I put them in right after I plant the plants

 

[Dave2000]

I always put stakes in right after they go into the ground. It marks the spot so people don't trample on them, and provides an obstacle that critters might walk around too, decreasing the chance the plant is disturbed, plus doing it early means you don't disturb any of the roots like you might doing it later.

 

[dickiebird]

I support them with 2 different methods (sorry no pics)

#1 The weave, every 4 plants I drive a 5' fence post, when plants are 8" or so tall I tie twine to one post and run on one side of the first plant then to the next on the other side ect on down the row. at each post I do a couple of wraps. When I get to the end of the row I haed back the other way, running the twine on the opposite side of each plant again taking a couple of wraps at each post.
After they grow another bit I do the weave again, usually 3 times in a season will be good.

#2 The crutch method, each plant gets it's own crutch, just a plain old medical device that you use when you injure your leg, foot ect.
I started off using old wood crutches, lots of times free or maybe a buck at a yard sale or flea mkt. Now I use alum. crutches, still about a $1 a pair and they don't rot off!!!

THANX RICH

 

[so lucky]

I love the crutch idea. Sort of makes a funky decoration at the same time.

 

[OldGuy43]

#2 The crutch method, each plant gets it's own crutch, just a plain old medical device that you use when you injure your leg, foot ect.
I started off using old wood crutches, lots of times free or maybe a buck at a yard sale or flea mkt. Now I use alum. crutches, still about a $1 a pair and they don't rot off!!!

THANX RICH

Oh snap! I just donated two pairs of crutches to Goodwill. Duh!