If you have heavier vines they can break bamboo or wooden supports. Ones like Brandy, some of the cherry tomatoes. I finally got rebar and tie it with twine as they grow. The twine will rot and not become a permanent mess in the garden. The peppers and eggplant can get by with small supports. I also tried years ago making wire cages but are hard to pick tomatoes through the wire and takes a lot of space to store.

chellersm, I use the ordinary cages for my peppers and eggplants, but nothing else. And sometimes I have to stick a pole in those, but they are adequate for those plants.

With our wind out here on the prairie, I've found the Florida Weave works the best. It has some bend with the wind, but supports the plants pretty well if you only put a couple of plants between the stakes and make sure the stakes are tall and driven a foot or more into the ground. Where the stake doesn't really hold well, I drive a T-post into the ground and lance the stake to that.

For tomatoes I use four 6' stakes pounded into the ground about a foot around each plant, and then I "cage" the vines by tying twine around the stakes every 8-10" as they grow. I try to keep "ahead" of the tomatoes, 'cause it's MUCH easier to tie the twine around the stakes when you're not trying to "contain" the vines while you're tying! I started out using mostly 6' bamboo stakes since they were the cheapest thing I could get, but over the years I've gradually been replacing them with the vinyl-coated metal stakes. Because of my very limited space I MUST grow them up! For the "regular" tomatoes 5' is usually high enough, but the cherries grow over the top and just hang after that, and some years they hang most of the way back down to the ground! With the four stakes they're pretty sturdily supported, but some years I do have to pound a T-post in next to the cherry tomato cages and tie the stakes to that to keep them from flopping over!

For the eggplant I put one good solid stake in by each plant and just tie the main stem as they grow so they can support the weight of the fruit. The only peppers I grow are a couple paprika peppers, but I usually wind up eventually supporting them the same way I do the eggplant.

Here are some pics that show how I do it--from beginning to end. (I don't have any serious Wind Issues with the fence, the shed, and the house blocking enough of it!)

07.01.12 - About two weeks after I planted them - The stakes are in but no twine yet

07.10.12 - I tied the twine around the stakes high enough that it's above the current growth

08.06.12 - Everything's pretty much full grown, but nothing's flopping over the top yet

09.31.12 - From the other side where you can see how high they are relative to the 6' fence, and the cherries, on the left, are totally flopping! I wound up with three "extra" tomatoes this year and didn't have anything planted where my root crops normally go, so I stuck the extra three in there and just let them flop--the way we always grew them at home--when we had a couple acres to let them flop on!!!

I tried "regular" tomato cages the first couple years! They're a JOKE!

Skybird

P.S. If you want to see anything close up, click on the pic and then you can magnify it by clicking on the little magnifier on top of the pic!

This post was edited by skybird on Tue, Apr 22, 14 at 1:03

You may not have room for this, but I've had great success using t-posts and cattle panels. They hold everything from squash vines to indeterminate tomatoes to pole beans, etc.

My plan this year was to use T-posts to secure four or five lengths of butchers twine horizontally down the rows and weave the supported plants between them. I wasn't satisfied with wood lattice last season.

This post was edited by goldenguy on Wed, Apr 23, 14 at 16:36

Thank you all! That is so helpful, especially the pictures! I am going to try the posts - and see if I can find the cattle panel or similar. I will have beans and cucumbers as well (knock on wood) so that will work for everything. I have a few extra bamboo stakes from my snap pea trellis, so I will use those for the peppers.

Skybird, that is so interesting the difference in the tomatoes with and without tying them to the pole. I will be very excited if I can get mine to grow *up* this year! I have cherries, and hopefully so black krim which I have read can grow tall.

Thanks again!

double post

This post was edited by david52 on Wed, Dec 3, 14 at 13:24

There's another mesh solution - the woven wire they use in concrete - it has 4 inch squares, a roll is 4" tall by maybe 50 feet - I'm not sure. I think they call it "concrete mesh".

Cattle panels cost $20. They're available at any farm supply store. They can be bowed in a 'U' shape and put in the back of a pickup truck.

To be honest, I put together a list of all necessary t-posts, wire, and several pieces of cattle panels and have the farm store deliver, it costs me an extra $20 and they bring it on a trailer.

Bolt cutters make it easier to cut.

I've used that utility fence rolls they have at Lowe's with success before. Just snip the amount you need from the roll and place it around the plant. Secure it together with baling wire or something similar, whatever you have. Just get the fence that has the larger squares, not the chicken wire. That way you can reach the tomatoes and it's sturdier.

They make them with larger squares than in my photo I believe.

But, you can cut large squares with wire cutters, as I did here to reach the cherry toms and for easier watering. Good luck.

I have three arbors making a tunnel down the center of my garden. The best is the cattle panel arbor anchored with T-posts. The next best is a plastic arbor gifted to me, and lastly a rusting metal home-made arbor which I have braced with conduit. The arbor is rotated with small amounts of: Sun Sugar Tomatoes, Pole Beans, Red Noodle Beans, Climbing Cucumbers, Big Beef Tomatoes, Zucchetta vines, Sugar Snap Peas, and Butternut Squash.
I must grow semi-shade lovers to one side of the arbor.
Other areas of my garden contain shorter tomato varieties and other veggies, where I use tomato cages with one pole per cage pounded in at planting time to support tomatoes. The inadequate wire cages otherwise want to fall over after rainfall when covered in vines and tomatoes.
My eggplants and peppers go into 5 gallon or larger containers on my cement, sun-drenched, hot, patio. I put tomato cages in each container at planting time. These veggies don't topple the cages. In my northeast Wisconsin area, I am unable to get a meaningful harvest of eggplant or pepper any other way. They love the heat of the patio and reward me handsomely. They often need water daily.