VGG

I use cattle panel and have spaced tomato plants at 1 foot on BOTH sides of it, so 8 plants for every four feet of panel. I left about six feet of open space before the next row so the roots would have someplace to spread. Of course, you have to keep them well-fertilized, mulched, and watered, and make sure they're in a place where the air circulates freely among the leaves and branches. I did baby them and they did just fine.

I won't plant so close this spring to try to avoid cross-pollination because I want to save some of the seeds of the new OPs I'll be growing, but I really have a hard time sacrificing extra plants. This year I think I'll offer the extras on FreeCycle so I'm not so tempted to cram them into small spaces!

I use cattle panels also for the majority of my raised beds. For the 8'x 4' beds, I put one row of 5 plants along one 8' side, and put the supporting panel less than half way across the length of the bed, maybe 1/3 of the way into it. That way, the front of the bed is available for low growing crops like bush beans, broccoli, or eggplant.

I do try to group similar sized tomato vines together, but with new unfamiliar varieties, you can't always predict how they'll do in your garden. You can always remove some of the stray lower suckers if the rampant growers encroach too far into the wimpier plants territory.

First clickable thumbnail is of my 8 foot beds before the support panels are added.

I like being able to easily reach both sides on the plant in this set up. And I like having some space free along the other edge for other shorter crops or flowers.