Staking/Trellising/Caging methods for small space
CaraRose
11 years ago
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number2
11 years agoRelated Discussions
i don't get how plant cages/stakes work!?!?!?!
Comments (9)what they all said... but to clarify.. simplify.. i hope ... a plant in the wild has ONLY ONE goal ... to reproduce ... produce seed ... and if the fruit/veg itself rots where it lays.. all it is doing .. is composting the seed produced ... with me so far .. a gardener... has no need for seed ... their goal is large pretty produce ... and that is not accomplished.. by letting them lay on the ground ... due to the potential of bugs and diseases mentioned above easy peasy ... lol.. see what i did there ... its veg related.. lol .. do NOT confuse industrial production as one above noted ... because ... again.. their goal is different ... near napoleon OH is the campbells soup factory that makes its famous tomato soup ... for lots of miles around... all you see is T fields... and in season.. giant semi dump trucks filled with Ts ... i often wonder how they arent all crushed by the time they get their.. from their own weight piled 8 or 10 foot high ... [probably because they are picked while still rather hard] the point being.. they arent trying to produce a grocery store perfect T.. you can try going all nature in your process ... all the power to ya .... but i would suggest ... you plant say 3 plants.. stake one.. cage one.. and let one lie ... i learned more by experimenting.. than i ever did from a book/WWW .. especially since we didnt have the WWW back them .... good luck ken...See MoreIs it too late to cage or stake this zucchini?
Comments (5)Could you build a "crib" around it without shading the surrounding plants too much?? Even in my large garden, I sometimes build a little fence to gain a bit of control. At times, this is a single string on short posts to hold bush beans out of a pathway. Or, I will drive 4 posts close together so as to fit boards between them - creating a "retaining wall" to keep cucumbers from overrunning nearby ground. looking down (posts o, boards -, planting .): _o____________o_ ..o........................o Additional horizontal boards can be added just by dropping them in place if the posts are tall enuf and as the plants grow. Perhaps, you would only need to retain the plant on 1 or 2 sides. Steve PS always have trouble with my diagrams - GW doesn't like the space bar . . . . ....See MoreCages, Stakes, Trellis?
Comments (1)My tomatoes get individual cages for the heavy vines and then I train them through a trellis made of nylon mesh with 6 inch holes. My supports (8 foot 2x4s) are attached to my beds. You can see examples from last year on my blog. I don't do peppers, but my pole beans went next to my tomatoes on the same trellis. Granny did a Tee Pee last year. Good luck and welcome. Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure...See MoreStaking, caging, etc
Comments (2)Your link to methods seems to be for commercial growers. I know when I did my row garden, I used to stake & cage the tomatoes spacing them 4ft each way. Each yr. toward the end of the season they would fall over due to the weight of all the fruit plus the high winds we get where I live. When beginning my 1st SFG I tried stakes but the soil was too soft to support them from the beginning. Last year using the SFG method I used Mel's suggestions from his book, modified to use what I had on hand. What I had were a bunch of 6ft. 1x1 tomato stakes I couldn't use in the soil. So I chose to screw them to the wood frame using 2 sheet rock screws with a 1x2 cross beams to support strings run down to each plant. I also used some 1x2's for uprights. Mel suggests twisting the plant around the string (wire or rope) each day or two. This is tedious but I was really surprised how well they held up even with the high winds we had last year. Esp. since my frames just sit on top of the ground, not anchored in any way. Towards the end of the season I got some 6ft. 2x2 from a friend which appeared to be 2x4's someone had cut down the middle and used in some sort of shipping crate. From that experience I learned that the 1x1 tomato stakes & the 1x2's tend to bow & warp. So this year I will try to make more 2x2's by either splitting 2x4's or screwing 1x2's together for uprights and use the 1x2's for cross beams. Mount the 1x2 cross piece so that the 2in part is perpendicular to the ground to lessen the warping, live & learn. On the 2x2's I drilled a hole for a carriage bolt (using a wing nut) using a sheet rock screw for the second screw. I was concerned that using 2 sheet rock screws they may snap off. However none did even on the tomato stakes so I may use 2 sheet rock screws this year since they are much less expensive. The below link shows both. In the first 2 pics I made a kind of goal post set-up adding another 4ft section to the top of a 6ft 2x2 in a manner where they could be folded up for storage. Upon completion I realized even if the tomatoes grew 10ft high, there is NO way I could reach them. So after they went over the cross piece I just let them grow back towards the ground. Problem solved. I grew 6 tomato plants in this frame along with 6 basil plants. The basil got crowded out but survived. The tomatoes did great, to my surprise. However, the tomatoes MUST be pruned. In my row garden days I NEVER pruned, that's why they needed 4ft minimum. But even with that I would grow a basil between each plant. The moral of the story is do NOT trellis any higher than you can reach. And using wood smaller than 2x2 is likely to warp. I found using wood, affordable, easy to build, and most of all, it worked. I found it easy to get around to harvest. Even with 4ft in the row garden it was difficult to get into the aisle to harvest. I had many more plants and still had room to plant more last year. If you have more money, you can use other materials. Hope this give you some ideas. Good Luck, whatever YOU choose. Gumby_CT Here is a link that might be useful: Gumby's Trellis Stakes....See Moreryseryse_2004
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