The tomato plants (& tomatoes) are gorgeous. Question - How are they staked? It looks like each plant has a wooden stake & the branches are tied w/ the ropes hooking into the stakes at the top. Is that correct? How/where do you tie into the branch? I usually plant 4-8 determinate plants & am planting 22 tomato plants this year - most indeterminate. I'm now trying to decide how I'll support them & your system looks interesting - simple & inexpensive.

How old are the plants in the large pots in the photograph from 5-23?

gardenmommy

When the plants are in the pots I use shish kebab sticks for support, about a dollar for 100 at Walmart. I lay them out on a newspaper the number I need and a few extra. I lay two side by side with a 3 or 3.5 inch overlap and drop a few drops of wood glue where they overlap, let them set overnight. I use 12" bamboo and end up with a 16 or 17" mini stake. I tie the plants to them using knitting yarn. This keeps them straight up, safer to move around and easier to plant without having them flop over and break the stem. I had that happen. I usually don't stake the plants for two weeks after we plant so they need the support against any wind. One day several years ago I was thinking about making small sticks and then I thought of shish kebab sticks.
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I do use wooden stakes and binder twine. I have a dairy farmer that saves a box of used binder twine from bails for me in the spring. I cut the twine in hundreds of 2 1/2 feet lengths. When the plants reach about 3 or 4' high, I wrap a piece of twine twice around the stake, this keeps it from sliding down, 6" or so above the top of the plant. This allows two ends to tie to. For the shoots, I find a Y at a branch and wrap an end of twine around it twice below the Y and tie it, not to tight. Pull that twine up and tie it to one of the ends tied to the stake. This allows two ends again to tie to. Repeat, repeat repeat. It's a time consuming process especially when the plants grow and produce many branches. It worked well as you can see but I may try a binder twine lattice this year. We plant two plants in a hole so lots of shoots/branches, you have one plant, 22 plants might take you a good hour at the peak of the season. One Saturday I spent 2 1/2 hours tying up those two rows. It's not that pretty but I don't care about pretty. At the end of the year a box cutter will zip the twine right off. Try it on a couple plants, it is simple, inexpensive and very affective for the growth of the plants and for keeping the tomatoes from pulling down and breaking the shoots. The plants we raise are Burpee Delicious where four or five large tomatoes can be in a cluster weighing several pounds. The twine does a great job holding them up.

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plantslayer

Those plants you are referring to in the garden trailer in the post above stamped 5-23-2010 are as far as I can figure nine weeks old for the taller plants and the shorter ones are most likely eight weeks old. We usually plant a second set of seeds a week after the first ones if some don't germinate. The pots they are in are 6.5" high so I would guess the tall plants to be 18 or 20" tall.

Moms Helper,

Thanks so much for the explanation - really helps. I'm planning on trying your staking method this year as buying cages would be expensive & a pain to store. On average how many ties do you end up w/ per stake? Do you tie them all w/ the same kind of twine - some of the pictures show red twine on the plants? Another question - you say you plant 2 plants per hole. In your experiments have you tested planting 2 plants versus planting 1 plant? I've heard of this & would love to try it w/ extra plants but have heard it lowers production - that the two will only produce what 1 would have. Do you plant two of the same variety together or mix it? Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!

gardenmommy

Maybe 25 to 35 ties/stake/two plants. What you see red is knitting yarn for when the plants are small. I mentioned the yarn in a previous post. Use the twine after staking.

Several years ago we had a row of one plant/hole. I had three pots with two tomatoes in each so I planted them at the end of the row, all plants were the same variety. All I know is those three holes/6 plants out produced any other three plants in the row. Even if the increase is 25% or 50%, the cost is basically zero for that second plant, less holes to dig, less stakes.

Last year we planted one Burpee Delicious and one SuperSteak hybrid in each pot. This year two Delicious/pot.

When you use wooden stakes, drive them down 17 or 18 inches if possible. It's best to make the hole with a steel stake first if you have one. I had two stakes blow down several years ago when gusts from a storm hit them. I had only driven the stakes in about a foot.

Hope this helps...

Moms Helper,

Thanks so much for the input - I really appreciate the information. Definatley think I'll be doing your staking method this year & am looking forward to planting a couple double plants in some spots as well since I had over 60 tomato plants come up & only 25 spots for them. Hope you & your mom have a great garden this year!

gardenmommy

You said..
Another question - you say you plant 2 plants per hole. In your experiments have you tested planting 2 plants versus planting 1 plant? I've heard of this & would love to try it w/ extra plants but have heard it lowers production - that the two will only produce what 1 would have

I thought about your question today and it had me wondering. I never looked up how many pounds one plant should yield. The number of pounds on numerous sites I googled today was 10-15lbs.
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/tomatoes.html

We had the top row with 14 holes and the bottom with 20. Mom raised four Burpee bush plants and two of another variety raised as singles(both varieties didn't do that well). This comes out to 62 plants or 31 holes with two plants in each hole. I weighed almost all the tomatoes each week and guessing at what didn't get weighed the first two weeks they started coming on and a few other times, I came up with about 815 lbs when I added all the weights up at the end of the year. That comes out to 26.3 lbs/hole or 13.2 lbs/plant. The plants may have done better if we wouldn't have gone through five weeks of no rain(we did water) and nearly two weeks of on and off 95-100* weather. Maybe that answers your question. Thanks for asking, your question made me curious for a solid answer.

I found a close up of a tie up.
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Our five week old tomato and pepper plants.
I have more photos at Mom's Garden link below. I also
posted my system for raising and lowering the grow lights.

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Here is a link that might be useful: Mom's Garden Site, seedlings

Thanks for the additional info! I'm definately trying your tying system this year except w/ my determinates. I couldn'y view the tying pic but scanned your website again & found a good pic. When you tie them, do you lift the branch much higher or just try supporting it where it is? Thanks for the info regarding double planting & production - I'm also trying that on one plant/variety. Beautiful seedlings!

Oh, the pic opened up for me now! Awesome! Thanks!

gardenmommy
I pull the shoots up.

We re-potted the tomato and pepper plants and moved them to the little green house. These plants are six weeks old.

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Here is a link that might be useful: Mom's Garden Site, April 24th