Tomato support when growing many plants?

16 years ago

I've been reading about the various support methods-- but usually people are growing fewer than us. Last year we had six 12x4 beds planted intensively and used stakes and twine woven around the vines. No room for cages for each plant with about 60.

What do large scale growers use as supports?

Would one of the discussed rebar or fence supports work better for our current system of staggered rows than what we've been using? Which type of support gives the most yield (we've become canners--thus the large number of plants).

Thanks for offered opinions.

Comments (10)

bkyleh
16 years ago
i am a semi large scale grower. i normaly grow in excess of 3000 plants. florida weave is the only way to feasibly keep that many plants off the ground but it doesnt work vey good for indet. varieties. and it wont work all season either.

if i had 60 plants i would go with cages, they are the best. best yeild, best fruit quality, best everything...imo. if space is an issue then make small cages. if you make your cages out of concrete wire and make your cages 5 squares in circumference they will be about 10 inces wide. you'll have to do a little pruning for larger plants in a cage that small and a lot of tucking them back in. making the cages so small lets you get a lot of cages out of a roll of wire.

plants on fences get sunscalded tomatoes in my experience. in PA you might not be as prone to sunscald but i dont know.

i made about 220 cages the year before last and it wasnt that bad. i got a system down and it went pretty quick. the finished cages cost me 45 cents a piece. and they are just as good as new two seasons later.

go with cages for 60 plants if you can do it for a reasonable cost. i dont know how much wire is in your area but even if it cost 2 dollars per cage it would be a great investment. not to sound pompous, but i grow for money and every other method of staking indets. that i've tried has disgusted me...

good luck,
kyle
miesenbacher
16 years ago
Check out the "T" frame in the link below. You can attach the vertical twine to the plants or use tomato clips and attach the clip and stem of the plant to the vertical string. I've used clips and they work great and are reusable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato info
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Many people make taller cages by making a ring of concrete reinforcement wire (crw). How available crw is in smaller lengths, I don't know. Some people have used a second small cage, inverted, atop the first, usually attached with cable ties. How successful that is may depend on the gauge of the wire used in the cage uprights. [The times I've seen this method used, it's always been with self-watering containers, usually the hand-made ones.] This link evaluates many different methods of supporting tomatoes: http://www.mastergardeners.org/picks/tomato_staking.html Probably the easiest and cheapest way to get tall support is to buy tall stakes. You'll want to bury a foot underground, so consider that when deciding what length you need. Another option is the "Florida Weave" (I've seen the term "Texas Weave" used; I assume they're the same). In the first link above, it's called "Post and Twine Method" -- and badly described. See number2's post on this thread for a diagram; when I've used it, I weave around each plant individually, not two at once (they'll get mixed up enough anyway without my bundling them together in twos!). http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg041148319850.html?14 I have a neighbor whose late husband built tomato frames out of wood; most of her tomatoes are Roma-types, so the frames are about 3-4', but you could make them taller. Basically he just put two rows of stakes into the ground (I think they're 2x2's), then added occasional horizontal cross-pieces at different heights. This is a permanent installation. Here are the instructions for GWebber qaguy's homemade PVC cages: http://www.feldoncentral.com/garden/tom_pvc/
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digdirt2
16 years ago
Many commercial growers use sprawl growing, but like Kyle said above, I too would go with cages. I converted to them from stakes and strings years back. And they provide excellent support throughout the growing season.

No room for cages for each plant with about 60.

Sure there is. ;) It depends on the size and shape of the cage how many you can get into your beds. They can be square of triangles and they don't have to be 3' in diameter.;) CRW and welded wire cages of various diameters from 16" to 24" and different shapes easily allow me to get well over 100 plants in my garden beds.

Using cattle panels in your beds with extensive pruning is another option. Place one down the center of each bed and plant on either side of it alternating plants. They are 16' long so you'd need to shorten them a bit but they can be adjusted to any height you want. Just be sure to stake them in well as they will have alot of weight to support.

Dave
HoosierCheroKee
16 years ago
The following ideas are specifically for the original questions regarding growing a few dozen tomato plants in 4-foot wide raised beds. For other garden arrangements, I might have different responses. I have no suggestions for large scale market gardens or farming tomatoes on acreage.

For short-stake determinates, I believe Florida-weave, using a T-bar fence post between every six or eight plants and rebars between every two plants alternately would be an economical and practical system. I saw this done in Anguila with great success. I mention that because they have constant 10 - 20 mph tradewinds, and the system held up very well. In a 4-foot wide raised bed, I would imagine one could get two parallel rows of short-stake determinates supported in this method by setting the rows 6 - 12 inches in from the sideboards and leaving 2 - 3 feet between rows initially. Then after weaving the support, you'd frequently have to prune the stray growth from the facing sides of the plants.

For growers wanting to support several dozen indeterminates in raised beds, I believe an overhead support system using drop cords and pruning to single or double cordons is a very workable system. This would be like a greenhouse system, except outdoors in a 4-foot wide raised bed, you could use a "clothesline" crossbeam post with double lateral overhead lines, and hang drop cords to support two parallel rows of plants in the same bed. The horizontal arms of the clothesline poles could extend out over the edges of the sideboards and the cordons could be slanted out from the bed to allow more open space as the in the upper parts of the vines. The spent growth could be removed from the lower parts of the stems as harvest progressed ... just like in a greenhouse.

Another system that would work for both indeterminates or determinates, when growing a few dozen plants in raised beds, would be using T-bar fence posts to support cattle panels as trellises. Again, I think one could accomplish double parallel rows in a 4-foot wide bed by slanting the panels outward from the bed slightly, and placing walk boards down the middle of the bed to prevent root damage when caring for the plants or harvesting from the inside.

I'd use 5-foot fence posts for the determinates and mount the 5-foot panels 6" off the ground to get 5-1/2 foot tall trellises.

For the indeterminates, I'd use 7-foot T-bar posts and mount the 5-foot tall cattle panels 18" off the ground to get 6-1/2 foot high trellises. When the vines top the 6-1/2 foot trellis, I'd top the vines and train a few side shoots horizontally along the panels grapevine style.

Bill
timmy1
15 years ago
"A picture is worth 1000 words"
spiced_ham
15 years ago
I'm curious why the Florida weave doesn't work well for indeterminants.
timmy1
15 years ago
Too tall!

It would work just fine if you were 7'6" tall from Zimbabwe.

You would need a step ladder to pound in the stakes and string them.
johnny_tomato_seed
15 years ago
Crap. I am only 5'6". I did have to use a chair and wore out my shoulder trying to pound the stakes in. I guess I am going to need two ladders and find another 5'6" guy to help me string them ;-). I have no choice, the best sun spot and it's against the fence.
spiced_ham
15 years ago
I just drive in shorter posts (t-posts) and then bind a longer stick to them with cable-zip ties, wire etc. Any growth above working height (6-6.5ft) gets pruned off if it gets annoying.
aclum
15 years ago
Hi,

Here's my solution for putting tall posts or stakes in place without using a ladder....

I use thin walled EMT conduit that comes in 10' lengths. First I cut 10' lengths of 3/4" EMT into 40" lengths (3 per 10'). I pound these about half-way into the ground wherever I want a stake or post. Exact depth would depend on the loseness of the soil, but 18"-20" usually is enough in my soil to really get the EMT secured so that it doesn't budge. This forms a collar into which I can insert a 1/2" EMT cut to the desired length (or left at 10' if desired). I've used this staking system with the Florida weave and indeterminates for a few years and it works very well for me. I just run the strings as high as I can reach and then just let the plants droop back down above that (or prune them if they get too unwieldy).

I've seen others on this forum posting a similar technique using EMT slipped over lengths of rebar previously pounded into the soil for support.

Anne

Tomato support when growing many plants?

Comments (10)

bkyleh

miesenbacher

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