Staking my tomato
jemsister
10 years ago
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10 years agojemsister
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Fwhomp! That's the sound my tomato plant made last night
Comments (6)Hi Jeff! Hey, it is ONLY June. Those tomato plants could be 10' tall by August! Just to clarify, I always cage my tomatoes, AND I stake the cages AND the plants. Here is how I do it, and there are many other ways to do it as well. When I plant the tomato plant into the ground, I pound a 3' stake into the ground a couple of inches from the plant and loosely tie the plant to it with a zip-tie. This helps encourage the plant to stand up straight and tall as it begins to branch out rapidly....sometimes they get too heavy too fast and lean sideways a little. Secondly, I put the cage around the plant and stake the cage on 2 to 4 sides, depending on that variety's general rate of growth. The stakes help keep the cage from tipping over when we have a thunderstorm with very strong winds. I also attach the stakes to the cage with zip ties. I use zip ties a lot. After the tomato plant is a couple of feet tall, I cut the zip tie holding the plant to the original stake so the zip tie won't cut into the ever-enlarging main stem. If we are having a REALLY windy year, I run a bamboo stick or PVC pipe horizontally through several cages so they can help hold each other up. If a plant becomes a big monster and the cage is in imminent danger of tipping over, I add a 4' to 6' tall metal fence post as a stake on the side from which the wind usually blows, which for us in the summer is from the south. Sometimes, in spite of all you do, a cage will topple over anyway. That is where good mulching comes in. If your garden is well mulched, the toppled plant won't get a lot of foliar disease from the dirt. I am glad you enjoyed your first tomato. Home-grown ones are SO-O-O-O much better. You do know, don't you, that you shouldn't refrigerate homegrown tomatoes if you can avoid it? Once the homegrown tomatoes are refrigerated, their taste and texture both change and they are almost as bad as grocery store tomatoes. For fall tomatoes, you are at the mercy of whatever the stores have. There are some hybrid tomatoes that produce better in the heat, like Sunmaster, Sun Leaper, or Heat Wave II. Unfortunately, they were NOT bred for good flavor. I'd still go with ANY available heirloom, except Brandywine, which does not produce well in our heat. ANY cherry or paste tomato produces through the heat of the summer. I have had the best production in summer months from Better Boy, Big Boy, Bucks County, Porter, Beefmaster, Big Beef, Brandy Boy, Nebraska Wedding, Mule Team, Box Car Willie, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Arkansas Traveler, Bradley Pink, Lemon Boy, Super Boy (lots of tomatoes, but poor flavor), Fourth of July (same problem as Super Boy), and Celebrity as far as big tomatoes go. Well, Porter and 4th of July aren't big, but they are bigger than cherries. Among cherry/grape/currant tomatoes, these are my favorites for summertime/fall production: SunGold, SunSugar, Ildi, Black Cherry, Sweet Million, Orange Santa, Dr. Carolyn, Rosalita, Coyote and Snow White. Among paste tomatoes, almost any of them will produce in the heat. Some of our faves include Principe Borghese (for sun-dried tomatoes), Amish Paste, Orange Banana, Black Plum, Viva Italia, and San Marzano or San Marzano Redorta. Of course, my favorites tend to be different every time I type a list because there are so many good ones, and many produce better in the heat than I had expected. For me the ones that DON'T produce well in the heat are those that make really large beefsteak type tomatoes, generally those weighing in excess of a pound each. I never get very good fall tomatoes from large pink-fruited ones or from large bi-colored ones, altohugh Lucky Cross may prove to be the exception. Hi Hank, As a minimum container size for a single-staked indeterminate, it depends on the particular variety. Some indeterminates top out at 4' or so feet and could probably survive in a 5 to 10 gallon container as long as you water at least twice a day every day. I don't like to grow them in anything less than 10 to 20 gallon containers, and mine do best in 20 gallon or larger containers. No matter how large a tomato plant gets in the ground, it will always be smaller in a container where its roots are more confined. Container-grown plants need more frequent feeding as the constant watering leaches nutrients out of the soil. I have had NO LUCK staking container grown tomatoes. They really need to be caged. To keep them from blowing over, I put the cage on the ground with the container sitting inside the cage. I then stake the cage to the ground. It makes it impossible to move the plant around, but it keeps the container from blowing over when the wind blows. In my largest containers, the tomato plants hardly ever get taller than 7' or 8' tall. Often, they stay in the 4' to 5' tall range, depending on the variety and the container size. I just look at a 5 gallon bucket and estimate sizes of containers upward from there. Some of the best containers don't come from the garden center. Those square Rubbermaid-type storage totes make great containers if you drill or cut drainage holes into the bottoms of them. If you don't like the available colors, you can spray paint them with the Krylon Fusion spraypaint for plastics. Some of my favorite containers are 'muck buckets' sold at feed stores and farm and ranch stores. You can turn almost anything into a container if you put drainage holes in it. I know people who grow tomatoes in cheap 25 or 30 gallon trash cans. They fill the bottom half with shredded mulch and get put soil in the upper half. You can grow huge plants in containers that size. Dawn...See MoreFirst post, first time grower. . .staking my tomatoes?
Comments (10)I could be wrong about the zone - on a zip code lookup map it tells me 9-10. I am near the coast, and the weather here tends to be much more mild. Those "zones" are pretty broad classifications. Here's a fairly accurate description of where I live: "Salinas, CA climate is mild during summer when temperatures tend to be in the 60's and cool during winter when temperatures tend to be in the 50's. The warmest month of the year is September with an average maximum temperature of 74.60 degrees Fahrenheit, while the coldest month of the year is December with an average minimum temperature of 39.40 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperature variations between night and day tend to be fairly limited during summer with a difference that can reach 19 degrees Fahrenheit, and moderate during winter with an average difference of 22 degrees Fahrenheit. The annual average precipitation at Salinas is 15.12 Inches. Rainfall in is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year. The wettest month of the year is January with an average rainfall of 3.00 Inches." We do get some 90 degree days, but only a handful. I had read the FAQ about blossom drop. . .I don't think too hot is going to be my biggest problem. My neighbor (who's in something like his 60th year of planting tomatoes in his backyard across the street - he's 92) said he usually doesn't even plant until around May 1 because it's not warm enough to really get 'em growing; in his words, "they just sit there and look at ya." Maybe I'm misunderstanding the term "frost date." Is it a technical term, or just the last time that you wake up to frozen stuff around you? Stupid question, I know, but I have a feeling I'm not communicating something correctly. Yes, the plants get direct sun for at least 6-8 hours a day (I need to be a little more scientific about it), but it's been a cold spring - it's been in the 50's all this last week with a high of 63 projected for the next week. On the few hot days we have had, the plants have practically grown before my eyes, but they don't grow much during these chilly times. So. . .I can put in a stake without messing up their little root systems? Thanks, Christopher...See MoreAnother set of pruning-related questions
Comments (14)Hi Anthony - I'm glad to hear that so many of them survived. I know you were worried there for a bit that you'd have few viable plants this year. Guess they are tougher then we give them credit for, tight? ;) Cagers often say that they don't prune and they get lots of production. QUESTION: Does this have many fruits ripening at the same time, are the fruits smaller that typical fruits for the variety? More pounds of smaller tomatoes is not something that I want. Hope it's alright if I restrict myself to just this part. As you probably know, I'm a cager and don't prune. But this year I also set up a Florida weave row to try and for comparison. Same varieties in each - Stupice, Bloody Butcher, Brandy Boy, Opalka, Black Cherry, Tappy's Heritage, Super Marmande, Marianna's Peace, and Sweet Cluster. We are eating the Stupice, B. Butcher and a couple of S. Cluster so far. I pruned all of them up to the first fruit cluster and then stopped on the caged ones but pruned the FW row to 3 stems each. Right now they both have just about the same number of fruit +/- a couple, with the exception of the Opalkas, Black Cherry, and the Sweet Clusters. The caged plants of those varieties are at least 18 inches taller and have 1/2 again more green fruit than the pruned ones do. On all the plants the fruit size is the same to the naked eye - I didn't dig out the calipers. ;) The caged ones are ripening from the lowest cluster up - same as the pruned ones - no faster, no slower so far. Don't know if this helps or not? But so far the only real advantage I can see is that the pruned plants are going to be a lot easier to pick the fruit on but I am also worried that I'm going to have more sun scald on them and less production. Time will tell. Hope this is of some help. Dave...See MoreI've run out of stake, now what?
Comments (7)Good advice here, neighbor. I already have a dozen plants that have folded over and they are doing great. The primary concern is that as they fold over, they can put some sideways force on the staking system. Make sure you monitor which way they droop to ensure the stakes are holding. Be especially watchful when the heavy rain is coming - LIKE THIS AFTERNOON!!! If the stem bends/folds, don't worry. Just secure it and keep on truckin'. If it BREAKS, and there is still at least 40% of the outer layer of the stem attached(sort of like the "bark" of the stem). secure both sides of the break enough to prevent further movement/breakage and let it have a few days to adjust. It'll be okay as well. Got one like that, too, after a hawk chased a dove into my Dolly tomato plant. Harvested one of the two fruit that were above the break already. So, let'em droop, but CAREFULLY!! Ted...See Moredigdirt2
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