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Growing Tomatoes

Which of my tomato plants should get my taller trellis supports?

16 years ago

Ok, we started planting my indeterminates today, but I got distracted and little got done, so now I thought I'd ask....can you tell me which of my I's below would most likely grow the tallest?

I have different height trellises and I could put the larger ones on the taller trellises.

Also, what is the general concensus on ground spacing between I's, with trellis or Florida weave support?

I left the ACE55 VF (funny name) and the Early Girl on the list even though they are D or Semi, but I'm assuming that they will be fine in a cage if I run out of trellis.

Please just ignore the bad numbering system...I'm too lazy to go in and delete each # to make it look pretty!

I 1. Big Beef Hybrid, LARGE

I 2. Burpee's Big Boy, Large

I 3. Brandywine Heirloom, Deep Pink

I 4.Caspian Pink, Large

I 5. Health Kick, SM-Med 50% more lycopene 4-6 oz mater

I 6. Opalka, Roma type

I 7. Pineapple, Very Large

I 2. Red Brandywine

I 3, Yellow Pear 2" cherry

I 4. Mortgage Lifter

I 5. Beefsteak

I 7. Black Brandywine

I 5. Sugary Lump Cherry Tomato

D 6, ACE 55VF, 80 days, heavy crop or meaty medium-large fruit, disease resistant, Determinate

D 7. Early Girl, 62 days, med size popular favorite

I 8. Ultimate Opener, 57 Day

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Comments (3)

bcday
16 years ago
Health Kick is determinate and only gets to about 3' high. You can put that in a cage.

Early Girl is NOT determinate and IIRC grows about 5'-6' high. If you want to use a cage, you will need a tall one. I would use one of the trellises instead.
digdirt2
16 years ago
What kind of "trellis" are we talking about? Stakes? Cattle panel? Real cages or the 3 ring type things? All the plants on your list with the exception of Health Kick would benefit from a 6 foot stake or cage. Jung's Wayahead, the determinate variety, easily gets to 4+ feet in my experience with it. And despite what your seed packet says, Early Girl, unless you bought Bush Early Girl, is a big indeterminate. ;)

Big Beef Hybrid, Big Boy, the Brandywines, Caspian Pink, Pineapple, Red Brandywine, Yellow Pear, Beefsteak, and the Cherry will all top 6-7 feet. Can't find anything on one called Ultimate Opener and have never grown it but I have done all the others.

But the plants don't have to be supported all the way. They just drape back over and keep growing. So the easiest thing to do would be to pick up a bundle of 6-8 foot stakes from any lumber yard and use one on each. OR invest in several 16 foot long cattle panels and some 5 foot fencing stakes to wire them to and plant along them.

Otherwise, you are likely to end up with an unmanageable jungle. ;) Good luck.
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hortist
16 years ago
for Florida Weave:

18-24" between plants, stake every other plant (I use 18 with no problems)

larger gaps result in the plant "falling in" from the weight between the strings once they start getting larger.

Be sure to prune the suckers up to the first flower cluster to increas air flow at the bottom of the plants

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