When I have used the Florida weave, I used metal supports, or very thick bamboo. Thin bamboo could break with the heavier weight at the higher points. I bury mine at about 8 inches - so far it has worked. I suspect others on these forums would tell me I am being way too risky and I should bury them at least a foot. A lot depends on your growing season. If your tomatoes are getting five feet high, you need less support, if they are getting eight feet high, then you need more support. For your cucumber, I would go at least a foot deep with bamboo supports since you need to support the weight of the twine, the vine, and the fruits spread across the supports.

The bamboo I have is pretty thick. Will post a picture later of them. I dont want to go deeper than I have to, the bamboo is only 5-6 feet tall.

I think the tomatoes max at around 6 feet high

I use some 8 foot garden poles with plastic cores that can be bought at Lowes or Home Depot. I push them about 12" deep and used the Florida Weave to keep the plants trellised.

This is a photo of a couple of containers from last year; each has 2 tomatoes in it. I know, it looks very messy. It was my first summer at the house and didn't have time to do a better job.

The poles did a great job and I'm re-using them this year. None bent under the weight. The biggest issue I had was the top of the poles slowly being squeezed in until they formed a "tepee" of sorts. This was not a good thing! This year I made a simple frame for the top using bamboo stakes and it's doing a great job of keeping the poles apart.

I dug with a hand shovel and could only get 6-8 inches deep. Any further I was already reaching under the soil and couldn't shovel it out

I was forced into burying it only at 6-8 inches deep. Ideally I would have liked to go deeper and I couldn't dig much deeper than that.

If you can't go that deep, "teepee" the vertical supports and put a horizontal support across the top to help hold up plants with string. You'll be glad of it later in the season when the plants get big and heavy.

Do you have an example of what you mean? What I am picturing seems very weak

Something like this: https://garden.org/ediblelandscaping/images/201105/tomato-trellis2.jpg

Thanks.

I can't do that this year. I am trench composting fish right behind my tomatoes and don't want to disturb the area to put in bamboo. Then I also don't have enough bamboo thats the same height to make the tepee. Might not even have enough to make the tepee. The rest I am using to support my eggplants in containers and my other tomatoes.

For now I set up 4 bamboo poles to support the 3 plants. My hope is that the an additional bamboo will help balance the weight and hold up better than just 3

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Then it doesn't matter what people recommend--you just have to do what you're limited to doing and cross your fingers. If your varieties are more stocky and compact, you'll probably be fine.

I think something like a broomstick is better than bamboo. You can pound it into the ground instead of digging it. From my experience, even with beefsteaks, You don't have to tie up the plants more than 3 to 4 feet high. At 3 feet high most of the tomatoes will be below the tie off point and supported off the ground.

Tomato fruit size has little to do with plant size.

Cherry tomatoes are often the most monstrous plants, for example.

The idea of tying off a plant only to 3 or 4 feet high is madness to me. In my garden, the more vigorous indeterminate varieties can easily reach 12 feet by the end of the season--the cherries can be even larger and definitely way more bushy. And they're loaded with fruit all the way to the top by the end. There's no way stopping the support at 4 feet would result in anything but total disaster.

This is why, if you're limited in how you can support plants, it's always a good idea to research a variety's growth habit. There are many indeterminate types that do top out under 6 feet and have a sturdier habit and don't need support past 3 or 4 feet. Others are rambling and viney and huge and floppy. Others are more tree-like at first but can get extremely tall. It's best to know what you're getting into.

What kind of tomatoes are you growing?

I grow all sorts of different ones over the years. Some are dwarfs that have only gotten 3-4 feet tall... or even smaller container ones. Some have been huge monsters that toppled over well staked 6 foot tall cages during a storm- well staked wasn't well staked enough. A few of them were able to go up and over 8 foot tall chain link fence with ease. Some are bushy, some are more viney.