How do you support your tomato plants?
- Thread starter 3rrorist
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Florida weave all the way! I used four 7' T-posts, driven about a foot and a half into the ground. I attached 2" wooden poles to the middle two posts and strung polyester clothesline between everything. As the plants got taller, I attached them to the clothesline using foam coated wire (tomato ties).
I had no problems with pinched stems - the foam coated wire distributes pressure really well. Also, driving the T-posts in really deep made it unnecessary to reinforce them with any cross members - they didn't tilt or bend at all. The clothesline sags a little over the course of a growing season, but I don't mind if the plants end up a little shorter.
(I'm 6'5" and the top of my trellis is still out of my reach!) As long as I prune the old leaves off my vines, I don't have any problems with ground contact.
Here's a shot of my setup from late last summer.
Notice the two plants on either side of the garage door (a costoluto genovese and a mortgage lifter). Each one ended up being over 12' long by the end of the season. Even when loaded down with the huge amount of fruit they produced, they were held strong by those posts. It takes up virtually no space and now that it's set up, all I have to do next spring is tighten up the lines a little and plant!
P.S. Please ignore the disaster between the tomato plants and the roasting habaneros. Last year the squash bugs and the squash vine borers liked my plants more than I did…
I had no problems with pinched stems - the foam coated wire distributes pressure really well. Also, driving the T-posts in really deep made it unnecessary to reinforce them with any cross members - they didn't tilt or bend at all. The clothesline sags a little over the course of a growing season, but I don't mind if the plants end up a little shorter.
(I'm 6'5" and the top of my trellis is still out of my reach!) As long as I prune the old leaves off my vines, I don't have any problems with ground contact. Here's a shot of my setup from late last summer.
Notice the two plants on either side of the garage door (a costoluto genovese and a mortgage lifter). Each one ended up being over 12' long by the end of the season. Even when loaded down with the huge amount of fruit they produced, they were held strong by those posts. It takes up virtually no space and now that it's set up, all I have to do next spring is tighten up the lines a little and plant!
P.S. Please ignore the disaster between the tomato plants and the roasting habaneros. Last year the squash bugs and the squash vine borers liked my plants more than I did…
Rymerpt said:
Yeah, you gotta be pretty mindful of the wind direction when roasting hot peppers. The batch of red bhuts I roasted after the Caribbean reds got a little over done and I had a hard time approaching the grill through the smoke and fumes to take them off the fire! I'm pretty sure each of my eyeballs had a scoville rating of about 50,000 after that.
My neighbor came out and was swearing at me and shaking his fist out of what I could only assume was jealousy. It was hard to understand him though, when he started crying and choking because they smelled so good. My neighbor is weird. When he started crawling back inside, I figured he was just going to his kitchen to get a container for the sample I offered him. If he had just come over, I would have been happy to give him a handful to take home and share with his kids. Oh well, his loss. Sometimes I just don't understand non-chileheads.
True story.
dash 2 said:Florida weave all the way! I used four 7' T-posts, driven about a foot and a half into the ground. I attached 2" wooden poles to the middle two posts and strung polyester clothesline between everything. As the plants got taller, I attached them to the clothesline using foam coated wire (tomato ties).
I had no problems with pinched stems - the foam coated wire distributes pressure really well. Also, driving the T-posts in really deep made it unnecessary to reinforce them with any cross members - they didn't tilt or bend at all. The clothesline sags a little over the course of a growing season, but I don't mind if the plants end up a little shorter.
Here's a shot of my setup from late last summer.
Notice the two plants on either side of the garage door (a costoluto genovese and a mortgage lifter). Each one ended up being over 12' long by the end of the season. Even when loaded down with the huge amount of fruit they produced, they were held strong by those posts. It takes up virtually no space and now that it's set up, all I have to do next spring is tighten up the lines a little and plant!
P.S. Please ignore the disaster between the tomato plants and the roasting habaneros. Last year the squash bugs and the squash vine borers liked my plants more than I did…
Your method looks like it works good, and resembles a florida weave at a glance, but it's not. What you are doing is tying your plants to a pre-existing trellis as they grow. Nothing wrong with that!
With the weave, you actually "weave" the horizontal string around the plants in a way that sandwiches them between two side-by-side strings. As the plants grow you add more and more courses of horizontal string as needed resulting in a "wall" of plants. There is no tying up individual vines or branches. The end result is indeed similar. I am just pointing out the difference is all.
Old woven wire fence at about 30-36 inches high. I then use a three foot piece of rebar to anchor them.
muskymojo said:
Your method looks like it works good, and resembles a florida weave at a glance, but it's not. What you are doing is tying your plants to a pre-existing trellis as they grow. Nothing wrong with that!
With the weave, you actually "weave" the horizontal string around the plants in a way that sandwiches them between two side-by-side strings. As the plants grow you add more and more courses of horizontal string as needed resulting in a "wall" of plants. There is no tying up individual vines or branches. The end result is indeed similar. I am just pointing out the difference is all.
I guess it's not technically a "weave", but I tried to do it the right way at the outset of the growing season. I was worried that just weaving the strings in and out of my vines wouldn't hold them up securely, so I just gave them a little "help".
Whatever the hell I did, it sure works! Maybe I should call it the Illinois weave. Is that kinda like the Texas rig vs. the Carolina rig? (YOU know what I'm talkin' 'bout, muskymojo.)
Florida Weave http://www.eurekatomatoes.com/assets/images/florida-weave.JPG
dash 2 said:Florida weave all the way! I used four 7' T-posts, driven about a foot and a half into the ground. I attached 2" wooden poles to the middle two posts and strung polyester clothesline between everything. As the plants got taller, I attached them to the clothesline using foam coated wire (tomato ties).
I had no problems with pinched stems - the foam coated wire distributes pressure really well. Also, driving the T-posts in really deep made it unnecessary to reinforce them with any cross members - they didn't tilt or bend at all. The clothesline sags a little over the course of a growing season, but I don't mind if the plants end up a little shorter.
Here's a shot of my setup from late last summer.
Notice the two plants on either side of the garage door (a costoluto genovese and a mortgage lifter). Each one ended up being over 12' long by the end of the season. Even when loaded down with the huge amount of fruit they produced, they were held strong by those posts. It takes up virtually no space and now that it's set up, all I have to do next spring is tighten up the lines a little and plant!
P.S. Please ignore the disaster between the tomato plants and the roasting habaneros. Last year the squash bugs and the squash vine borers liked my plants more than I did…
I'm doing a modified version of this this for 2014. Even growing a few Cosolutos and Mortgage Lifters.
2014 is getting serious about tomato trellising
The perforated U-Channels I salvaged are sunk 18"+ into the clay via sledge hammer.
(the green V-structures in the background are my raspberry trellises. The bamboo sticks are just varietal markers)
I used 14g electric fence wire to stretch 100' and some 9g to hillbilly a loop to secure the ratchets.
I also ordered some 25mm tomato trellis clips to try for hanging on twine dropped from the top line.
One of the two methods, or some combination, should work.
I'm planting 24 pairs on 4' intervals of various heirlooms or OP on this stretch.
My tomatoes usually get at least 7' tall so I use 8' lengths of pressure treated deck wood, cut into two or three stakes (three if it's the thicker type) on a table saw. The stake is put in soon after transplant, then later as needed they are tied to it with lightweight twine.
At the end of the season the twine is discarded into a compost pile. It used to be that you shouldn't use pressure treated lumber for crops due to it containing chromated copper arsenate but the US outlawed treatment with it over a decade ago.
At the end of the season the twine is discarded into a compost pile. It used to be that you shouldn't use pressure treated lumber for crops due to it containing chromated copper arsenate but the US outlawed treatment with it over a decade ago.
IMO if you are growing any more than a dozen or so toms, you simply need a roller and clip system... it saves insane amounts of time. If you are growing cluster toms, you need the hooks too.
word to the wise tho, lower your toms on the REG. if you try to lower them only every two weeks or so...and by like a foot at at time, you will have a good number or broken stems, that require a good deal of time to deal with. ask me how i know?
i dont have a good pic of my setup with the rollers, but here is a hook... they basically clip onto the twine, and support the clusters.
i just cut the clip when i harvest the toms.
i think these are...Topanga, from Syngenta? greenhouse cultivars. they russet like mad when the humidity and temp fluctuates, but they produce very well.
edit: no wait, i think these are DRW 7749, a deruiters/monsanto cultivar. most expensive seeds ive ever bought. like a buck a seed. produce beast amounts of weight tho.
pruned 3 to a cluster they get as high as 300 grams per tom. super finicky tho. wind damages them... rain and temp swings caused this russeting.
oh yea, I use zip ties to act as stops between the rollers tokeep them from sliding together.
i like to grow with a fertigation system, and on only one stem, so each plant ends up with like 30+ lbs of weight... this caused the rollers to slide around in the past, due to too little tension in the overhead lines. a zip tie will stop that.
i dont have a good pic of my setup with the rollers, but here is a hook... they basically clip onto the twine, and support the clusters.
i just cut the clip when i harvest the toms.
i think these are...
edit: no wait, i think these are DRW 7749, a deruiters/monsanto cultivar. most expensive seeds ive ever bought. like a buck a seed. produce beast amounts of weight tho.
pruned 3 to a cluster they get as high as 300 grams per tom. super finicky tho. wind damages them... rain and temp swings caused this russeting.
oh yea, I use zip ties to act as stops between the rollers tokeep them from sliding together.
i like to grow with a fertigation system, and on only one stem, so each plant ends up with like 30+ lbs of weight... this caused the rollers to slide around in the past, due to too little tension in the overhead lines. a zip tie will stop that.
i lied earlier.
i found some decent photos on my camera that id never removed.
you can see whats going on alot better in these pics.
here you can see how the hooks work.
you wrap the main stem around the string as it grows upward. every 3 or 4 nodes, you are supposed to put a clip on the stem. I just made a point of clipping them every weekend or so.
this is the topanga plant. These are like. baseball sized toms, super round. the product info said to prune them to clusters of like 5 then 6 i think, but i never really bothered to cull them.
those are just generic bells in the back. some hybrids i got from johnny seeds i think.
edit: no, those are DRW 7749's. i don't think i ever did the topangas in rockwool. idk.
i found some decent photos on my camera that id never removed.
you can see whats going on alot better in these pics.
here you can see how the hooks work.
you wrap the main stem around the string as it grows upward. every 3 or 4 nodes, you are supposed to put a clip on the stem. I just made a point of clipping them every weekend or so.
those are just generic bells in the back. some hybrids i got from johnny seeds i think.
edit: no, those are DRW 7749's. i don't think i ever did the topangas in rockwool. idk.
I use two different systems in my two garden spaces. In my main garden I use 5 ft concrete reinforcing wire cages. I use a florida weave in the public garden. The plants definitely produce more and get larger using the CRW cages, but part of that is probably the better soil and growing conditions in my backyard. I have black gold back there now.
you are not far from the truth to be honest.Jamison said:
Since these are commercial cultivars, meant for, for profit growers in Canada, UK Holland etc, where greenhouse toms are common.
they are not especially tasty. they are not bad or anything, but ive had better taste from cheap-O home depot brandywine seed.
Normally, when growing hydroponically on this system, the tomato is kept to one main stem. Some growers will even let the vines down as they grow too high vertically, to keep the main stem growing. (I've seen a few very old indeterminate vines grow up to 40' long) Have you done this in the picture, or does this variety just keep fairly compact?queequeg152 said:
yea one stem.
i use the same methods greenhouse growers use, just outdoors. when they hit like 8 feet, i start lowering them inches at a time.
the stems then start forming hoops at the base. when these hoops get very large, they become a huge liability... triping over them will end your plants. so when the hoops get big enoug, i will gather them together, and zip tie them onto the rockwool blocks with one of those big ass HVAC zip ties. you cannot do this all at once... so tighten the zip ties an inch or so every other day otherwise you might snap soemthing. i just let the hoop push out, and if you do REAL well this hoop will reach another rockwool block, then you tie it to THAT block as well...
compact?
lol that plants like 9' tall right there. dont you see the lean i have on it atm? look at the bottom, i had started to hoop the stem already.
ive only done two seasons with rockwool, and have only goten the stems like 16' total. i lost these drw's during winter... my shotty greenhouse you see there, without plastic, was insufficient. plus i didnt take super good care of them... i broke a bunch of stems, which causes huge stresses in the plants. i had to parafilm them with SS splints from tig filler wires etc, it was a mess with that greenhouse.
This atrium gets horrible light in the winter as well... anyway, enough excuses, these didnt last until spring. if they had, idk how tall they would have gotten.
alternativly you can just coil them into a circle around the base of the slabs, but thats harder to do without snapping something.
i use the same methods greenhouse growers use, just outdoors. when they hit like 8 feet, i start lowering them inches at a time.
the stems then start forming hoops at the base. when these hoops get very large, they become a huge liability... triping over them will end your plants. so when the hoops get big enoug, i will gather them together, and zip tie them onto the rockwool blocks with one of those big ass HVAC zip ties. you cannot do this all at once... so tighten the zip ties an inch or so every other day otherwise you might snap soemthing. i just let the hoop push out, and if you do REAL well this hoop will reach another rockwool block, then you tie it to THAT block as well...
compact?
lol that plants like 9' tall right there. dont you see the lean i have on it atm? look at the bottom, i had started to hoop the stem already.
ive only done two seasons with rockwool, and have only goten the stems like 16' total. i lost these drw's during winter... my shotty greenhouse you see there, without plastic, was insufficient. plus i didnt take super good care of them... i broke a bunch of stems, which causes huge stresses in the plants. i had to parafilm them with SS splints from tig filler wires etc, it was a mess with that greenhouse.
This atrium gets horrible light in the winter as well... anyway, enough excuses, these didnt last until spring. if they had, idk how tall they would have gotten.
alternativly you can just coil them into a circle around the base of the slabs, but thats harder to do without snapping something.