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JennGM
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| Posted: Aug 09 2006 at 3:20pm | IP Logged
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Wow, everyone must go on vacation this week! It's so quiet on the board! I can hear a pin drop.
Well, for those that ARE out there, I'd like some advice. This will be for next year's garden.
I have a blessing -- my garden runneth over with tomatoes. I never tire of them.  BUTTTTT....How do you stake your tomatoes??????  I'm having a constant battle at keeping my tomatoes standing straight up.  The tomatoes are winning.
I've staked with smaller stakes in the past...seems I was always putting another stake in with the added weight and extra branches.
This year I used tomato cages, and they keep toppling over. Plus, some plants grew over the top and I'm losing a few branches due to the weight of tomatoes. Perhaps the cage was too small? I thought this would be the answer and it's even worse.
My neighbor has larger wooden stakes, like 2x2, and the plants seem to be standing tall. Is this the trick? And what do you attach your plants to the stake if you use it?
What works for you? I ran out of my staking wire earlier, and now I'm running out of panty hose, trying to save my plants. I don't want to do this again next year!
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Aug 09 2006 at 3:44pm | IP Logged
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The thing that has worked best for me is tomato cages made from field fence, approx. 3 feet in diameter. They sometimes still outgrow them, but they dont topple over like those little cages you find in the garden stores (They never work). Plus the added benefit of not having to tie or train your plants, just let them grow as they will. I just buy a roll of field fence and start making cages.
Another solution that has worked is using the large (5ft) green fenceposts as stakes. They stay put pretty well, but you do have to tie them and train them and I prefer not to have to do that (lazy, I am!).
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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JennGM
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| Posted: Aug 09 2006 at 3:46pm | IP Logged
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lapazfarm wrote:
| The thing that has worked best for me is tomato cages made from field fence, approx. 3 feet in diameter. They sometimes still outgrow them, but they dont topple over like those little cages you find in the garden stores (They never work). Plus the added benefit of not having to tie or train your plants, just let them grow as they will. I just buy a roll of field fence and start making cages. |
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How do you get them to stay upright? Put them in the ground?
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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Maddie
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I finally cried "uncle" with my tomatoes this year and bought several bales of straw (not hay, of course) and placed it really thick around my plants. The tomatoes lay on the straw which helps prevent them from rotting before I can pick them. It has worked really well this year, my tomato plants are HUGE and bursting out of any and all cages, stakes, etc.
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~Maddie~
Wife to my dh and Momma of 9 dear ones
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hylabrook1
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I usually get what Home Depot sells as "tomato stakes". These are wooden stakes about 1-2 inches square, maybe three feet tall, with a point at one end. Use a mallet to bang them into the ground. I usually surround the tomato plant with four of these. I think they cost 99cents each. Anyway, I wrap twine around the stakes at several heights to sort of cage the plant in. Set the four stakes up in such a way that you form a fairly good-sized square, big enough to encompass the plant, whatever size it is.
HTH
Nancy
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lapazfarm
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The wire cages I make are large enough that they stand up pretty well on their own, but I sort of shove the bottom wire into the soil when I put them up, and since I put the tomato plants on hills, it makes a pretty firm base. I have also used tent stakes to help keep them up in the past.
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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MichelleW
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Have you tried square cages? This is the only type of tomato cage that has worked for me (I haven't tried making my own). They fold closed so they are easy to store. When openned they are about four feet tall, about 18 inches on each side. They have long pokey legs that go down about 8-10 inches into the dirt. They have cross bars every foot or so, so they hold the branches up. It's nice and easy to pick the tomatoes using these. My square ones cost the same as those silly conical ones.
Michelle
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marihalojen
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I used to use hog panels and plant the tomatoes in a row alongside. The holes are large enough to just weave the runners back and forth and the panel is strong enough it'll never fall over.
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~Jennifer
Mother to Mariannna, age 13
The Mari Hal-O-Jen
SSR = Sailing, Snorkling, Reading
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Topic: What Am I Doing Incorrectly? Tomato Help
