UC Master Gardener Tomato Staking Techniques.PVC Tomato Cages For Self-Watering Container Gardens.If you are running out of room in your garden think about growing up! See more about vertical gardening. Velcro is fine but no wire twist ties! Tie the plants to the stake loosely in a figure 8 to avoid pinching the stem. Or make ties from soft cloth, an old tee shirt or stockings. Remember when tying up any plant to use soft string, preferably biodegradable and not treated with chemicals. We tried using the mesh bags that onions and other produce come in and it did the trick.Įggplants also benefit from a bit of support, especially if you grow the large Italian types.Ī stake or tomato cage works great to keep the plants upright and the developing fruits off the ground. I have tried growing melons on a fence but the individual fruit need extra support, preferably something that can stretch and expand with the melons as they enlarge. They are easy to find and pick with a minimum of bending. The fruit can hang down and gravity helps them grow straighter. TrellisesĬukes benefit from growing on a trellis or fence. It eventually forms a wall of tomatoes, allowing sun to penetrate the plants and ripen the fruit. During the early part of the summer we add another layer of string every week as the plants get taller. We put tall rebar stakes in the ground every 6 or 8 plants and run 2 strings from pole to pole weaving them between the plants as we go. However our favorite way to support tomatoes is the basket weave. Eventually I couldn’t reach the tomatoes to harvest them. We have grown them under an old greenhouse frame-minus the plastic-and wound the vines around strings we hung down from the frame overhead. If you train your plants to one or two main branches they can be tied to a stake or trained to grow up a string suspended overhead on the same kind of trellis I explained above for the beans. Its 6 inch squares will still allow you to reach in and pick a big fat beefsteak. Place it over the plant and pound in a stake on one side to keep it from toppling over. Cut the wire so you can roll it into a tube 16 inches across at least. You can make a taller and more sturdy version yourself from concrete reinforcing wire. Speaking of tomatoes, those flimsy cages they sell at the hardware store are fine for bush or determinate varieties but for the indeterminates, they just don’t do the job. If you have only a few plants, metal tomato cages work well too. It is the same method we use for flowers to keep the stems straight for cutting. To avoid that kind of disappointment we stretch netting horizontally over the bed and the plants grow right up through it. While waiting for the sweet peppers to ripen, all that heavy fruit can weigh the plants down and a strong thunderstorm adds to it, often breaking the plants. It also makes picking easier because you can see the beans through the foliage better. Since we grow a double or triple row in each bed we find that putting a short strip of fencing or stakes with string wrapped between around the perimeter of the bed them helps to keep them contained and not flopping into the walkway. Once the vines reach the top they will flop over and grow back down.Įven though they are called bush beans we find that some of the varieties we grow get about 2 feet tall. If you already have fencing around your garden or yard make use of that as a bean support. It needn’t be a work of art because the vines will soon cover it. From this top piece you can hang plastic mesh fencing or just wrap string around the poles to create your own web for the vines to climb. Teepees of long bamboo poles work great or you can construct a trellis from rebar, electrical conduit pipe, wood, or bamboo by driving poles into the ground at intervals and wiring more poles horizontally across the top. Pole beans are excellent climbers and definitely need something to wind around. Called pea brush, any kind of branching twigs will do that are long enough to support the crop, leaving 6 inches or more to stick in the ground. Shorter varieties of peas can be grown on branches stuck in the soil between the plants. We often add a row of string on the outside of the vines, threading it through the fence at intervals to hold the vines close to it. Some peas are lazy climbers though and need to have a little guidance. See instructions on how to build a trellis and support for climbing vegetables such as peas and beans. Staking and stringing a fence after the plants have come up can damage them so to avoid this problem we plan ahead and position the plastic mesh pea fence in the fall so it is ready and waiting when the time comes to plant. Since I always plant edible-podded peas as soon as possible in the spring, often the ground is still frozen a foot down or so making it impossible to drive poles into the ground. Building Trellises and Supports for Climbing Vegetables
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