Flourish Garden, Keep Tomatoes Upright

Have all the advantages of vertical growing without the bother of pruning and tying: grow your tomatoes in cages. Buy them commercially or construct sturdier ones yourself. Use concrete reinforcing wire with six-inch mesh. (Wire used for cages should have openings large enough for your hand to reach through for harvesting.) For each cage, cut a section of wire five feet three inches long: the three-inch pieces can be hooked to the other end of the mesh to form the cylinder. Each cylinder holds one plant. You can make the diameter of the cylinder larger (three to four feet) and put three plants inside. Open the cylinders and store flat in winter.

Avoid the possibility of a tumbled cage by driving one stake into the ground next to the cage and attaching with wire.

Support tomatoes between two parallel fences eighteen to twenty-four inches apart. To make the fences, nail or staple five- foot high hog wire with four-inch mesh to sturdy stakes. Drive stakes into the ground. Plant tomatoes between the fences. As they grow, slide cross-sticks between the fences for additional support.

Make tomato tents. Use 1″ x 2″ lumber. Fold flat for winter storage.

Train indeterminate (wining) varieties on string. Set six-foot high fence posts six feet apart. Stretch sturdy wire between the tops of the posts. Plant tomatoes eighteen inches apart under the wire. Over each plant, tie one end of a piece of twine to the wire and the other end to the bottom of the plant. As the tomato grows, prune it to a single stem and train it to the twine. “You soon learn to twist the string around the tomato, not the tomato around the string, or the tomato breaks,” cautions CountyAgent John Page, who uses this system in his own garden.

Still bent on conventional staking? Bob Kolkebeck buys 1″ x 2″ lumber in twelve-foot lengths. He cuts it in two at an angle, creating a ready-made point that drives easily into the ground and saves a few minutes of his time.

Take a minute to make a figure-eight when you tie a tomato stem to a stake. Loop the tie loosely around the stem, cross it, and tie securely to the stake. Then the tie doesn’t become a tourniquet for the plant.

By the time my sheets are ready for the rag bag, they are so weak they break every time I try to use them for plant ties. I’ve had better luck with pre-cut, plastic-covered twistems, 13 1/2 inches long. They are reusable. Collect and straighten at the end of the season. Or use soft and stretchy strips cut from discarded nylon stockings.

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