Tomatoes: Do you stake 'em? Cage 'em? or just let 'em flop??

[NoTrespassing]

We've got one hanging upside down "as seen on tv" my ol'man gave us. I've planted them in self watering 5 gallon buckets on the porch with cages attached. This year we'll have some caged and some staked in the garden.

Do any of you get the big green "tomato hornworms" ? What do you do to keep them at bay?

Kevin

 

[Baby Grand]

We've got one hanging upside down "as seen on tv" my ol'man gave us. I've planted them in self watering 5 gallon buckets on the porch with cages attached. This year we'll have some caged and some staked in the garden.

Do any of you get the big green "tomato hornworms" ? What do you do to keep them at bay?

Kevin

We only get a few hornworms each year - we encourage them because they turn into such a cool moth:
VegEdge: Vegetable IPM Resource for the Midwest
Since we don't spray with pesticides, the braconid wasps seems to keep their population in check.

 

[jinman]

I posted these photos in another thread, but this year I'm trying a trellis netting from Memphis Net & Twine. I bought 328' of 40" tall horticultural netting for around $55. Since I put the netting on 6' t-posts and left over a foot at the bottom, my net is almost 5' tall. For my sweet 100s, I used 8' tall posts and will add more netting as the plants mature. Vining tomatoes like sweet 100s can really get going. For cross-row support, I'll just add 3/16" twine as needed.

 

[Pondering]

I've tried 'em all to varying degrees of success (or not). Here's another vote for weaving. Try googling "tomato florida weave" and you'll get tons of hits)

 

[Jstpssng]

Depends...most heirlooms, sweet 100's, Big Boys all need tying up with tall stakes for me. With Celebrity I usually let em run or a short stake at best. Same with Beefstake.

Burpee delicious was such a huge vine I found it better to just let that one run wild

When I had long rows of field tomatoes growing we just used the florida weave system

Thank you, that's interesting. How deep into the ground do you drive your stakes? He said they were 5 foot poles, but it looked like that was how much stuck out of the ground.

 

[Egon]

Kinda depends on weather you got Determinate or indeterminate plants.

Cages for determinate. Twine wound around the stock and tied high to what's available for the indeterminate. Some will easily top eight feet.

Tried page wire cages but they were rather unsightly and just didn't suit my purpose.:thumbsup:

 

[lakngulf]

Got two methods going on this year. For years I have used cages and they work well



Also, growing some at the farm/hunting land, and decided to use cattle panels. First time to try this method

 

[rekees4300]

What's your tried & true way of supporting your tomato plants?

Start with cage then add stake later if needed.

 

[DFB]

Thank you, that's interesting. How deep into the ground do you drive your stakes? He said they were 5 foot poles, but it looked like that was how much stuck out of the ground.

Looks like they were about up to his chest height. No telling how tall he is exactly but that be like 50"-52" on me so I'm guessing there probably in the ground at least a good 8 inches or more.

I'd probably hit a rock first

 

[Otto Syracuse]

I have thought about planting posts at the ends of the row and stretching high tensile fence wire to tie the plants up to with cloth strips. .

That's how we did it on our farm for years and years, and it worked really well. I see a lot of vineyards using that system, but they are built for logevity and extra strength. We used jute twine to tie the plant to the top wire. As kids, our job was pull the suckers off the plants. Now, my cousin (who runs the farm now)uses 2x2 posts for each plant.