If your tomato plants are anything like mine, they’re sprawling
all over the vegetable garden and threatening to take over the
flower bed about now. If you were smart, you staked your tomato
plants when young or placed a wire cage over them, and they’re
growing under control.
If your tomato plants are anything like mine, they’re sprawling all over the vegetable garden and threatening to take over the flower bed about now. If you were smart, you staked your tomato plants when young or placed a wire cage over them, and they’re growing under control.
For those like me, it’s not too late to try to get your plants under some semblance of control. Good support keeps the vines growing vertically instead of sprawling all over the ground. Plants not only take up less space, but they are less susceptible to pests and diseases since the fruits are usually off the ground.
The easy route is simply to hammer a stake into the ground next to your plant and use ties to bind up the main stems. If plants are bounding out of control, you may need to hammer three stakes around each individual plant and use lots of string, ties or plastic netting.
But there are numerous tomato supports on the market – from the traditional galvanized metal tomato cages to bamboo trellises, tomato spirals and even tomato ladders. I’ve avoided most of these contraptions because I don’t want to have to store them over the winter. If you’re like me, you’ve probably purchased many of the rather flimsy standard galvanized metal cages that are so impossible to store neatly and safely out of season.
However, there are collapsible cages made of galvanized metal that fold flat for easy storage. These are heavy-duty circular cages with the same diameter all the way up that fold flat for storage. The bad news is that they cost many times more than the traditional metal cages at around $20 apiece.
Besides local garden centers, a search on the Internet for “tomato cages” brought up numerous companies that sell a wide variety of contraptions. Gardener’s Supply and R.H. Shumway are just two I looked up.
The tomato ladder looks especially intriguing. Plants grow right up the ladder-like devices with a little help from twine during the early stages. Because they are ladders, fruit is easy to see and easy to pick. Lastly, the ladders are stackable and won’t take up too much space in storage.
Tomato spiral stakes are the new-age support devices that are very popular today. They are easy to use, but some pruning will be necessary so plants don’t sprawl. If you like your tomato plants to get really bushy, the spirals may not be your best choice.
Finally, let me reiterate that keeping fruits off the ground by supporting plants will aid in your success. Of course, if you have tomatoes coming out of your ears, you can also afford to have a few to rot on the ground.
