Tomato Supports

I need some help. I discovered Paul's web-empire this past January and was exposed to permaculture for the first time. These forums and the great info and advice held within have fundamentaly changed the way I see the world, big and small. I am in year three of my gardening journey and have loved trying to incorporate permaculture principles into what I am doing. This past winter I dug out all my gardens and converted them into hugelkulture beds...and much to my neighbors' dismay and wonderment I have three medium-sized hugelkulture beds in my from yard.

In the attached picture is one if the beds in front yard. The side looking at is the northside, the southside has lots of garlic, onions, 3 horseradish and two rhubarb all started this winter. On top are two cherry tomato plants and a freaky-looking a-frame tomato support I made with jute string and sticks.

My question is in the permaculture-sphere what are options for supporting tomato plants? Make trellis's/supports from natural, found material; leave alone with no support; plant in guilds with plants that will support them? I have ~ thirty tomatos all around the yard and about half are supported with round metal cages that were purchased pre-permaculture. I still need to do something with the rest...what are my best options?

Thanks so much for sharing...Andy

my hubby had split some old untreated fence boards lengthwise into rough stakes to pile firewood on, and I confiscated some for tomato supports..they are about 3' out of the ground and I put one between 2 tomato plants..for several plants..we'll see how that works..

no reason you couldn't use pretty much any salvage..and I have seen online places where people are growing tomatos up fruit trees, but IF I did that I would wait until they are quite strong and well established..rather than baby trees that could be pulled down or damaged.

you can also make trellises from the dried top of Jerusalem Artichokes..our neighbor did that for black raspberries..not sure how long they will last...but were fairly strong

Thanks Brenda...good suggestions. I found examples of tomatos growing up strings on a wood support. Will the tomatos "grab" and climb ropes/supports or will I need to be constantly tying or putting them on the supports? How will the tomatos be supported by your stakes?

I just pound a single 1.5 inch diameter ash pole into the ground before I plant each tomato. As the plant grows, I twist it around the stake and tie it loosely with some twine. At the end of the season the plant and twine go in the compost bin and the pole is pulled up and dried in the basement over winter. I start with the longest poles I can reasonably put in the ground, that way as the ends break and rot I just cut the bad stuff off and reuse it. This goes on until it's too small for supporting tomatoes, then it becomes either kindling wood or a peg for holding down other structures like shade cloths or twine for pole beans.

Stakes, natural or otherwise, are way too much bother/work/fuss IMHO.

A good inexpensive cage is ~8 feet (long) by 5 foot (wide) 6 inch by 6 inch concrete reinforcing wire. Roll it up to make a 5 foot high by ~2-1/2 foot diameter cage, which has holes big enough to reach into. Longer or shorter for larger or smaller cages - that seems to be a good size IME. Wire a few sections of rebar to the bottom for staking it in place. If you have infinite time I suppose you could make something similar from willow, and have it rot out every year or so, but I don't have infinite time, and reinforcing mesh is cheap for the job (and lasts a good many years.)

Someone posted here recently about a polyculture involving Sunflower, Tomatoes, and Beans. Using the beans to latch the tomatoes onto the sunflower sounds like a very admirable objective, but I don't know how feasible it would be. The person said it needed tweaking, since the sunflowers fall over.

I saw something recently that was basically 2 stakes and a string net between the two, much like a mini-volleyball net. The tomatoes just hang on it. as they grow.

Some bio-mimicry might be in order for tomatoes. Last time I checked, they didn't naturally attach themselves to poles with metal/plastic/nylon fasteners.

Leaving them on the ground is plausible, but you'd probably have to pull frequently to keep the rot away. Plus if you aren't "training" your tomatoes, people will think you're strange or stupid or both. I get used to having people think I'm stupid, it lets me do the things I want.
W

I'm of the opinion that both stakes and cages are too much work. I prefer to plant tomatoes and other vining crops under a wire fence and just poke them through the holes whenever they go the wrong direction. The advantages of a fence are A) it won't fall over; B) you don't have to stick your hand inside and bend your wrist at crazy angles as you do with a cage, you just walk around to the other side of the fence; and C) fences are structural. My 4-season greenhouse is divided into keyhole beds, each of which has fence on three sides. They add strength to the frame while providing lots of climbing area for vine crops and summer shade for ground crops. So far it's working great!

I may be missing something here but...

How does a trip to the hardware store to buy wire, tools, rebar, fence material and then working hours of time in measuring cutting, wiring and installing ( not to mention the work done to earn that money to buy materials) a fence or home made cage add up to less trouble than cutting a branch off a tree in the back yard and pounding it into the ground?

In the time it takes to build one wire cage with welded wire and rebar, I'm done with 20 FREE wooden stakes. By using good hard wood and taking care to bring them inside during the off season I won't have to cut another one for years, by which time the Ash trees have grown A new crop of stakes.

Then there is removing plant debris from a cage or fence at the season's end. By cutting one piece of compostable twine my entire plant falls off the stake. I pull the stakes out of the ground and wash the soil off. Once dry they go in the basement till spring. Compare that to cutting a 6 foot tomato plant into 3 inch sections to get it out of a chainlink fence that it spent all summer weaving it's way into.

I'm not trying to offend anyone but it seems like WAY MORE WORK (labor and Money) to build metal fences and welded wire cages once you figure in all the costs.

AND... The results are the same: Tomato don't fall over!

I approach determinate (non-vining) and indeterminate (vining) tomatos differently.

Determinate: I use cages because I have them already. But I've also seen them planted in a clump so they support each other. Looked very low-maintenance; but probably not advisable where fungal diseases are common.

Indet.: Drop a string from wherever (existing trellis, fence pole, tree branch) and train tomato up it by pruning to a single leader and winding that around the string as it grows.

I think I'm going to try more natural wood and natural string structures. I know cages, fences, and welded wire fabric will work but I really don't like having to invest more money. Anybody think of some low shrubs that I could interplay tomatoes with for support?
Another problem I'm having is that I only have a little more than a foot of soil in the hugelkulture beds which makes pounding cages and stakes a challenge. Im going to try some more a-frame type structures, teepees, or two h-frames supporting each other (think saw horse). My wife and I aren't a fan of beans but ill grow some next to tomatoes to try and have them attach the tomatoes to the structures. Squash and cucumbers would work too...right? What other vining plants might work?

Craig Dobbelyu wrote: AND... The results are the same: Tomato don't fall over!

...and yet you skipped right over needing to tie the tomato in in this analysis, though it does figure in your first reply. Twisting and tying. Pruning, perhaps. Every few days when the growing is good. They are not peas, hops, beans or grapes - even melons do a better job grabbing onto things.

Put up a cage around a tomato, it grows up and fills the cage. No human intervention is required. The occasional leader may go sideways and break, but a sucker will fill the cage. If you have time to fiddle, you can push the leaders back in if they go astray, and prune if you like, too. But you don't have to, and you still end up with a cage full of tomato plant, and tomatoes in and out of it.

Put up a stake by a tomato, AND...it falls over, runs across the ground, and sets fruit on the ground.

Unless, of course, you want to spend time throughout the growing season holding it up. That adds up to a HUGE amount of time. Tiny bits of time, but many, many tiny bits of time.

Cage - End of season, pull up the whole thing, pull the plant out the bottom - 15 seconds, tops; 5 if you don't wait once it's dead and let it get crunchy.

If it takes you hours to make tomato cages from 6 inch remesh, you're doing it wrong. Measuring 8 feet is about as hard as counting to 16, and takes even less time than that after the first piece is cut.

But hey, do what you like, no offense taken - there's plenty of folks that love to fuss with tying tomatoes to stakes. I'm comfortably not one of them, because the way I do it is is FAR less work. I prefer to spend my tomato plant time picking fruit.

Ben Stallings wrote:I'm of the opinion that both stakes and cages are too much work. I prefer to plant tomatoes and other vining crops under a wire fence and just poke them through the holes whenever they go the wrong direction. The advantages of a fence are A) it won't fall over; B) you don't have to stick your hand inside and bend your wrist at crazy angles as you do with a cage, you just walk around to the other side of the fence; and C) fences are structural. My 4-season greenhouse is divided into keyhole beds, each of which has fence on three sides. They add strength to the frame while providing lots of climbing area for vine crops and summer shade for ground crops. So far it's working great!

Ben I love your idea! Since I already have two areas of fence that are not run with electric wire this would be perfect for my situation. Come to think of it - I do already have some tomatoes growing right next to another fence. So I'll just poke it through.

So it would seem to me that supports for tomato plants are not very "permaculture." Especially if the long term goal is to harvest only. Last year I grew tomatoes for the most part with no support (well my dad made me string up a border around the plants to keep them contained, he thought they looked somewhat unsightly, this was after the plants were sprawling and 3 feet tall). The plants were healthy and produced well. All of the fruit was of high quality though I am sure that there were some that I missed but those would probably just be the seeds for next years volunteer harvest.

This year i plan to do the same thing and allow my tomatoes to sprawl intermingling with peppers, basil, watermelon, sunflowers, squash, and borage flowers to name a few. I also plan to experiment by burying parts of the tomatoes intermittently under the mulch to encourage secondary root growth, hopefully this will increase vigor and yield.

What do you guys think? Has anyone else grown tomatoes in this manner?

James Colbert wrote:So it would seem to me that supports for tomato plants are not very "permaculture." Especially if the long term goal is to harvest only. ...

This year i plan to do the same thing and allow my tomatoes to sprawl ... I also plan to experiment by burying parts of the tomatoes intermittently under the mulch to encourage secondary root growth, hopefully this will increase vigor and yield.

What do you guys think? Has anyone else grown tomatoes in this manner?

I have, but not on purpose. When my cages fell over the first year (last year I used cages), the sprawling tomatoes prevented me planting anything else nearby, which was frustrating since space is at a premium in my garden. (I even train potatoes up a fence to keep them from infringing on other crops!) Most of the tomatoes were fine, as you say, but a few that touched the ground rotted there. I didn't think of burying the fallen stems to produce secondary roots; let us know how that turns out!

How about upside-down planters? Those seem to have the promise of solving the support problem, provided you have someplace to hang them from and don't mind watering them. Given an overhead watering system, they could be zero maintenance. Has anyone had luck with that?

Ben Stallings wrote:I'm of the opinion that both stakes and cages are too much work. I prefer to plant tomatoes and other vining crops under a wire fence and just poke them through the holes whenever they go the wrong direction. The advantages of a fence are A) it won't fall over; B) you don't have to stick your hand inside and bend your wrist at crazy angles as you do with a cage, you just walk around to the other side of the fence; and C) fences are structural. My 4-season greenhouse is divided into keyhole beds, each of which has fence on three sides. They add strength to the frame while providing lots of climbing area for vine crops and summer shade for ground crops. So far it's working great!

I agree. I usually plant upwards of 200 tomato plants each year and if I had to stake or cage them, I would be all summer just getting the tomatoes in! I have 3 large gardens, but in the main area I have permanent beds with grass paths between them. All of the beds are between 20' and 35' long so I have rolls of 4' tall (4" x 6" weave) fencing already cut to fit each bed. I drive in a piece of rebar at each end and a couple more in the middle area, then just unroll and slide the fencing over the rebar stakes. Voila! All I have to do is pop in my tomatoes, then weave them in and out as they grow. I pull the fencing off at the end of the year, roll it up really tight to store, and its good to go next year (and for many years to come). I also save all the string off my hay bales. Those are great for when tying becomes necessary, and they are also useful strung between good stout stakes or interlaced on pyramids made from saplings. Beans, cucumbers, squash, etc. use them for climbing so I save horizontal space for other things like root crops and greens.

James Colbert wrote:So it would seem to me that supports for tomato plants are not very "permaculture." Especially if the long term goal is to harvest only. Last year I grew tomatoes for the most part with no support (well my dad made me string up a border around the plants to keep them contained, he thought they looked somewhat unsightly, this was after the plants were sprawling and 3 feet tall). The plants were healthy and produced well. All of the fruit was of high quality though I am sure that there were some that I missed but those would probably just be the seeds for next years volunteer harvest.

This year i plan to do the same thing and allow my tomatoes to sprawl intermingling with peppers, basil, watermelon, sunflowers, squash, and borage flowers to name a few. I also plan to experiment by burying parts of the tomatoes intermittently under the mulch to encourage secondary root growth, hopefully this will increase vigor and yield.

What do you guys think? Has anyone else grown tomatoes in this manner?

I tried this once and I have to say, though I did get an absolute TON of tomatoes, cucumbers and sqash, I won't do it again. At least not exactly this way. I couldn't find the garden or the produce underneath that mass of greenery, constantly squashed the fruits I couldn't see, nearly stepped on copperheads twice (they loved the shade under all that mess), harvested about twice as many rotten as good fruits (it stays a lot wetter down there after a rain, so this would be a great option for drought areas) and got a huge backache from picking everything at ground level! One real bonus though was that so low to the ground, the early frosts couldn't kill anything because the thermal layer under there next to the ground insulated the plants just like a blanket. I was still picking fresh tomatoes off the vines in mid-December. (I am in SW Missouri near the AR border, so USDA zones 6b to 7a apply.)

I think what I would like to try in the future (maybe in one experimental part of the garden) is taking a long piece of fencing and laying it horizontal (a sideways fence) -- tying it to stakes every few feet so it sits securely about 2 feet off the ground, then letting the tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. grow up and over that. It would keep the fruits off the ground, make harvesting a bit easier on the back, keep the gound cooler and moister, and still provide something of a heat advantage to extend the season in fall. If I ever get around to doing that, I'll let you know how it comes out!

I still think it makes much too nice a habitat for the snakes though. I don't mind them as long as they don't mind me, (and they are great for eating garden pests) but I don't want to accidentally step on or grab one and make him mad at me.

L. Jones wrote:

Craig Dobbelyu wrote: AND... The results are the same: Tomato don't fall over!

...and yet you skipped right over needing to tie the tomato in in this analysis, though it does figure in your first reply. Twisting and tying. Pruning, perhaps. Every few days when the growing is good. They are not peas, hops, beans or grapes - even melons do a better job grabbing onto things.

Of course a tomato needs to be tied if you stake it. If you have hundreds of tomato plants then stakes may be a bit time consuming. But then so is building hundreds of cages. It's really a matter of whether you spend all the time upfront or in little pieces through the season. For me with only twenty or so plants , I only put in about 5 minutes a week on them as part of my walk through the garden. I generally don't prune much. Just look them over for pests and keep on top of harvest.

I was trying to point out that when we calculate "WORK" or degree of "EASE", we need to consider ALL of the time, money, effort, maintenance and storage of equipment that goes into our gardens. Saying one particular method is easier or less work can be very subjective. For some people, putting up the cash for materials doesn't figure into the equation. For others, time is the limiting factor. For me, a trip to the hardware store is a day long trip so I save a lot of time and money by not using store bought materials. That savings in time and money easily justifies those five extra minutes per week with a roll of twine.

Perhaps it would be better said like this


Stakes: Little to no investment cost, easy to install, needs light weekly upkeep, easy to uninstall and stores in small spaces, multipurpose

Cage: Moderate cost if made yourself, Higher cost if you buy pre-made, easy to install, little to no upkeep, transports and stores well in shed or barn, has some alternative uses.

Fence: High upfront cost, very durable, not mobile, more effort to install than stakes or cage, clearing plant debris is difficult, has many other functions.

James Colbert wrote:So it would seem to me that supports for tomato plants are not very "permaculture."

I see permaculture as being an efficient overarching system for designing all sorts of things. To me, it's about finding what method works best for me within my climate and the ethics I'm comfortable with.
That sounds rather pompous Short answer, sure they are
I stake my tomatoes, it's free and I'm willing to maintain the plants.
I tear old cotton sheets into strips and wrap them right around the plant. As it grows and starts to flop, I encircle it again. At season's end, the plant and sheet all goes on the compost. That's always worked fine for me, although this season I lost all my tomatoes to late blight, but I think that would've happened whatever support method I used.
To me, It's about getting the best output for input. That means something different to every single person:
I have little space and lots of slugs, so sprawling's out...
No fence in the right place, and the ones I have are solid...
I'm a broke, disabled weakling with no transport. Tomato cages are out for now...
I do have endless free, long, strong stakes and a few old sheets though...

Our solution is not biodegradable , but it is reusable. We take T-stakes and pound them in , with enough space between them for 3 tomatos. Then I run fencing wire , stretched taut. I put a strand about every 12 inches up the stakes. I don't worry about bracing since it is only one season. I then weave the tomato in and out of the wires as they grow up. The heavier vines like Cherokee purple and Black Krim I tie to wire with jute. At the end of the season I just pull it all up and store it. I have used rolled up sections of cattle panel or fencing as cages and that works wonderful - it was kind of a pain getiing the tomatos through the openings sometimes. We grow about 60-70 plants a year. The most interesting system I just found out about - go to youtube view Skeeter Pilarskis video by Richard Haard - Sunshine Garden Tour 2010 - He is using sections of cattle panel cut about 2 feet wide and has them tied to wooden stakes - 2 panels horizontal to the ground like a shelf . The tomatos come up through the panels and have something to lay down on - I am switching to this next year. Seems like you would be able to modify this system and use it for runner beans. Just set the panel perpindicular to the ground.

wayne stephen wrote: The most interesting system I just found out about - go to youtube view Skeeter Pilarskis video by Richard Haard - Sunshine Garden Tour 2010 - He is using sections of cattle panel cut about 2 feet wide and has them tied to wooden stakes - 2 panels horizontal to the ground like a shelf . The tomatos come up through the panels and have something to lay down on - I am switching to this next year. Seems like you would be able to modify this system and use it for runner beans. Just set the panel perpindicular to the ground.

Oh wow! This is exactly what I was talking about doing. Its neat to see someone else had the same idea!

I used fence wire pulled between t-posts last year as well. It worked fine, but as wayne pointed out, the heavier plants have to be tied. this year I may try running two lines, about 1-1/2' or 2' apart and planting the tomatoes in the center. Also I need to put up more wires. Last year I used 3 wires, this year I'll put up 5 about 1' apart.

I like the idea of using other annuals as stakes. What about using something like a pearl millet or sorghum? Their leaves may be more apt to "catch" the tomato vines than a sunflower. If you don't grow a super tall variety, they should stay rooted well into the fall. I realize the tomatoes and an annual grass like millet may be in competition for nutrients, but it could be done. Maybe planting a row with seed spaced between 12-18'', about 12'' on either side of the plant?

The timing on the tomato and the annual grass would be important. Annual grasses grow fast, and you wouldn't want them to shade your tomatoes. Many of the shorter grasses like teff tend to be a bit bushier, so I would lean towards a forage sorghum, something with intermediate growth. However I do know sorghum doesn't like any cool weather, we cant plant ours until late May/early June or the cool nights will impact later development (for grazing in the summer when our cool seasons slow down).

Just a thought, maybe I'll try it in a few places this year.

This was my first year growing tomatoes and tomatillos, and not having any money for supports, I just used bits of bamboo. My clumping bamboo puts out little branches, so I just left those on the bamboo, shoved the bamboo deep into the soil, and propped the tomato/tomatillo plant on the bamboo. Since my clumping bamboo is near my tomatoes, it wasn't hard to just clip some to use as steaks when I needed them. And, since the nightshades aren't all that heavy, I was able to put to use the skinny bamboo pieces and tops of my bamboo steaks, that are usually just extras since they're too weak to hold up, say, a fence.

Did it work perfectly? No, the steaks were a little to weak for the nightshades as they grew larger, and I had to add more steaks. So, next year I'll probably start with a little bit more sturdy bamboo pieces, but this was my first year and I didn't know how big they would cost.

All in all, the bamboo didn't cost anything, it used an otherwise useless resource, and worked well enough. Here's some not-so-good pictures of my not-so-beautiful plants. But, hey, I figure a bad picture is better than no picture .

Taylor Stewart wrote:I like the idea of using other annuals as stakes. What about using something like a pearl millet or sorghum? Their leaves may be more apt to "catch" the tomato vines than a sunflower. If you don't grow a super tall variety, they should stay rooted well into the fall. I realize the tomatoes and an annual grass like millet may be in competition for nutrients, but it could be done. Maybe planting a row with seed spaced between 12-18'', about 12'' on either side of the plant?

In one bed we planted cherry tomatoes next to flint corn this year.  Staking up the tomatoes never got taken care of but we discovered that the tomato plants sprawled and grew up the corn beautifully.  We also have cilantro and chickweed interplanted in the bed to choke out weeds.  So far it's a guild planting my husband and I agree is worth repeating. I imagine you could replicate it on a larger scale, the bed we planted this way is only 8ft by 4ft.