tomato cages

this yr we have many tomatoes. i am planted 24 each variety what is the easiest way to cage them up. how far apart should i plant the plants and should i make a cage for each plant? we thought we would use stock fence and cut them round. oh also how tall should the fence be?

The simple answer is...

Place climbing (indeterminate) tomatoes two foot apart. And expect some to grow to five foot. So plan for that, when erecting a cage or wigwam. Crop the extraneous foliage ruthlessly as they grow, especially the suckers between the stems - or you'll get just leaves and no fruit.

Bush or determinate tomatoes are supposed to limit their own growth at around three foot. I still find it very helpful to stake them anyway. It keeps the slugs away from the sprawling fruit!

Tomatoes can be grown as closely as one foot apart, in very fertile soil or hydroponic conditions. But the risk in outdoor tomatoes is that - the closer the foliage, the more likely (ie. certain) you are to get disease. Like blight.

Keep the plants very well apart, and well ventilated. Then you minimise the risk of disease.

I speak as a fool who, last year, grew 220 heirloom tomatoes, too close together. And who saw every one cut down by blight.

Farmgirl, in your humid south I'd plant them at least on 3 ft centers,,and I use hog wire for cages. My cages are about 3' tall and usually the plants grow well above that. I do sometimes prune and it doesn't seem to hurt the plants. I cage all my plants, including the peppers.

With as many plants as you indicate, I would use the weave method.

There are variations of this, but the basics are simple. Set five-foot T-poles or other supports in a straight line, with two-three plants between each pole. In your zone I would space the plants 2 feet apart.

Next take a ball of twine and tie it off at the first pole, about six inches from the ground.

Now weave the cord, going behind the first plant, in front of the second, around the next pole, etc. Then come back, reversing the direction.

As the plants grow, weave a new line of twine every six inches to a foot, depending on the amount of support needed.

This is the fastest, easiest, and least expensive method of supporting a lot of plants, and is used by many commercial growers for that reason.

wow, thank you all so much for the wonderful advice. the tomatoes are in the ground being held up by sticks for now. i think we are going to use your suggestion brook and weave the twine that sure will save us money on fencing. and dh said he will be picking the suckers this yr too.

Brook-thank you for posting about the weave method. I think it would be a great way to grow peas and beans too.

Sue,

That's a bit labor intensive for legumes. Plus the vines will be all over the twine. So if you do go that route be sure and use jute or other natural fiber, and you can then compost all of it at year's end.

For beans and peas I use a string trellis. Start by building a framework (I use PVC pipe, but anything will work), as high as you want and the length of your row. You may have to add supports in the middle, depending on length and framing material. For a 10 foot PVC pipe I use three uprights.

Along the top member tie twine every six inches. At ground level run a twine anchor cord, tying off to the uprights. Then tie each of your vertical cords to the anchor.

For planting, set one seed 4" outboard of each vertical string. Then set one between the strings, along the anchor. The beans/peas will grow up the strings, and, if the vines are longer than the height of your frame they'll top out and grow back down.

During the height of the season you have a wall of beans.

Two things about placement. First, be sure and site it so it won't shade out other plants. And this works best if you orient them north/south, so that all the vines get sunlight.

For a large crop, you can space these three feet apart (just enough room, in other words, for you to walk between them) with no problems.

It's a good idea, too, to plant petunias along the rows, as they repel bean beetles.

Crop the extraneous foliage ruthlessly as they grow, especially the suckers between the stems - or you'll get just leaves and no fruit.

Hmmmmmm. John, suckers produce stems which bear blossoms, set fruit and are altogether lovely appendages. LOL

I am quite anti removing of suckers unless one is staking plants and training to two leader stems or wants to just remove suckers from the bottom foot of caged or trellised plants.

Removing suckers also gives slightly larger fruits but leaving them on gives a greater numner of fruits. my feeling is if one want larger fruits, grow a variety that normally gives larger fruits. (smile)

I feel that the more foliage the greater the surface area for photosynthesis the greater the amount of energy (ATP) made thus better plant growth. In addition, since almost everyone gets plant foliage diseases the more backup foliage the better, the way I see it.

Just an alternative postion re removing suckers.

Farmgirl, I agree with Moss as to distance.

And I also like your idea of constucting individual cages or using hog wire, as someone else suggested, as a kind of trellis system.

If you want to make permanent cages for your plants, and don't have too many, then I'd suggest using concrete reinforcing wire and making the circular cage diameter about 22-24 inches. Such permanent cages are great, but hard to store. Oh, weave a couple of bamboo poles down the sides into the soil to anchor the cages. And wear gloves when cutting and bending the wire.

It's really your choice based on time, money and how many plants you'll be growing. And if you don't like the results this season, you can always change to something else season, and keep changing methods until you find out what works best for you and your growing conditions and the specific varieties you're growing.

Hope the above helps.

Carolyn, who apologizes in advance for typos

Hi farmgirl, I'm with John on the suckers, remove them ruthlessly. The advantages are obvious.

dh is getting good at making round cages he made over a dozen this season so far for our fruit trees. have to keep our male dogs away from the babies lol. but 60+ cages i think would be a little much in the garden dh liked the idea of weave method. i think he is going to take the suckers too. but with that many plants i don't know how sucessful he will be, so we will have a good comparison.

Hi farmgirl, I'm with John on the suckers, remove them ruthlessly. The advantages are obvious.

John,

The advantages are not obvious at all, but I've learned that almost anything I say or suggest you disgree with, so I'm prepared for that. LOL

I'm a big girl, in more ways than one, and can handle it.(smile)

Discussing suckering rationally is about as easy as arguing whether dogs or cats are the perfect pet. LOL

Folks, you don't have to pay attention to what I say at all re total or selective removal of suckers, as I discussed above. All of you can read the many reports and studies posted on the net from University and home gardenng sites and all of you can grow the same variety with and without taking off suckers or removing some selectively, and come to your own conclusions.

While larger fruits may be a result of suckering, the average increase in size is estimated at 1 to 3 oz for a beefsteak, and that isn't much.

And if you look at the total poundage off suckered and unsuckered plants of the same variety they are about the same, for the small increase in fruit size with suckered plants is more than made up for with increased numbers of fruits in non-suckered plants.

Carolyn, who is also strong believer in photosaynthesis re total leaf surface exposure and energy produced, as well as a very strong believer in the havoc delivered to tomato plants by foliage diseases, which are THE most common diseases of tomatoes in the world. And there's nothing wrong with having some extra backup foliage, the way I see it. As I said above, lots of folks just remove the bottom foot or so of foliage from plants that are not sprawled, and that's fine for helping to prevent splashback foliage disease problems

Oh, shucks, Carolyn

Who's the sucker here? All I know is that, when I left suckers on my tomatoes in 2002 (being too lazy to pinch them all out) - I got lush leaf foliage. Which harboured moisture. Which encouraged blight.

Which struck down (count'em) my 220 heirloom tomatoes, almost overnight.

Nay, I lie.

I'd sprayed Bordeaux solution on the plants thrice - and this _did_ arrest the spread of the blight, just long enough for me to get most of the green tomatoes off the plants to ripen indoors for seed.

So massive foliage is nice - if you're in a blight-free area. (Is anyone?)

Nay, Carolyn, I don't disagree with anything you write. I love you.

I have just bought your book (100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden, Carolyn J. Male, available from Amazon), and it's magnificent. I recommend it. I am your most fervent fan. I cannot hold a candle to your experience.

And I truly hope to draw upon it in future months.

(Uh, does anyone hold candles, nowadays? :-))

Brook

Your superb advice on ultra-intensive legume growing is about to face its toughest challenge. I have just today had made 960sq ft of raised beds, exclusively to grow heirloom legumes. (All joking apart, this is totally True. Moreover, I will post a JPG here of it very soon.)

So, as I have about 400 different cultivars of heirloom seeds restless beside me, lusting to grow... I hope your method works!

Yours, trying to be nice to everyone
John

So massive foliage is nice - if you're in a blight-free area. (Is anyone?)

Nope, no one is in a blight free area. LOL Well, a few folks I've known say they've never had foliage disease problems, which encompasses much more than just Early Blight, which is what I think you're referring to unless you're telling me you also have Late Blight (Phytophthora infestans) in which case forget it anyway. LOL


Nay, Carolyn, I don't disagree with anything you write. I love you.

It's not a matter of really disagreeing. I think it's a matter of differences of opinion based on one's own experience or in my case, also listening to the experiences of folks who subscribed to the international OTV newsletter Craig LeHoullier and I used to publish and also posting online re gardening and veggies since 1991 and listening to those experiences over a 12 year period of time.

You love me? Aw John, shucks, my eyelashes are fluttering, my face is ablush and I'm temporarily speechless, aka fingerless in this context. LOL

Carolyn, noting that John also says he's trying to be nice to everyone so who knows what he says to any one individual is what he *really* believes. ROFL

Good grief! John is trying to be nice.

Is nothing in the world sacred?

In my personal experience, I have found removal of suckers provides earlier and larger fruits of my preferred varieties, and fruits of improved flavor. The plants tend to produce suckers just after the first flowers open and fruits begin to form, so it is at this time the nutrients are directed straight to the the developing fruit, not into forming side shoots. Some discretion may be advised, depending on the variety in question, whether determinate or indeterminate, and whether there is sufficient foliage on the plant to avoid sunscald of the fruits.

It has been my experience that the suckers always produce flowers which then produce fruit (if the conditions are right for fruit set). The more fruit you have, the smaller the tomatoes will be, but this is pretty much common knowledge for most fruiting plants, hence thinning of most fruit trees is common practice. So, I agree with Carolyn that if you want larger fruit, plant a variety that is genetically programmed to provide larger fruit.

My big question is whether more foliage is good/not good for fruit production for certain plants and how this relates to tomatoes. There are a lot of plants that will not produce reproductive structures if given sufficient nitrogen to encourage leaf growth, so it is advisable not to try to generate excessive leaf growth. That said, you aren't going to get any fruit production without leaves. So, where is the middle ground and is the middle ground regarding leaf growth appropriate for tomatoes?

To sucker, or not to sucker....lol

As with most things in life, there's more than one way to skin a cat,,or a tomato vine. I've tried both, and I usually plant around 150 plants a year. Over the years I've tried pruning and not pruning and have found that both work. However, the suckers on my plants do usually produce fruit. As with any annual plant, their main purpose is to produce seed (fruit) and the more I prune my plants the more they grow, and grow, and grow. One year I took a corn knife to them just so I could get down the rows to pick,,and the plants were *very* aggressive that year. So I'm prone to think that pruning promotes growth. I have blight in all my gardens so it doesn't matter where I plant, they're going to get blight sooner or later,,and it's normally sooner. Since blight is a soil borne disease I try to keep everything but the main stem away from the soil. By the time they start producing fruit they look almost like trees with a main trunk. I think too, that different climates produce different effects. It's finding what works for you that is important. And what works one year, may not work the next. No matter how you grow the plant,,,when you eat that first BLT...it's all worth the effort.

MossRose

can someone post a picture of their weave method and cages of reinforcement wire please

A less labor intensive alternative to the weave method:

Set it up the same but instead of weaving back and forth, run the twine down one side of the plants, then wrap it around the next post and so on till you get to the end of the row, then turn around and come back along the other side. I suppose this could be called the "sandwich" method. I've used that method and can't image trying to do the weave once the plants grow above a foot or two.