New tomato baskets

Once more in my life I am about to spend more time and money building something to use than I could buy it for.

I have always staked my tomatoes because the cheapo ones sold are lame and I quit using them years ago.

I am wondering how big should I make them?

I grow mostly the indeterminant type.I thought five feet high by 16 inches but then I read some place in one of the post someone used them three feet in diameter.

My question is how big are your favorites.

Thanks in advance to all who answer.Ernie

I make mine from remesh (concrete reinforcing mesh), which is both inexpensive (about $50/150 foot roll) and perfectly suitable.

The mesh is 5' wide, which can be a bit short for some varieties. But two towers can be stacked to provide more than enough height.

I make them various diameters, with 18" the smallest, and 24" the largest. Staggering their diameters makes storage easier, as you can slide one into another, like a telescope.

Brook thank you.

I am limited in hight to about seven feet but can streach out the diameter a bit.

I will probably do some as you suggest for the un pruned test.

I want to do a couple by winding round bar into a coil about two feet and streching it out like a spring attaching four to six vertical pcs horozontialy to form the pockets and help anchor it to the ground.

I am going to prune these to a single leader and run the plant up the spring so to speak.

Some one told me indies didn;t produce well if they did not continue to rise do you think that is true.

Most info I find is non commital or I don't know where to look.

Well gotta go work to pay for the play. Thanks again Ernie sorry no time to edit work is 50 miles away.

"I am limited in hight to about seven feet but can streach out the diameter a bit."

I don't bother linking two together for more height. I just let the branches hang downwards. Only time I worry about it is if they actually trail on the ground, in which case I tie them up. But it hardly ever happens.

>Some one told me indies didn;t produce well if they did not continue to rise do you think that is true<

Absolutely not. Left to their own devices, they merely sprawl all over the ground, and don't climb at all. Some gardeners actually prefer growing them that way.

Absolutely not. Left to their own devices, they merely sprawl all over the ground, and don't climb at all. Some gardeners actually prefer growing them that way.

Hurrah!!!

I'm one of those gardeners who, if I have a choice, grow all my tomatoes by sprawling.

Take yourself to the highlands of Peru and Chile, the origin of all nine species of tomatoes, and look for the cages and stakes that so many gardeners use, some for good reason b/c they have limited space, others b/c they read that's the thing to do.

Tomatoes in their natural habitat sprawl and that's the way I grow them/

When I've lived in places where I couldn't do that I'd make cages out of concrete reinforcing wire as Brook described.
Be sure to wear strong gloves; I have the scars from not doing so. Sigh.

Diamter about two feet and who cares about how high they go, just let them flop over.

Some folks describe varieties in terms of height and I don't know why they do that, unless they think it['s neat say "mine" grew 8 ft high.

So??????? LOL

If someone asks me how high almost any variety grows I can't tell them. Just not in my data banks in the tomato section of my brain. (smile)

Carolyn

Carolyn and brook if left to sprawl how do you keep down the rot I don't spray. Ernie

Mulch helps, Ernie. Straw, leaves, etc work great. (and don't let folks tell you straw begats weeds...but don't get me started on that topic!)

I do all of the above-mentioned methods.

I stake some, cage some, let some sprawl PLUS will even stake the sprawling ones...sounds contradictory, eh? Lemme 'splain...

Sometimes the sprawling 'mater plants (usually indies) will grow and grow and grow. At some point in time I need entertainment so will notice that a good growth/vine/leader is looking healthy so I'll take a stake and place it next to it, then encourage it to grow upwards. This "leader" can continue on up the stake on its own OR I can (and often do) throw dirt/soil around it's Stem and it'll send out roots so it becomes a separate plant.

The above is best if done mid-season.

Ernie,

I don't let them sprawl, so can't answer. Fear of rot is one reason I don't grow them that way. The other is the jungle that results; vines every which way, crossing, and crissing, and tieing themselves in knots, and self-rooting. Trying to wade through the mess to find ripe tomatoes without tromping the vines. Etc. Not for me.

But each to his own. I have many friends who subscribe to the let-'em-sprawl school, even as Carolyn does. If it works for them, so be it.

"Some folks describe varieties in terms of height and I don't know why they do that, unless they think it['s neat say "mine" grew 8 ft high."

Carolyn, is it just me, or does it seem like more and more people are reporting in those terms? Is there some kind of contest going on that you and I weren't told about? :>)

Personally, I can't think of a more meaningless garden statistic than how tall my 'maters grew.

Height is probably not a noteworthy statistic to most gardeners, but we do include it in the Plants Database tomato entries. It's there for those who have space limitations and need to select varieties based on height as well as other criteria :)

(Ironically, one of the most common tomato-specific questions we get at the helpdesk is someone questioning/challenging whether a tomato can attain 8 to 10 feet in height. Having wrestled with many frost-killed vines in the fall, I assure them it is entirely possible for tomatoes to grow that tall, and taller!)

That really confuses me, Terry.

Usually if people are limited in space it's horizontally. That is, there soil surface is limited. But if they have enough exposure for tomatoes to get enough sunlight, then the sky is, literally, the limit.

Or am I missing something?

Think balcony/patio gardens or those using containers for other reasons. They usually don't want something that's going to get too tall and top-heavy.

To be honest, most of the time they're PROBABLY looking for a determinate variety. But since det/indet sometimes confuses people, giving the approximate height at maturity can help them figure out whether the variety is a good fit for their needs.

It is Hay not straw that carries weed seeds

TITLE.....This is my preference...not saying yours is wrong......

This year I did hardly any pruning on my 'maters...Just enough to keep foliage above ground......They grew in 3 ft wide cages.. 2 ft apart....surrounded later by 8 ft stakes intertwined with jute.

.......... I had so much bio mass that there was no problem with sun scald or cracking ....and late summer we had a early light frost and the natural canopy protected most lf them.

...Yield this year was excellent......and don't forget that any fruit not set by august will not mature to edible size
.
.....I used to chop the tops in mid august to give more strength to finishing the already set fruit...there is a word for this meaning that you are saving the hormones to do the job at hand....OK experts,where are ya?

.....So from now on this will be my method....proving ya can teach a old dog new tricks =)

shirley >^,,^< SB

edited to correct spellingggg





This message was edited Oct 15, 2003 5:40 PM

Carolyn, is it just me, or does it seem like more and more people are reporting in those terms? Is there some kind of contest going on that you and I weren't told about? :>)

Beats me Brook, but yes, I do see more and more folks bragging about how high their plants grow.

Quite frankly, I could care. LOL

Ernie,

I'm the one who prefers to grow plants by sprawling and unlike Brook, I don't "fear rot". LOL

Obviously I don't recommend it for someone who has limited space, but I do think one should not rule out any method of growing until they try it.

Why do I prefer sprawled plants?

Part of it is my background being raised on a farm where that's how the plants were grown. And it's that way in almost all parts of the NE. So that's my background and tradition.

Part of it is b/c when I was growing hundreds of plants myelf every year there's no way I was going to make cages for that many plants and if I had then Charlie wouldn't have been able to cultivate and fertilize all my tomatoes for me.

Part of it is b/c when I compare the same variety grown caged versus the same grown by sprawling in the same season, I get more and larger fruits from the sprawled plants. Whether it's b/c more total leaf area is exposed for photosynthesis which leads to greater energy production or whatever, I don't know, but that's what happens.

This year I was growing many "new" varieties and I wanted each of them close to me to watch over so they were caged at Steves garden. Then several more plants of each of those varieties were grown by sprawling at my 45 min away garden. There isn't that much significant difference in the one hour south in terms of temps or weather. And this is the third year I've done something like that.

Finally, ROT. Yes, I lose some fruits to rot for those that make contact with the soil, but the fraction of fruits that do that is small. Picture the tangled up mess of vines Brook talked about. Now picture fruits nestled amongst those vines, b/c that's where most of them are, up off the ground resting atop the mess of vines.

Is it hard to pick them? I don't think so but then I'm used to it. Do slugs get at them. Yes they can and will and do . Anything else? Not where I grow at Steves or Charlies and never were where I used to grow them prior to 1999, but are a problem up where I live now re the few plants i have in the raised bed.

But I have a lovely brook that runs less than 25 ft from the raised bed and cascades ofer a 30 ft waterfall by the deck, and I'll take the brook over the few slugs that like the local environment.(smile)

You can go to Google and see all sorts of comparisons of yield based on method of growing and pruning and then come away shaking your head b/c the results vary so darn much.

What matters in the end is how *specific* tomato varieties do in YOUR garden, using YOUR growing methods and YOUR fertilizers and experiencing YOUR weather patterns.

So, that's all for now folks.

Carolyn, listenng to the 50 mph winds whistle around the corner, pushing the deck furniture to one end and ripping the multicolored leaves from the former glorious trees in full NE foliage after they were also pelted this morning with torrential rain. Looks like the Leaf Peeper buses won't be parked along the roads this weekend. Sigh.

LOL...>>>>Leaf peepers.......we get them here too !

"To sprawl or not to sprawl"? The answer (for me) lies in the molluscs...

The first year I grew a lot of heirloom tomatoes I let my Salt Spring Sunrise sprawl. The snails harvested every one, before I could take a bite.

Next year, I staked them - and I actually got to eat them.

This year, I grew my tomatoes in raised beds infested with marestail (Equisetum arvense). This is the UK's worst weed - a dense mat of short fern-like stems. Pulling them out is useless; the smallest root fragment throws up more stems.

So I let the determinate tomatoes grow through, and sprawl over, the marestail and not one was had by snails. (Though the molluscs got everything in the naked soil patches.)

Moral: grow marestail and it will yield a delightful tomato-protecting, mollusc-repelling straw-like bed! Next year, I plan to try this plan with strawberries. (Of course, it may be a tactic of desperation...)

John,

We call it horsetail here, not preferring to attach a gender to it, and now I'm wondering if we have the English to thank for spreading it here as well.

If I see it I run. LOL Same with Lythrum. I have a four acre marsh and if I see one Lythrum has been transferred here by the birdies I'm going to hire a high school kid to wade out there and uproot it ASAP.

My best use for horsetail was what I learned in Girl Scouts 55 years ago, and that's as a plant to use for scouring pots and pans since the stems have silica in them.

Yes, slugs can be a problem. Do we have the British to thank for them as well? LOL

Carolyn

Carolyn, very true. Perforce, I have had to find uses for horsetail. It's a great rabbit food (their incisors cope well with the silica). It can be dried and infused into an anti-fungal spray against botrytis or a biodynamic foliar feed, etc (many a little packet have I sold). The fronds can be laid at the base of hanging baskets and interlaced with tumbler tomatoes, and it makes a nutritious hair conditioner.

It's also very pretty, grown indoors as a parlour palm...

But I just wish I didn't have it!

This message was edited Oct 19, 2003 1:44 PM

Nobody mentioned putting it on the compost pile.

Ouch! If you refer to my friend marestail (Equisetum - La belle dame sans merci) - 'tis no use consigning her to the compost pile. The merest uncomposted root fragment - or spore - will grow into a full marestail frond next year.

And there goes the garden....

Believe me, I know.