Suzanne D. wrote:
This year I plan to have over 250 tomato plants. I have made lots of
raised beds, 3X6 feet. Last year I put groups of two plants every 2
feet (12 to a bed) so that two plants could share a single cage and a
single drip emitter. This year I think I will stagger them in a
zig-zag every foot, to get more in each bed, two rows to a bed,
watered down the middle of each row with one of those 1/4" tubes with
holes punched every 6 inches.
Does anyone have any creative and not-too-difficult idea for how to
support these plants? Would some structure down the center of the
bed work, or should I put something on the outsides of the beds, or
use individual cages spaced every few feet and let the tomatoes just
find them? I obviously don't want to purchase 250 cages, but I also
don't want these plants trailing all over the ground. (Last year my
tomatoes got up to about ten feet.)

Any interesting suggestions will be appreciated.
--S.

The way that I have seen it done on a commercial scale is a tensioned
trellis. You have heavy braced posts at each end of each row and 4 or 5 (or
more) tensioned gal wires between them. In between thin stakes (like
traditional tomato stakes) are interpolated about every 1 1/2 m (5ft) and
wired to the horizontal wires to prevent sagging. The tomatoes are tied to
the horizontal wires with cheap string that will last a season. Once
erected the effort of tying them up is much less than with individual stakes
as the ties don't slip, you just work along a row with a bunch of cut string
in your belt tying up to the next wire as they get tall enough. This uses
less material than cages or a stake for every plant and it won't blow over.
You run the rows north-south (or south-north if you are in the other
hemisphere).

David