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Stake or no stake tomato
Phaedrine Stonebridge wrote:
In article , EV wrote: Phaedrine Stonebridge wrote: In article , (Frank Miles) wrote: In article , hawk wrote: Every time I have staked tomatoes, the weight of the tomatoes causes the plant to slide down the stake and the result has been the same as no stake. Regards, hawk On 8 Sep 2003 08:11:50 -0700, James wrote: I grew a few tomatoes without stake or cage this year. Seems like it's a better method. You get a lot more tomatoes because the stems root themselves on the ground and multi-stems also increases the number of fruits. So is the one stem on a stake method just a waste of time? I've _always_ staked, and never had this sliding problem. Maybe it's my choice of stake -- I rip 2x4's into 2x2's, and there's plenty of roughness. Just tie around the stake before tying the plants. Only problem is when plants get 6' tall and up, and loaded with tomatoes, they can really stress the stake. Sometimes I've had to guy the stakes to relieve the stress. Using other materials could cause sliding difficulties if they have slick exteriors. We use the same kind of stakes but clip the tomatoes at the top when they become a problem. I like cages (the heavy gauge, farm-grade, stackable ones, not those dippy things that bend) for certain tomato varieties, especially ones that have a tendency to produce huge tomatoes. I like some of my tomatoes not so huge lol and caging them accomplishes that. But we stake three times as many as we cage. I like the sound of the farm-grade cages. Where would a person find such a thing? IIRC, I think we ordered ours from Lee Valley. Some were purchased locally but the sturdy ones are really hard to find. I've never seen them around here. They sound great. I've done caging and staking, and now do a combo-variation. I put cages over the plants in the spring. They grow in a single row in a slightly curved bed. When they start to spill over their cages, I build a bamboo/plastic tie seal uber-cage around the whole row. As the season grows on I can add more horizonals and diagonals as needed. Very sturdy and lightweight. I sometimes build them for my English Roses as well. It's hard to describe, but I have pictures of the tomatoes in their uber-cage throughout the season on my Edibles page: http://www3.sympatico.ca/great/tempee.html For the past few years I've visually documented my garden. Each month I add pictures of some of the highlights. There are links to the flower garden from the Edibles page if anyone is interested. Your pictures and website are fantastic! Thank you very much, Phaedrine. I'm glad you enjoyed them. :-) I don't understand the uber-cage, unfortunately, but maybe my DH will when he sees it. Sorry. I was hoping a picture would be worth a thousand words. :-) Basically, the uber-cage consists of 8 ft. bamboo poles that I sink into the ground as deep as I can, at about 2.5 ft. intervals. Then I 'weave' 6 ft poles horizontally through the uprights and tie seal them to the uprights just above notches in the bamboo so they don't slip. You can see the first horizontals in June Ediblbes section. I also add bamboo 3-4 ft. lengths that go across the enclosure, again tie sealing above notches wherever possible. These seperate the various plants in the uber-cage. Then I add horitzontals as the plants grow, to keep them growing up. I sometimes add sticks on a diagonal to keep major tomato branches seperate and supported. You can see the second row of horizontals up in the August tomato bed shot. It looks flimsy, but it actually holds up really well. I had no tomato damage during 70 mph gusts we had during the storms on the weekend. The trees lost branches but, luckily, the cage held. The season is about a month behind here in southern Ontario. Looks like I'll be making alot of green tomato relish. Ether |
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