Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post

zipcode · July 12, 2011

That NAR cluster which has 7 tomatoes on it almost broke today. I suspended it now, but the branch is badly constricted and partly ripped. I sure hope it will recover, they looked like could get big, towards 12 oz.

Also, I thought I'd share the staking system, which was a big problem to come up with. How do you properly support tall and heavy tomato plants in containers which have a much fluffier mix than soil, and not as deep. Also, how do you space the 2 tomatoes in the same container? They would be very close to each other.

Solution is as follows: buy plastic pots with edges. You can see how they look in the last pictures. Then buy some bamboo stakes of about 2 m or more, 1-1.5 cm thick and preferably strong. There's nothing better than bamboo as far as non metal goes. Metal ones were very expensive, these were cheap.

Make a hole near each plant in the container edge (without getting too close to the edge of the ... edge or else it will break when plant gets heavy). Drive the bamboo stake through it all the way down. Do the same to the other plant. Then wrap the best sticky tape you can find all around the stakes and the container (wrap multiple times, till all the container is covered). You can see a bit how it looks in last pic.

Now you have a well fixed stake which will lead slightly towards the outside of the container, which is good, as it will lead the plants from each other. Now when plant gets heavy with fruit, the stakes will bend towards outside maybe a bit much. When that happens, connect them with a hard thread in the middle of the 2 stakes in same container, and bring them a bit closer together. What I noticed is that when plants are young, the leaves are very spread, and they droop quite a bit when plant is older, so they don't need to be so far spread, instead, it's better for the stake to be more vertical, so the weight of the plant doesn't break the stake, all the weight will be supported by the ties you made (preferably make one tie under each flower cluster).

Well, there you have it. I hope you understood what I meant to write, and hopefully someone will find it useful.

July 12, 2011	#11
zipcode Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Romania/Germany , z 4-6 Posts: 1,582	That NAR cluster which has 7 tomatoes on it almost broke today. I suspended it now, but the branch is badly constricted and partly ripped. I sure hope it will recover, they looked like could get big, towards 12 oz. Also, I thought I'd share the staking system, which was a big problem to come up with. How do you properly support tall and heavy tomato plants in containers which have a much fluffier mix than soil, and not as deep. Also, how do you space the 2 tomatoes in the same container? They would be very close to each other. Solution is as follows: buy plastic pots with edges. You can see how they look in the last pictures. Then buy some bamboo stakes of about 2 m or more, 1-1.5 cm thick and preferably strong. There's nothing better than bamboo as far as non metal goes. Metal ones were very expensive, these were cheap. Make a hole near each plant in the container edge (without getting too close to the edge of the ... edge or else it will break when plant gets heavy). Drive the bamboo stake through it all the way down. Do the same to the other plant. Then wrap the best sticky tape you can find all around the stakes and the container (wrap multiple times, till all the container is covered). You can see a bit how it looks in last pic. Now you have a well fixed stake which will lead slightly towards the outside of the container, which is good, as it will lead the plants from each other. Now when plant gets heavy with fruit, the stakes will bend towards outside maybe a bit much. When that happens, connect them with a hard thread in the middle of the 2 stakes in same container, and bring them a bit closer together. What I noticed is that when plants are young, the leaves are very spread, and they droop quite a bit when plant is older, so they don't need to be so far spread, instead, it's better for the stake to be more vertical, so the weight of the plant doesn't break the stake, all the weight will be supported by the ties you made (preferably make one tie under each flower cluster). Well, there you have it. I hope you understood what I meant to write, and hopefully someone will find it useful.