Quote:
Originally Posted by geotek
Thanks for the prompt and helpful response. Since the Indigo Cherry Drop is also a hybrid, but doesn't seem as spindly as the Sungold, I think I will limit it to 6 or so stems as a compromise.
All of the poles will be tied to a center pole that runs horizontally from two 8' tall boards tied to stakes driven in the ground. Imagine the tomato poles being rafters in a roof. (I have a very large supply of bamboo poles of up to 40' in length and 2" in diameter so I can keep adding poles and cross braces as necessary. I'll build a pergola for the tomatoes if I have to.)
Stephen
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You will have to for sungold if it is a healthy plant.
The very thing you are talking about doing is why I went to large cages and then to trellises and finally to lean and lower single stem plants supported by twine and held by clips. Each was a step up from adding stakes as the plant grew. Each has its advantages and each has its faults. The faults that I find with most methods of support are mainly a problem down here where our humidity, heat, disease and pest pressure require more open plants for good health.
Adding stakes as the plant grows requires a lot of tying and eventually the indeterminate plants outgrow the whole thing. It also has a tendency to get too dense in places and eventually that leads to more diseases and pests. It can also become a tangled mess and it is hard to remove all those stakes at the end of the season.
The large tomato cages are probably the easiest to work with for at least the first half of the season but they pose their own difficulties. It can be hard to reach in and work with the plant through the cage and sometimes stems fall down unless tied or threaded through the wire. If pruning is not kept up they can also become too dense by becoming packed with foliage which will lead to diseases and pests down here in our climate. Later in the season many of the plants will outgrow the cages even if they are six feet tall and fairly big around. Another big problem is storage once the season is over.
A large tall trellis is a good method especially if you don't plant too many plants. It allows you to limit the stems as each plant develops so you can tailor your pruning to the type of plant and its growth pattern. Like all the other methods eventually the plants become a bit tangled and mixed and the trellis can begin to look like a row of shrubbery. Some of the indeterminate varieties will eventually even outgrow the trellis down here where the seasons are so long.
The biggest problem with the drop line method I am using now is that for it to work well you really need to limit your plants to just one stem. Some of the more sparsely vegetated varieties will not do well with this method but with Missouri pruning the worst of that shortcoming can be overcome. Another problem is the plants need a tall horizontal support bar in order to keep the fruit off the ground as the single stem grows. I only use a 7 ft tall support bar and so have to have a very thick layer of mulch to lay my plants down on so the fruit that touches won't rot or get eaten by insects so much. Another trick I use is to set my original line on a diagonal so the plant has far more room to grow before lowering becomes necessary and the plants are already trained in the right direction. It is a fairly hard method to start each season as the young plants require disciplined pruning and then as they grow it must be maintained. I find that once everything is set up the system is less labor intensive because it doesn't require tying, the plants are easier to spray and just keeping up with one growth tip makes it rather simple. One big selling point for this method for me is it is much easier to do with my arthritic hands and requires little physical labor for the number of plants. It also allows me to grow a greater variety of plants in a much smaller space.
If I only had room for a half dozen or so plants I would probably opt for the large tomato cages built from concrete reinforcing wire or a tall trellis. I now have over fifty plants and will be adding more up until late July or early August. Of course once the first batch starts fading in production I may remove them as new plantings start producing but by early June I will have between 70 and 100 tomato plants growing at that time if things go as planed. Of course rarely do things go as planned in the garden.
Bill