Tomato Supports (Different)

[AlittleSalt]

I have read a lot of threads about tomato supports and we/us wanting something different, easy, and also cheap. I was going to put up a really nice looking support system for the tomato plants, but I've already had to remove one plant due to RKN in these beds about a week ago.

Instead, I used materials we have a lot of just sitting around needing to be used. We have a lot of metal T posts and rolls of electrical wiring that we cleaned out of a barn back in 1981 - there's no telling how old that wire is. So total cost of building the support system $0.00 I like free.

It's not pretty, but it will do its job.

[jillian]

Looks good to me! I love taking whatever I already have and putting it to good use. Cheap is good. Nice work Salt!

[ContainerTed]

If it works and it's free (or $0 dollars cost), how could it get any better?? Well done, Robert.

I gather any donated/rescued wood pieces that can be ripped into a stake and I have the same cost. I ripped a piece of 1"X4" into three stakes for my dwarfs. Some of them don't need much help.

[Worth1]

Looks good to me.
Worth

[imp]

Looks tidy and effective, Salt, and you got to use what you already had - good job!

[Gardeneer]

Very nice, Robert. I have also used what was there, at no cost.I couldn't afford to spend money on over 50 cages, even if I wanted to make them myself.

So are going to do stringing ?

[Father'sDaughter]

Looks great!

[AlittleSalt]

Thank you everyone.

Tomorrow, I'm planning on using basically the same system out in the main garden. It's only in one quarter of the garden - the other three quarters is infected much worse with RKN. I'm not going to build supports for those plants. They are probably already as big as they're going to get. I will share some pictures if I am able to get out there and get them built.

[AlittleSalt]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

Very nice, Robert. I have also used what was there, at no cost.I couldn't afford to spend money on over 50 cages, even if I wanted to make them myself.

So are going to do stringing ?

Yes, I have two rows of tomatoes that I am using a stringing method. I'll show pictures of that as well.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

Yes, I have two rows of tomatoes that I am using a stringing method. I'll show pictures of that as well.

Try keeping a few of them to just one stem and I think you will like how easy it is and how surprisingly productive just one stem can be.

Bill

[MadCow333]

Nice work.

[brownrexx]

That is how I support my peppers only I use shorter stakes. It works really well.

One thing that I might mention is that I am going to use a different type of "string" this year. Usually I use that cheap jute garden twine and late in the summer when the peppers get heavy and the string has been subjected to lots of weather it starts to stretch and break apart so this year I am going to use paracord.

Paracord is a name given to parachute cord and I bought a big 500ft (I think) roll of it at Tractor Supply during the winter on sale for $3.50 but I think that it is usually $7 a roll. It will be a lot more durable that the jute and doesn't look like it will break so easily.

It was frustrating to string all of that jute and then have it break in the middle of a summer storm and also have a few of the pepper branches break off when they lost their support suddenly.

[matereater]

Great job salt !

[Cole_Robbie]

Great score on the t-posts. Those things are like $8 each now.

[sdambr]

Looking good!