Thursday, June 24, 2010

Tomato's, Trellis's and Stakes OH MY....

Tomato's........Their are so many varieties these days and so many differnt methods on how to grow them.
I decided I was going to try many differnt methods of trellising, staking, pots and without some sort of device. Im curious to see which methods will work best in my garden. Most of my trellis's and stakes are from recycled materials.


This is the first time I have grown Tomato's in tires. I tried to spruce up the area so it wouldnt look to junk yard like. I put a couple poles in with the Pink Brandywines and left the sweet 100's cherry Tomatos to do what they want. We will see how well the tires do!


There is a small flower bed under a window of our family room. Im not so talented when it comes to growing flowers, so I planted more veggies here. This is where I put the Roma Tomato's with no sort of trellis or stake. We are just going to let them do what they want.


This Black Cherry Tomato went in a terra cotta pot. I also added a stake in this pot and it sits up against the fence in this part of my garden.


Mr. Stripey grows here in a Tomato cage! Although you can no longer see the cage. I may add some garden stakes around the cage. Mr. Stripey is now taller then me and im afraid he may fall over!


Mixed in with the beans is either a Yellow Pear Tomato or a Black Cherry. I dont remeber what I put here. It will have to be a suprise! Suprises can be good! I have a small Tomato cage around this plant and the cage is tied to the fence for extra support.


Along the shed in this terra cotta pot is a green zebra with a cage. This one is planted near the Black Eyed peas and the beans sturdy trellis. I might tie some of the Tomato branches to the trellis and see how that works out.


Here I have some volunteers! Not sure what they may be. I dont even remeber having Tomatos near my fig tree last year. This area is pretty empty, so im just going to let them cut loose and do what they do and grow.


The Pinapple Heirloom Tomato is doing nicely where the peas used to live. I staked around the plant and wrapped some old chicken wire around the metal stakes. This way my hands will still fit in the holes.


I have 3 lovely Black Krim Tomatos that are doing well in this area. I have 6 wire fencing stakes throughout the plants. The plants are not tied to the posts. I have yet to decide if I want to add fencing or come up with another idea to keep them growing up.


In this old box which actually used to be part of a bar, Im growing Yellow Pear Tomatos. We bent some metal fencing into a half circle and stapled it all around the box. My though is since Yellow Pear bushes, this should support it pretty well. If it ends up leaning I can tie it to the fence behind it.



We also built these structures from old fencing for tomatos. We are growing Big Boy and Mortgage Lifter in this area. I forgot to take a more recent photo. They are filling out nicely.

How are you growing your tomato's? What are some of your ideas and what works well for you?

Happy Tomato growing!!!


2 comments:

  1. One man's trash is another man's treasure! You make do with what you have! In some cases I have those old wire cages -- which we mostly use for pepper plants now. And then we have the re-usable PVC for the tomato cages. This will be my third year for PVC cages. Other than one cracked PVC elbow -- I've been able to use them year after year after year!

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  2. Jenn,

    I'm also experimenting this year, having found the cages didn't do the best job of containing my tomatoes in our tiny space. I re-used some of them on what I thought might be my smaller plants...not that you can really tell early on and when you think you know, mother nature teaches us we don't.

    We're trying new stakes this year...3 poles with rungs in between that can be adjusted. So far, so good. I'll have to let you know our opinion later in the season. I've still got a few that need to be staked/caged but will probably go old school with wooden stakes and fabric strips...what I wouldn't do for some bamboo!!!

    OOOOH our green zebras are taking off. I'd be happy to save some seed for you if you like. Your tomatoes look AWESOME! As always, your green thumb rules.

    All my best & Happy Gardening!!
    Heather

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