Managing Your Tomatoes
22 April, 2020
The challenge with successful tomato plants is you have to support them as they grow, or you will get one tangled mess of vines (and honestly you won’t be able to find the tomatoes that you have successfully sprouted due to the jungle farm that is your tomato plants. Trust me……… been there done that!).
If its your first time growing tomatoes, I would start them in pots, and stick with a generic round tomato cage. That was my original plan for the farm, but when I planted 12 tomato plants, I realized quickly as they started growing that with just tomato cages, the tomatoes would become a jungle mess. I settled on experimenting with a vertical growing method, that was originally inspired when I did the “Behind the Seeds Tour” at Walt Disney World Epcot (I highly suggest this if you are planning a trip. Other than the tequila bar in mexico, it is one of my favorite places that EPCOT has to offer).
I went with a vertical growing method, because I wanted to try my hand at some organic gardening, so I needed to find a way to get the tomatoes to grow straight up, so we could plant some low ground plants around them (we went with radishes, onions, and carrots). Ideally, these low ground plants will take up the extra nutrients in the ground, and prevent weeds from growing. To try to keep the bad bugs out, I have also planted fragrant herbs like basil, thyme, rosemary, and lavender.
I ended up purchasing some hand made rope wound hooks on e-bay. You could make these yourself based on your setup, but I was feeling lazy at the time, and it was 13 dollars for 10 of them, so I thought it was worth it to save some time. For the rack going across the boxes, we added two wooden support posts across the top of the net posts, and then i found some old stiff wire in the shed, that I strung across the two support posts.
To secure the tomatoes, you wrap the non hook side of the rope around the base of the plant about 5 times. Then wrap around the stalk of the tomato plat every inch or so. Once I got to the top of the plant, I unwound the rope until the hook was able to hook onto the cable strung across the support beams (this puts the sting about 6 feet tall). Through most of my research, most vertical growers string their tomatoes anywhere from 8-10 ft, but for simplicity to our box design, I decided to go with 6 ft. My plan is to trim them as they get to the top of the string (Yes I am assuming I will get them ALL to the top of the string….. We shall see!)
