Now is the time to give your tomato plants some support, before the plants are heavy with fruit and sprawling out of control.
My tomato plants are getting their first blossoms now. Those of you who were organized (or dedicated!) enough to start plants for super-early tomatoes are probably seeing fruit already. When I first started gardening, containing the tomatoes was one of those tasks that always seemed to get away from me. I'd put it off, and put it off some more, until I found myself in July with humongous tangles of tomato plants. Then, I'd search the house and garage for any spare stakes, poles, sticks, and twine I could find to try straightening the whole mess out. It's safe to say that I've gotten a little more organized since then!
The pre-made tomato cages they sell just about everywhere this time of year is just fine for smaller tomato plants that don't produce enormous fruit. But if you're growing something larger, like a Brandywine (yum!) those supports can be a little wimpy for the task. There are two ways to go then: staking or caging.
Stakes are the way to go if you're diligent about pinching out the new stems that form along the length of the tomato vine. If you do that, the plant will be easier to control, and tying it to a sturdy stake will work just fine. The good thing about stakes is that it's easy to see, at a glance, whether you have ripe fruit or not.
If you're not as diligent about pinching the plants back, sturdy cages are the way to go. I use concrete reinforcing wire, which you typically find in large rolls in the concrete/cement section of home improvement stores. The cages you make from this inexpensive, durable material are around four feet tall, and any diameter you like. You just use wire cutters to cut the mesh to whatever size cage you want, wire the ends together, and install around whichever plant you want contained. Easy!
There is another method. It's called the "let it sprawl" method. If you have plenty of room, don't care about keeping the garden super neat-looking, or are just too busy to stake and train vines, just let the vines do whatever they want to do. It works.
So, stake, cage, or sprawl? Which do you use? Take the poll at the bottom of the page, or leave a comment in the discussion area. Have any of you used those spiral tomato stakes? Or maybe you have a method all your own. I'd love to hear about it!
