Staking Tomatoes

This year we decided to try a new way of keeping out tomatoes off the ground.

In the past couple years we have used cages however it seems that the cages are never really able to hold the weight of the tomatoes and they plant is at the height of its production. Last year I bought additional stakes to put in the group to hold up the cages and it didn’t work too well. I’ve also used tall bamboo stakes that I actually staked the plant too along with the cage and that didn’t seem to work either. 

So this year we decided to use a trellis type staking to help really support the heavy tomato plants up. We decided to use 2x3’s that we sunk at least 2 feet in the ground on each on the opposite sides of the row going length wise and then used twine to run from one side of the trellis to the other.

Here’s how we did it.

We dug the holes for the stakes

Put the post in the hole.

Filled in the hole ads made sure the dirt was packed down in order to keep the stake from moving too much

Here's what it looks like when you run the twine

Then we  wove the twine in between the tomato cages

Here's a better close up of the tomato cages

Here are the cherry tomatoes

The cherry and grape tomato plants where tied to the twine

Here is the close up of the cherry tomatoes

Right now it’s working just great but we’re not at the height of the plants really producing yet so I’m hoping they hold up. I know the stakes will but I’m hoping the twine that’s woven into cages holds up as well. I’ll let you know at the end of the season if it does or doesn’t.