User avatar
dennybob
Newly Registered
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:44 am
Location: West Central PA

Best way to stake tomatoes?

This is my first post on the board so, maybe this has been discussed before. If so, please forgive me. I did search but could not come up with much of anything.

I used to just stake my tomatoes with a tomato stake for each plant and that worked okay for 40-50 plants but, now we are planting hundreds of plants for the CSA and staking and tying each plant seems a bit overwhelming. This is our third year as a CSA and the last couple years we didn't use any staking. That was less than satisfactory for us. What methods do you folks use for your tomatoes?

I am thinking about using 1inch by 1 inch by 8 foot long stakes every 5 or 10 foot and running a heavy line or cable through a hole near the top and then running tomato strings down from that to each plant. Similar to the way I have seen on the Johnny's select seed video. Has anyone used this method? Does it work? Is there a better option? Thanks.

cynthia_h
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7500
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 7:02 pm
Location: El Cerrito, CA

Please see the Sticky on [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25230]Tomato Support Methods[/url]. There are six pages of discussion regarding several methods, *some* of which do not require individual staking, etc.

Hope your CSA does very well this year! :D

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

User avatar
dennybob
Newly Registered
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:44 am
Location: West Central PA

Thanks for the help. A few in that thread mentioned the method I want to try but, it didn't sound like any were actually using it. I guess I'll find out the hard way. What else is new, I guess.

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

I remember that particular method was described as typically used by commercial tomato growers in the sticky thread. Personally, I prefer not to prune my tomatoes to single stem. It sounds like a lot of work. :wink:

I like the Florida weave method for a long straight row of tomatoes. My idea of a long straight row is about 12 feet but this method is adaptable to any length row. 8)



Return to “TOMATO FORUM”