Its it ok if we see you do 2 different things bolth need 5 pots. First have 2 seeds in each pot but have a stone fruit of your choice. Citrus then some kind of tropical then berry then vine. Second is try mixing vegetables seeds around tomatoes with vines or beans with melon whatever no care in what goes in pots. For me bolth work well.
I put a wooden stick (2x2cm) in the pot/ground, then tie the tomato plant to it as it grows up. That's pretty much universal from around Europe from the places I've visited. If the tomato grows really big and heavy, you just use a bigger stick and stronger twine. Doesn't get more simple than that.
I'm a small space growbag/bucket gardener and I simply used found sticks and leftover twine to build a cylindrical "cage" for my determinate tomato, and a small pallet (leaned against a corner for safety) for my indeterminate! It happily climbed between the pallet steps, I was so surprised of how well it worked! xx
I watched my Albanian neighbors plant tomatoes. Two stakes in the ground 10 feet apart. One heavy duty string tied to both stakes about 3' off the ground. They trained the tomatoes to climb horizontally along the string. Clever
My balcony has hooks in the ceiling, probably originally to put up roll-down shades. I use them to hold up a metal rod from which I hang sturdy strings that I twist the tomato stem around, and keep twisting as the tomato grows, about once every two or three leaves. Works very well, as long as you give the string some slack from the start so it doesn’t get too taut with the winding. My tomato plants dance in the wind, but they don’t fall and don’t break.
Last summer I grew 7 ft tall tomatoes using the string method with the conduit. Worked really well. I didn't use clips or stakes. Just tied twine to the conduit at the top and ran it down the the base of the tomato. From there all you need to do is wrap it around the stem from the base up and as it grows, you just keep wrapping the twine around the stem. It grips the tomato quite well so it supports the weight easily. Had an amazing crop for months. Huge tomato plants. Also used it on cucumbers and peas and tomatillos. The best part is, it makes it very easy to get in and prune or harvest or water your plants vs a tomatoes cage or even the Florida weave.
@@WaggingPaws I don't. Sorry. Galvanized conduit electrical pipe. I think 1" but I can't remember for sure. It's either 3/4 or 1". Cut to the lengths you need and use threaded elbows to connect everything. Run decomposable organic jute strings off the top down to your plants. Tie at the top with a hitch knot so you can adjust the length of the string through the growing season easily by grabbing the knot and sliding it up or down. Wrap the string around the stem and tie a knot at the base. As the plants grow taller, you keep wrapping the string around the new growth.
I used a cattle panel lifted up off the ground, attached to t-posts with zip ties. Works very well and easy to put up with 2 people. I grew 9 plants along it last year (16 ft. panel). I think it's about 6 feet high. Use something to tie the tomato plants to it as they grow. This is the 3rd year using the cattle panels. I never take it down. :)
I would love to see regular updates on which method is helping produce the best and which method has caused more work for less results. If you’re feeling generous with your time. 😉
@@epicgardening did you ever post an update on which method gave the best yields? I do remember seeing the video about the giant tomato you had caged. Im on limited space so i did vertical strings with plants at 1 foot centers. This year I'm considering trialing a florida weave instead
@@jmtyndall I just snuck into his insta and he has a couple of posts where you can see them but I don’t know that he did a straight up ‘this method was such a waste of effort’ post. Still something to check out while you’re waiting. :)
if you use a bit thicker, biodegradable string for the tomato hooks, you just wind the plant around the string and can compost everything in autumn without the need to figgle all those plastic clips out (+ they might break after a summer of sun and you have plastic parts all over your garden).
I use to tie the string to a rock and just hang it over and twirl the other end the plant. As it grows the rock will just slide slowly down and keep the stem straight.
I use a lower and lean system on an electrical conduit trellis. I use tomahooks I made myself from wire hangers. I bent them in shape with plyers. I made the hooks large enough that they hang directly on the conduit, rather than on a ziptie or whatever. Very strong, basically free, and slightly more effective than a store bought hook. The cheap and strong strong line I found is mason's line that you can find in any big box home improvement store. I think they are rated for 100 lbs or whatever. I put like 20 feet of line on each hook. I never use all the line, but I probably use 10 to 15 feet of it. The tomato clips look very effective, but I am reluctant to add more little odd bits of plastic to my garden. I just wind the line around the vines as they grow. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. I've also used the same system for cucumbers and squash. For the squash hooks I doubled up the hanger wire to handle the extra weight. I plan on trying this system for eggplant this year. I've read you can prune eggplant to two growing tips and grow them up a trellis, similar to how one would prune tomatoes to one growing tip. It will be interesting to see if it works.
Unless you grow your eggplants as perennials I’d just use a large tomato cage or Texas tomato cage for them. Florida weave would work well,too. Most eggplant varieties have brittle stems,more like a pepper plant although not quite that brittle,depending on the variety and age of the plant. If you can overwinter your eggplant it can get quite tall but I found that it seems to produce more if you prune it way back twice a year anyway.
@@Doktracy I haven't had a hurricane come very close while using this system. I've had lots of storms with strong winds and generally it was fine, but nothing like hurricane strength winds. The worst that has happened to me with strong wind was the conduit coming loose at one end and some of the tomato vines sliding off and falling to the ground. I lost a few fruit, but the plants were fine and I hung them back up. As for the eggplants, it worked well enough. The plants never got tall enough to justify a lower and lean system, but they trained to the lines well. I already have the trellis, hooks, and line for other vine crops, so using them for the eggplants is actually the easiest way to do it for me.
I used Florida weave last year. Worked great and I will do it again this year. It's perfect with my woven ground cover. I used to use fence cages but with the woven ground cover hard to anchor those. This works perfect.💚🍅
I kind of did the conduit method. But I used some old t-posts with some fencing wire tied across the top (I had it on hand from some chicken projects. It'sprobably not actually fencing wire, but it's thick amd that's what I used it for, so that's what I'm calling it) and cotton twine coming down. I buried the twine when I planted the tomatoes. The whole set up is about an inch above my eyebrows, and I keep smacking into it, lol. But the tomatoes are doing great! I also planted a line of pole beans about 2 feet out from the toms, and I'm going to run lines from my tomato trellis to the beans for them to climb. Now to figure out what low maintenence plant to put in the soon to be shaded area under the beans :) I'm really enjoying my free trellis with scrounged materials from the garage that my husband said I'd never use.
This sounds awesome. You are so creative. Would love to see a picture of this. I might try a variation of this since I can't seem to think of where to put my beans... Not much sunny space.
I use plastic pvc pipes and the "conduit system". Instead of the clip inground I run a string just above the ground and tie off my "drop" string to it. In the past I have twirled the plants around the string as they grew. This year I am trying a wire with a rubber jacket that I will twist tie loosely. The set-up is something I learned from Square Foot Gardening
Charles Dowding burys one end of the twine under the transplant. He ties the other end overhead and just gently twists the vine around the twine as it grows.
Great video and suggestions! I will definitely watch your pruning video. Looking forward to a blight free season because of hitting the Like Button. Smiles & Laughter....
I have a lot of bamboo as a natural fence on my property lines. I just as I cut it back annually keep some stalks ~10-12 feet tall and tie a string to the top of each one then to a landscape staple at the bottom. Wind around the tomato as it gets bigger
We use a 6' rebar pounded into the ground, and tie the tomato with soft string or cloth strips. One year I used red cloth strips, and kept mistaking them for tomatoes. Not doing that again. We trim off all of the side shoots. This makes the tomatoes easy to see, and easy to pick.
One of the best and more comprehensive trellising vids ever. Maybe a little shy on some detail, but pick the one you want and do a little more research. Using a very similar lower and lean on one bed and a hog panel for my other setup.
This was the most helpful tomato trellis video that I've seen. If you are doing a lot of tee posts, I suggest getting a tee post pounder. So much easier than using a hammer especially if you are like me and can't get a good swing going. I use short tee posts to grow squash off the ground. You can use it to pound in the rebar too.
Awsome vid. Something that I’ve ran into is the stakes pulling out. If you “plant” the twine with the tomato in top of the end- it won’t pull out. That’s a trick I’ve learned from other tomato gardeners.
I have a super awesome trellis idea that I'm launching this growing season. I'm in the process of setting it up this weekend. It costs anywhere from $20 to $45 and is way easy to set up, and use.
I use a variation of the conduit system. I got the conduit at the big box store along with electrical conduit corners. Then I use clothesline rope top to bottom with the landscape staples, but bury them at the bottom of the hole. I also put a horizontal line tying it to each vertical line and the 2 vertical posts. I do 2 horizontals and on the higher one I stick a lable with the name of the tomato variety in the knot.
The big box stores sell connectors for the conduit. We bent our conduit to make L-shapes and then connected two together. Been using these with trellising material for 14 years. Very easy to set up.
I love this video as it shows a variety of methods of controlling vertical climbing plants. Thank you for showing us this! Whilst renovating our house, we broke up our UK ex council house crazy paving patio and built a bedding area, probably 3 or so deep and i guess 9 feet long. It's against a fence so will see how i can incorporate this framework method. For historical context, the paving slabs they used in these houses were broken up pavement/ walkway slabs that were repurposed for driveways and patios for government houses. They are at least 2- 2.5 inches thick. A lot of the houses were built on previously bombed areas in the 50's and not green areas, so the soil was mainly clay based. If the previous abode wasn't knocked down or destroyed, they would first put in small rubble as drainage and then add excess soils. I used a metal detector and found many children's toys, coins, old style ring pulls and even motor/scooter parts amongst other things. Currently using your wormery crate method along side our composter. We as in my hubby learnt why we don't put conifer tree branches in a composter.. This year our composter is looking more lively. We fished out a lot of red wrigglers we found and are now staying in the 5* worm spa. So much fun for our son to learn about worms. It's been a couple of months now but it was so cool to see eggs and baby worms, not to mention the adult gatherings! lol I spoil them by blizting the food scraps in the food processor before adding it. We have some earth worms/night crawlers and i found some tiger worms. Going to wait until its warm enough for the veg to out and renew their home. I'm using Garrotta in the main big composter so would be interesting to see the difference.
I've been caging with the first option and its done well, even when we have strong windy storms in Oklahoma, which is a huge deal. Suggestion to make it easier though, get yourself a post driver.
We’re doing Florida weave for our tomato plants and maybe our green and yellow beans. We have a cool conduit trellis thing using cattle fencing I built for our cucumbers and squashes to climb
I'm planning on doing the t posts and conduit thing, but hoping to do like 10' t posts. Since currently all of my tomatoes are in grow bags, I'm planning on relocating them in a few weeks to my backyard and HOPEFULLY I can just to the strings down to each bag without any problem. I figured I would do the 10' ones since the growbags themselves are 7 gallons and already a foot off of the ground. so it should give my indeterminates the height they need. plus i think it will look awesome on the back of my garden to have a wall of 8' tall tomatoes.
I have tried all these methods and they work great. The one I feel works best for me is the lower and lean, but I built my trellis with 18" Ts going across the vertical to allow me to lower and lean around both sides of my trellis. Also allows me to plant more in a smaller amount of space since I grow my tomatoes with a single leader.
The last time I did any gardening outdoors was in 2019. I grew one tomato plant in a fabric pot. I used a bamboo pole and garden tape to tie it up as it grew. This year, I may be able to use something different if I get a community garden plot.
I use old rails from a horse pasture and bury them a couple feet in the ground so they are nice and sturdy. They end up being 8-10 feet high. I use old sheets to tie the tomatoes up the posts. They work great for my pole beans also. I've been using the same rails for 25 years now and God only knows how old they were before I began using them. I'm surprised they haven't rotted by now to be honest :)
Meanwhile there's me just taking home whatever sticks my dog happened to find on our walk that were long and straight enough and just tying my tomatoes to those with lose bows using a cotton string :D
COMMENT: Thank You! I’ve seen the last type with wire piece wrap that keeps twine so you can lean the tomato vines as they grow has been explained online & here on TH-cam many times; however, I haven’t quite understood it until I run across this video. Thank you for clearing that up for me.
I use conduit trellises with concrete reinforcing wire mesh attached. I clip the vines to the wire. It’s a permanent structure. No messing around with strings and I use them for cucumbers, green beans, Malabar spinach et. al.
Easiest support I've found is 15' by 5' cattle panels. Fasten them to some t-posts with zip ties and you're good. Cut them to shorter lengths with bolt cutters if need be. They last forever. Last one I bought was $16, but everything has gone up since. I put one on each side of the plants, slightly slanted outwards at the top.
How I used the cylinder Al cage was to put two t posts in and attach the cylinder cage over weave inches up with easy wire. I also used one year some hog wire the full length of the garden and tied the tomatoes to it with an old sheet torn into strips. Worked great.
Last year I tried 3 different ways to trellis tomatoes. 1) Used tomato cages on my Romas (& won't make THAT mistake again!!), 2) Used vertical twine (similar to your conduit setup) which worked ok, but had issues with the wind gusts we have here, & 3) made teepees out of cedar. We have a TON of cedar saplings on the farm that are 15-20' tall, but the truck is only about an inch in diameter. They make GREAT stakes & the teepees didn't have ANY wind issues at all! Only problem I had with those tomatoes was the branches weren't strong enough to support the weight of the tomatoes so the branches broke off the main stem. I'm going to try tying them a bit differently this year (as well as growing different varieties) & we'll see if it makes any difference.
For the conduit pipe method, I'd recommend you stake the string UNDER the plant, that way as the plant grows and becomes more established, the root mass will help keep the anchor in the ground. To prevent the stake from uprooting the plant, dig the hole, push in the stake, and back fill and firm the soil above the stake. Then, throw in your plant feed, and add your plant, following it up with top soil. That string won't be going no where! Happy growing, yall! Never too late to get tomato plants in the ground!
Instead of the trouble of staking the twine at the bottom, I love Charles Dowding,s trick of burying the twine with a knot at the end under the tomato plant as you're planting it.
I do the conduit system, but using pvc pipes. Costs less than $3 for a 10 foot pipe that can be easily cut to desired length, and since my raised beds are 20" deep, that gives them plenty of support by using all 4 corners, and a support bar every 4 feet. So basically a frame on each end, and a central pvc pipe that I tie the tomatoes to using paracord. So far works quite well, but I am looking at utilizing that tamahook with it because some of my indeterminates get pretty big in the long growing season here in zone 8a.
We added a lean and lower conduit structure similar to yours but it is much taller. We put it directly behind our greenhouse and it about 9-10ft tall. We such great growing seasons here in the south.
This year I’m trying the lower and lean method for 8 of my tomato plants. I’m pretty excited about it! I’m also using the same titan trellis from gardeners supply that you’re using for 3 other tomato plants. I have 2 in 30 gallon grow bags that are very happy so far and one directly in the ground. I’m hoping to let them bush out a bit more than I normally would since they have a sturdy trellis.
I think the "constrictor" knot is a clove hitch if I'm remembering correctly. Everybody should know how to do a bowline. It's the safest, most dependable knot out there for tying off to anything. Add some sort of slider (like a Prussic) for tensioning, and you've got 98% of situations covered.
You are correct. The clove hitch works great for anything with constant pressure on it. If the pressure goes on and off, it will untie itself. You can add to the knot in specific ways to prevent this, but generally the clove hitch has pretty limited uses. A bowline is fine if you're not worried about the line moving across whatever you're tying it to. So, in the video, a bowline could move along the conduit. For some, that would be very handy. For others, not so much.
For t post they make a driver that makes it much easier than dragging out a ladder and hitting with a hammer. Also that particular conduit is called emt conduit or thin wall. Ridged conduit is much thicker but a bit more expensive.
I’m sure someone has said this but they’ve got handheld drivers for t-posts and it makes installing them a breeze; I use them a lot for work and they’re pretty cheap and can save you a bunch of time/energy when you’re putting them in. If it’s something you’re going to do every year, the $40-50 is well worth it.
Thank you for this video. I actually wanted to use cattle panels, but have no way to get them home. I like these trellis ideas because I am planting several dif. varieties and some are indeterminates.
What a great instructional video! And thanks for all the links. I was having trouble finding the connectors on Gardener Supply and then I saw your link.
Cheers mate. I stake and tie mine. Worked well for my toms in Melbourne this year. Just picking the last ones as we speak as we are in Autumn and the weather is cooling down!
Thanks so much for this awesome video. I have shied away from indeterminate tomatoes because the idea of trellising them was intimidating. You’ve opened up a whole world for me 🙌🏼💓
I can't wait to see a follow up video later in the year. My husband tried doing the weave and it just couldn't handle the weight of the plants with fruit on them.
Went to Lowe’s, bought my sticks and yarn and getting ready to do the first method you did 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽 exciting!!!! Thank you for this easy and to the point video.
So smart!! I usually make my own cages from wood. I will be using the Florida weave this year, I can attached my sprayer/dip system to the weave as well!
As always, really appreciate the info and presentation. We just finished planting 8 t-plants in 2 halves of an IBC tote. I haven’t determined exactly how yet, but we’ll probably go with a version of the Florida weave. My brain and wallet both like the simplicity.
We switched all our trellises over to U-posts and steel Remesh sheets. They work for everything (peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, melons, etc) and are the most durable and least expensive trellises we've used.
Cool thanks for that video I think the question I asked about tomato trellising in your video about growing peas answered my question I will definitely try one of the three ideas
What 🍅 vids do you wanna see this year? Lemme know below...I'm growing A TON 😂😅😂
Tomatoes in containers, please!
Its it ok if we see you do 2 different things bolth need 5 pots. First have 2 seeds in each pot but have a stone fruit of your choice. Citrus then some kind of tropical then berry then vine. Second is try mixing vegetables seeds around tomatoes with vines or beans with melon whatever no care in what goes in pots. For me bolth work well.
@@alexrottb Same, Tomatoes in containers please
Subtleties of shade cloth... how often, when to put on, when to take off (and now I'm going to go look and see if you did this already. lol)
Tomato care video?
I put a wooden stick (2x2cm) in the pot/ground, then tie the tomato plant to it as it grows up. That's pretty much universal from around Europe from the places I've visited. If the tomato grows really big and heavy, you just use a bigger stick and stronger twine. Doesn't get more simple than that.
Thank u for the simple solution! That doesn’t cost a bunch of money.
I did that last year, and I found it works very well. See a new branch off the main plant, tie it up. It was simple and pretty easy to keep up with.
Yep, I'm in the UK and I (and everyone I know) just use tall, study bamboo canes. They cost next to nothing.
I just use 3 sunflowers that grows 12 feet or more they keep him growing up
Wow, thanks for this! This is the solution I was looking for!
I'm a small space growbag/bucket gardener and I simply used found sticks and leftover twine to build a cylindrical "cage" for my determinate tomato, and a small pallet (leaned against a corner for safety) for my indeterminate! It happily climbed between the pallet steps, I was so surprised of how well it worked! xx
I watched my Albanian neighbors plant tomatoes. Two stakes in the ground 10 feet apart. One heavy duty string tied to both stakes about 3' off the ground. They trained the tomatoes to climb horizontally along the string. Clever
We do love our gardens ❤ 🇦🇱
That's amazing
Hi how are you doing today?
Genious!
My balcony has hooks in the ceiling, probably originally to put up roll-down shades. I use them to hold up a metal rod from which I hang sturdy strings that I twist the tomato stem around, and keep twisting as the tomato grows, about once every two or three leaves. Works very well, as long as you give the string some slack from the start so it doesn’t get too taut with the winding. My tomato plants dance in the wind, but they don’t fall and don’t break.
Last summer I grew 7 ft tall tomatoes using the string method with the conduit. Worked really well. I didn't use clips or stakes. Just tied twine to the conduit at the top and ran it down the the base of the tomato. From there all you need to do is wrap it around the stem from the base up and as it grows, you just keep wrapping the twine around the stem. It grips the tomato quite well so it supports the weight easily. Had an amazing crop for months. Huge tomato plants. Also used it on cucumbers and peas and tomatillos. The best part is, it makes it very easy to get in and prune or harvest or water your plants vs a tomatoes cage or even the Florida weave.
Did you have a video to learn how to set the string/conduit up this way?
@@WaggingPaws I don't. Sorry. Galvanized conduit electrical pipe. I think 1" but I can't remember for sure. It's either 3/4 or 1". Cut to the lengths you need and use threaded elbows to connect everything. Run decomposable organic jute strings off the top down to your plants. Tie at the top with a hitch knot so you can adjust the length of the string through the growing season easily by grabbing the knot and sliding it up or down. Wrap the string around the stem and tie a knot at the base. As the plants grow taller, you keep wrapping the string around the new growth.
@@kimokahikolekalihi thank you so much!!!
Whoa...I was JUST searching "Epic Gardening tomato trellis" last night.
Serendipitous!
Same
Got you covered!
I used a cattle panel lifted up off the ground, attached to t-posts with zip ties. Works very well and easy to put up with 2 people. I grew 9 plants along it last year (16 ft. panel). I think it's about 6 feet high. Use something to tie the tomato plants to it as they grow. This is the 3rd year using the cattle panels. I never take it down. :)
I've a cattle panel design!
Try this for the first time this year!
I use the same cattle panel method. It works like a champ.
Cattle panels are awesome! Last forever, durable, and yes you can leave them up. 👍
I moved up from zip ties to the t-post wire clips. I don't need to take it down each season.
I used fallen bamboo I found on the side of the road. Working great!
💯
I made 18" square tomato cages out of cattle panels. They are easy to set up, easy to tend the tomatoes through the 6"x8" squares, and very durable.
I would love to see regular updates on which method is helping produce the best and which method has caused more work for less results. If you’re feeling generous with your time. 😉
For sure!
Catle panel is the way to it las forever.
@@epicgardening did you ever post an update on which method gave the best yields? I do remember seeing the video about the giant tomato you had caged. Im on limited space so i did vertical strings with plants at 1 foot centers. This year I'm considering trialing a florida weave instead
Any update?
@@jmtyndall I just snuck into his insta and he has a couple of posts where you can see them but I don’t know that he did a straight up ‘this method was such a waste of effort’ post. Still something to check out while you’re waiting. :)
8:50 That is such a useful knot to learn for any time you need to connect something to a pole. I learned it under the Dutch name "mastworp"
if you use a bit thicker, biodegradable string for the tomato hooks, you just wind the plant around the string and can compost everything in autumn without the need to figgle all those plastic clips out (+ they might break after a summer of sun and you have plastic parts all over your garden).
I put cherry plum tomatoes in hanging baskets with a nasturtium and marigold. Great for verandas and small gardens.
Smart move!
Would love to see a pic of that
Can you post it on reddit maybe? Beautiful sub for plants
I like that constrictor knot. Very nice!
My Italian grandfather used hockey sticks, broom sticks, wood and then tied it to that. It worked
I wouldn’t do it with modern day hockey sticks, too many chemicals
Big wip
I use to tie the string to a rock and just hang it over and twirl the other end the plant. As it grows the rock will just slide slowly down and keep the stem straight.
I use a lower and lean system on an electrical conduit trellis. I use tomahooks I made myself from wire hangers. I bent them in shape with plyers. I made the hooks large enough that they hang directly on the conduit, rather than on a ziptie or whatever. Very strong, basically free, and slightly more effective than a store bought hook. The cheap and strong strong line I found is mason's line that you can find in any big box home improvement store. I think they are rated for 100 lbs or whatever. I put like 20 feet of line on each hook. I never use all the line, but I probably use 10 to 15 feet of it. The tomato clips look very effective, but I am reluctant to add more little odd bits of plastic to my garden. I just wind the line around the vines as they grow. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. I've also used the same system for cucumbers and squash. For the squash hooks I doubled up the hanger wire to handle the extra weight. I plan on trying this system for eggplant this year. I've read you can prune eggplant to two growing tips and grow them up a trellis, similar to how one would prune tomatoes to one growing tip. It will be interesting to see if it works.
Smart move!
Unless you grow your eggplants as perennials I’d just use a large tomato cage or Texas tomato cage for them. Florida weave would work well,too. Most eggplant varieties have brittle stems,more like a pepper plant although not quite that brittle,depending on the variety and age of the plant.
If you can overwinter your eggplant it can get quite tall but I found that it seems to produce more if you prune it way back twice a year anyway.
How does this hold up with hurricanes?
@@Doktracy I haven't had a hurricane come very close while using this system. I've had lots of storms with strong winds and generally it was fine, but nothing like hurricane strength winds. The worst that has happened to me with strong wind was the conduit coming loose at one end and some of the tomato vines sliding off and falling to the ground. I lost a few fruit, but the plants were fine and I hung them back up. As for the eggplants, it worked well enough. The plants never got tall enough to justify a lower and lean system, but they trained to the lines well. I already have the trellis, hooks, and line for other vine crops, so using them for the eggplants is actually the easiest way to do it for me.
He knows just the thing to say to get gardeners to hit the 'like' button! Better hit the like, don't want the blight!!
I used Florida weave last year. Worked great and I will do it again this year. It's perfect with my woven ground cover. I used to use fence cages but with the woven ground cover hard to anchor those. This works perfect.💚🍅
I kind of did the conduit method. But I used some old t-posts with some fencing wire tied across the top (I had it on hand from some chicken projects. It'sprobably not actually fencing wire, but it's thick amd that's what I used it for, so that's what I'm calling it) and cotton twine coming down. I buried the twine when I planted the tomatoes. The whole set up is about an inch above my eyebrows, and I keep smacking into it, lol. But the tomatoes are doing great!
I also planted a line of pole beans about 2 feet out from the toms, and I'm going to run lines from my tomato trellis to the beans for them to climb. Now to figure out what low maintenence plant to put in the soon to be shaded area under the beans :)
I'm really enjoying my free trellis with scrounged materials from the garage that my husband said I'd never use.
This sounds awesome. You are so creative. Would love to see a picture of this. I might try a variation of this since I can't seem to think of where to put my beans... Not much sunny space.
I use plastic pvc pipes and the "conduit system". Instead of the clip inground I run a string just above the ground and tie off my "drop" string to it. In the past I have twirled the plants around the string as they grew. This year I am trying a wire with a rubber jacket that I will twist tie loosely. The set-up is something I learned from Square Foot Gardening
Yay! I can't wait for my blight free tomato season! Woo!
Hi how are you doing today?
I’m going with the Florida weave this year!
Thanks for the tip!
I used the conduit and tomato clips for my container tomatoes. It's so good and really cute.
The way you broke down the knots was very helpful for me. Thanks for the instruction👍🏼.
Charles Dowding burys one end of the twine under the transplant.
He ties the other end overhead and just gently twists the vine around the twine as it grows.
The lower and lean method looks wild!
Great video and suggestions! I will definitely watch your pruning video. Looking forward to a blight free season because of hitting the Like Button. Smiles & Laughter....
thank you for that conduit knot tip. comes in handy in the garden.
I’m taking this cultivates like for a blight free blessing as a contract!
I have a lot of bamboo as a natural fence on my property lines. I just as I cut it back annually keep some stalks ~10-12 feet tall and tie a string to the top of each one then to a landscape staple at the bottom. Wind around the tomato as it gets bigger
We use a 6' rebar pounded into the ground, and tie the tomato with soft string or cloth strips. One year I used red cloth strips, and kept mistaking them for tomatoes. Not doing that again. We trim off all of the side shoots. This makes the tomatoes easy to see, and easy to pick.
One of the best and more comprehensive trellising vids ever. Maybe a little shy on some detail, but pick the one you want and do a little more research. Using a very similar lower and lean on one bed and a hog panel for my other setup.
It’ll be interesting to see which one does best. The conduit one definitely caught my eye; a sleeker, taller “Trellis to Make You Jealous”
Exactly
I was waiting to see if Josh was given credit.......
Absolutely massive blessing honestly, good video brother and thanks for including a patio tip!
I planted tomatoes indoors in november, and now they have fruit!
This was the most helpful tomato trellis video that I've seen.
If you are doing a lot of tee posts, I suggest getting a tee post pounder. So much easier than using a hammer especially if you are like me and can't get a good swing going.
I use short tee posts to grow squash off the ground. You can use it to pound in the rebar too.
Yeah I def need one!
That florida weave is perfect! 😮
I am doing the 3rd trellis with The T-Green posts, the Conduit and the T-PVC. It is simple and easy. Thanks for the suggestion.
Talk about timing!! I'm looking for trellis ideas for my balcony tomato plants that are a good feet height already! Thanks so much for sharing!!
Awsome vid. Something that I’ve ran into is the stakes pulling out. If you “plant” the twine with the tomato in top of the end- it won’t pull out. That’s a trick I’ve learned from other tomato gardeners.
Smart!
I've been addicted to your vids lately. I started my own garden and have been applying you tips. It's great so far. Thank you so much!
Doing a Florida weave type trellis this year I find it easy cheap and simple👍
So looking forward to seeing the new Epic Homestead gardens in their full glory!
I have a super awesome trellis idea that I'm launching this growing season. I'm in the process of setting it up this weekend. It costs anywhere from $20 to $45 and is way easy to set up, and use.
I use a variation of the conduit system. I got the conduit at the big box store along with electrical conduit corners. Then I use clothesline rope top to bottom with the landscape staples, but bury them at the bottom of the hole. I also put a horizontal line tying it to each vertical line and the 2 vertical posts. I do 2 horizontals and on the higher one I stick a lable with the name of the tomato variety in the knot.
The big box stores sell connectors for the conduit. We bent our conduit to make L-shapes and then connected two together. Been using these with trellising material for 14 years. Very easy to set up.
But for my tomatoes, I made cages from that concrete wire, and then drive rear as stakes. Not as pretty as yours, but they do the job.
I love this video as it shows a variety of methods of controlling vertical climbing plants. Thank you for showing us this!
Whilst renovating our house, we broke up our UK ex council house crazy paving patio and built a bedding area, probably 3 or so deep and i guess 9 feet long. It's against a fence so will see how i can incorporate this framework method.
For historical context, the paving slabs they used in these houses were broken up pavement/ walkway slabs that were repurposed for driveways and patios for government houses. They are at least 2- 2.5 inches thick. A lot of the houses were built on previously bombed areas in the 50's and not green areas, so the soil was mainly clay based. If the previous abode wasn't knocked down or destroyed, they would first put in small rubble as drainage and then add excess soils. I used a metal detector and found many children's toys, coins, old style ring pulls and even motor/scooter parts amongst other things.
Currently using your wormery crate method along side our composter. We as in my hubby learnt why we don't put conifer tree branches in a composter.. This year our composter is looking more lively. We fished out a lot of red wrigglers we found and are now staying in the 5* worm spa. So much fun for our son to learn about worms. It's been a couple of months now but it was so cool to see eggs and baby worms, not to mention the adult gatherings! lol I spoil them by blizting the food scraps in the food processor before adding it. We have some earth worms/night crawlers and i found some tiger worms. Going to wait until its warm enough for the veg to out and renew their home. I'm using Garrotta in the main big composter so would be interesting to see the difference.
I've been caging with the first option and its done well, even when we have strong windy storms in Oklahoma, which is a huge deal. Suggestion to make it easier though, get yourself a post driver.
intrigued with the Florida weave. I want to try it this year! Thank you, Kevin.
Srsly I started setting up some tomato seeds and you post this the moment I started setting things up (17h ago) like you are magic
We’re doing Florida weave for our tomato plants and maybe our green and yellow beans. We have a cool conduit trellis thing using cattle fencing I built for our cucumbers and squashes to climb
I'm planning on doing the t posts and conduit thing, but hoping to do like 10' t posts. Since currently all of my tomatoes are in grow bags, I'm planning on relocating them in a few weeks to my backyard and HOPEFULLY I can just to the strings down to each bag without any problem. I figured I would do the 10' ones since the growbags themselves are 7 gallons and already a foot off of the ground. so it should give my indeterminates the height they need. plus i think it will look awesome on the back of my garden to have a wall of 8' tall tomatoes.
I was hoping to find those but couldn't!
I have tried all these methods and they work great. The one I feel works best for me is the lower and lean, but I built my trellis with 18" Ts going across the vertical to allow me to lower and lean around both sides of my trellis. Also allows me to plant more in a smaller amount of space since I grow my tomatoes with a single leader.
Yup it's so good for that use case!
The PVC T size is 1 1/4 to fit the 7ft T-Post so it sits snuggly on top. I used my old galvanized pipes from my house to go thru the T's.
The last time I did any gardening outdoors was in 2019. I grew one tomato plant in a fabric pot. I used a bamboo pole and garden tape to tie it up as it grew. This year, I may be able to use something different if I get a community garden plot.
I use old rails from a horse pasture and bury them a couple feet in the ground so they are nice and sturdy. They end up being 8-10 feet high. I use old sheets to tie the tomatoes up the posts. They work great for my pole beans also. I've been using the same rails for 25 years now and God only knows how old they were before I began using them. I'm surprised they haven't rotted by now to be honest :)
Thanks I wasn’t sure how I wanted to support my tomatoes... I definitely will be using Florida weave.
Thank you for showing the variety of support systems. Will want to see how you prune the plants when they get higher.
Meanwhile there's me just taking home whatever sticks my dog happened to find on our walk that were long and straight enough and just tying my tomatoes to those with lose bows using a cotton string :D
Thanks for the tips Kevin and I will use these ideas this year to grow my tomatoes. Thanks for every video and keep on growing.
COMMENT: Thank You! I’ve seen the last type with wire piece wrap that keeps twine so you can lean the tomato vines as they grow has been explained online & here on TH-cam many times; however, I haven’t quite understood it until I run across this video. Thank you for clearing that up for me.
I use conduit trellises with concrete reinforcing wire mesh attached. I clip the vines to the wire. It’s a permanent structure. No messing around with strings and I use them for cucumbers, green beans, Malabar spinach et. al.
Easiest support I've found is 15' by 5' cattle panels. Fasten them to some t-posts with zip ties and you're good. Cut them to shorter lengths with bolt cutters if need be. They last forever. Last one I bought was $16, but everything has gone up since. I put one on each side of the plants, slightly slanted outwards at the top.
Tomato cages work just fine!
Awesome video! I'm using the conduit system for the first time this year. So cool to see you do a video on it!! From MO
How I used the cylinder Al cage was to put two t posts in and attach the cylinder cage over weave inches up with easy wire. I also used one year some hog wire the full length of the garden and tied the tomatoes to it with an old sheet torn into strips. Worked great.
Last year I tried 3 different ways to trellis tomatoes. 1) Used tomato cages on my Romas (& won't make THAT mistake again!!), 2) Used vertical twine (similar to your conduit setup) which worked ok, but had issues with the wind gusts we have here, & 3) made teepees out of cedar. We have a TON of cedar saplings on the farm that are 15-20' tall, but the truck is only about an inch in diameter. They make GREAT stakes & the teepees didn't have ANY wind issues at all! Only problem I had with those tomatoes was the branches weren't strong enough to support the weight of the tomatoes so the branches broke off the main stem. I'm going to try tying them a bit differently this year (as well as growing different varieties) & we'll see if it makes any difference.
Search the internet for "Tomato Truss Support Clips" and "J Hooks" as an option to support your branches.
For the conduit pipe method, I'd recommend you stake the string UNDER the plant, that way as the plant grows and becomes more established, the root mass will help keep the anchor in the ground. To prevent the stake from uprooting the plant, dig the hole, push in the stake, and back fill and firm the soil above the stake. Then, throw in your plant feed, and add your plant, following it up with top soil. That string won't be going no where! Happy growing, yall! Never too late to get tomato plants in the ground!
Wow u are such a great Teacher and Gardner, I have ginormous tomatoes &it looks like the more I prune it grows bigger. Thank you 🙏😍
Instead of the trouble of staking the twine at the bottom, I love Charles Dowding,s trick of burying the twine with a knot at the end under the tomato plant as you're planting it.
That's much smarter than what I did!
Be sure to use nylon twine, as the jute I put under my tomatoes rotted and was no longer anchored.
Love ❤️ those little plastic things. Used them last year on my indeterminate tomatoes & everything stayed in place thru our strong winds. 👍
I do the conduit system, but using pvc pipes. Costs less than $3 for a 10 foot pipe that can be easily cut to desired length, and since my raised beds are 20" deep, that gives them plenty of support by using all 4 corners, and a support bar every 4 feet. So basically a frame on each end, and a central pvc pipe that I tie the tomatoes to using paracord. So far works quite well, but I am looking at utilizing that tamahook with it because some of my indeterminates get pretty big in the long growing season here in zone 8a.
We added a lean and lower conduit structure similar to yours but it is much taller. We put it directly behind our greenhouse and it about 9-10ft tall. We such great growing seasons here in the south.
I LOVE the titan tomato cage! I used it last summer and had amazing results 🍅 I also planted cucumbers near the cage to save space 😊
I suspend cattle panel fence up about 2 to 3 ft off the ground and extend with bamboo poles for the interdependent tomatoes
love the video and the options. I am making a container garden and will still use the weave method and place the containers in line of the t poles...
This year I’m trying the lower and lean method for 8 of my tomato plants. I’m pretty excited about it!
I’m also using the same titan trellis from gardeners supply that you’re using for 3 other tomato plants. I have 2 in 30 gallon grow bags that are very happy so far and one directly in the ground. I’m hoping to let them bush out a bit more than I normally would since they have a sturdy trellis.
This year, I will be growing San Marzano and Piennolo Del Vesuvio. I have 54 plants in total.
Love your videos not new at gardening but, I love to learn new ways of doing things! Thanks for sharing. One Love
I think the "constrictor" knot is a clove hitch if I'm remembering correctly. Everybody should know how to do a bowline. It's the safest, most dependable knot out there for tying off to anything. Add some sort of slider (like a Prussic) for tensioning, and you've got 98% of situations covered.
You are correct. The clove hitch works great for anything with constant pressure on it. If the pressure goes on and off, it will untie itself. You can add to the knot in specific ways to prevent this, but generally the clove hitch has pretty limited uses.
A bowline is fine if you're not worried about the line moving across whatever you're tying it to. So, in the video, a bowline could move along the conduit. For some, that would be very handy. For others, not so much.
The constrictor hitch is very much like a clove hitch. Just one little twist. Watch again.
Tip for Florida weave. Biodegradable twine. Makes cleanup a breeze and can be composted
For t post they make a driver that makes it much easier than dragging out a ladder and hitting with a hammer. Also that particular conduit is called emt conduit or thin wall. Ridged conduit is much thicker but a bit more expensive.
I’m sure someone has said this but they’ve got handheld drivers for t-posts and it makes installing them a breeze; I use them a lot for work and they’re pretty cheap and can save you a bunch of time/energy when you’re putting them in. If it’s something you’re going to do every year, the $40-50 is well worth it.
love the different trellis contraptions, living works of art!
Thank you for this video. I actually wanted to use cattle panels, but have no way to get them home. I like these trellis ideas because I am planting several dif. varieties and some are indeterminates.
What a great instructional video! And thanks for all the links. I was having trouble finding the connectors on Gardener Supply and then I saw your link.
Cheers mate. I stake and tie mine. Worked well for my toms in Melbourne this year. Just picking the last ones as we speak as we are in Autumn and the weather is cooling down!
Thanks so much for this awesome video. I have shied away from indeterminate tomatoes because the idea of trellising them was intimidating. You’ve opened up a whole world for me 🙌🏼💓
I can't wait to see a follow up video later in the year. My husband tried doing the weave and it just couldn't handle the weight of the plants with fruit on them.
Hi how are you doing today?
Went to Lowe’s, bought my sticks and yarn and getting ready to do the first method you did 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽 exciting!!!! Thank you for this easy and to the point video.
So smart!! I usually make my own cages from wood. I will be using the Florida weave this year, I can attached my sprayer/dip system to the weave as well!
I grew my indeterminate tomatoes next to my deck so I could them over the railing. It worked perfectly for me.
As always, really appreciate the info and presentation. We just finished planting 8 t-plants in 2 halves of an IBC tote. I haven’t determined exactly how yet, but we’ll probably go with a version of the Florida weave. My brain and wallet both like the simplicity.
Great info! I appreciate the thorough instructions.
We switched all our trellises over to U-posts and steel Remesh sheets. They work for everything (peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, melons, etc) and are the most durable and least expensive trellises we've used.
You could also use some shower curtain hooks.
Cool thanks for that video I think the question I asked about tomato trellising in your video about growing peas answered my question I will definitely try one of the three ideas
You're a gem!!! Thanks for all the effort in helping us get in the know.