Over the years, I tried all kinds of ways to support my tomatoes. It usually involved tying since I never had enough room to store those big tomato cages over the winter. I have friends who support their tomatoes with cages, and they do, in fact, work pretty well. But I wanted to find a way to support a large number of plants in the field without needing to have a mountain of cages by the end of the season.
How to Build Tomatoes Trellis…
Early in the Spring, I was looking for a better way to trellis peas and beans and came across a trellis design that I liked. With a little bit of money and a little bit of work, I build the trellis (you can see it here) and it worked great. So I decided to keep the same concept, but make it more suitable for tomatoes.
This is my pea trellis from earlier this spring. For the tomatoes, I still used the 7′ T-posts, the 10′ rebars and 1 1/4” dia PVC 90 degree tees. It’s pretty easy to build, but first, before you start setting the trellis, make sure to prepare the soil. I’ve learned that it’s much easier to do that before you build the trellis than to work around the posts latter. So, once the soil is ready for planting, drive the posts a foot deep into the ground 4.5 feet apart. On each post, place the PVC T and run the rebar inside the PVC T. For every two posts you’ll need one rebar.
For the tomatoes, instead of using the crop net, I simply tied a twine to the rebar…
And then tied the twine to the bottom of each tomato plant.
I pruned each of my tomato plants to a maximum of two vines, then I wrapped each vine around its own twine.
As the plant kept growing, I gently wrapd the twine around it. You have to be careful not to break the top of the plant, but even if you do, it’s not a big deal. The plant will still grow tomatoes. In fact, some growers break the top of their tomato plants on purpose when the plant reaches a certain height so it can use all the energy to grow tomatoes instead of foliage.
All in all, I am pretty happy with this set-up. The best thing about it is that next season I can leave the posts in place, add the crop net and grow beans or peas in the same location. If I want to remove it, I can store the posts, PVC Ts and rebars easily without them taking a lot of space.
You can see some of my tomatoes here. Some of them suffered from blossom end rot probably because of insufficient watering. I am totally relying on rain this year since I still don’t have a well or a pond on our land. By the way, the cucumbers are also trellised on the same system with crop netting, just like the beans and the peas. Cucumbers are my most successful crop this season.
What is your favorite way of supporting tomato plants?
katy says
atTOTALLY doing this next year! Awesome.
Sheri says
atWhat a smart idea!
Becky says
atI have used twine in the past and it tends to cut or cause breakage on the tomato vines. Now, I use torn/cut strips of pantyhose. They aren’t expensive, and I can get away with 2-4 pairs for about 20 tomato plants! It is much less damaging, and it gives when the vine moves in the wind/rain/growth!
Lee says
atGood idea! To tell you the truth, I hate twine. It’s hard to tie it and it is not flexible at all. The reason I use it is because I can throw it in the compost with the plants at the end of the season when I clean the garden.
Grace Blumberg says
atThanks for the precise instructions for the tomato trellis. I was aware of the trellis style, but not the 1 and 1/4” spec for the pvc t fittings, which fit snugly on our 8’ t-posts. We garden in two adjacent community garden plots in Southern California and need to move our trellises annually for crop rotation. So the trellis is excellent.
Lee says
atYou are welcome, Grace! I use the same style for peas, beans, butternut squash, cucumber and anything else that needs a trellis. For those, I but the trellis net from Johny’s SElected Seeds and attach it to the bars and T posts with zip ties. This way I don’t need to move the trellis so often. If I planted tomatoes one year I cam plant peas the next and so on.
Thanks for visiting!
Thomas Mazzaferro says
atLee, for blossom end rot, try adding calcium capsules when planting the plant. Blossom end rot is caused by lack of calcium in the soil; usually caused by too much rain.
I add 2 liquid Calcium pills to the soil for each hole befor setting the plant. I have used this idea for three years now and have not lost any tomatos to the rot.
I prick the pills to sqeeze the liquid out into the hole befor setting the plant; but I suspect the pills are biodegradeable either way: whole or pricked.
Lee says
atThomas, I added about a cup of lime to each tomato planting whole this season. It’s much better but I didn’t completely solve the problem yet. We have a whole lot of rain here in the spring and early summer. I think that next your I’ll add capsules as well. Where are you getting them from? Just a Wallmart or CVS kinda store?
Lisa Flodder says
atReally like this im gonna try it
Lee says
atThis is still how I trellis my tomatoes! The only thing that I found is that if we have a lot of rain (which we usually do) the “natural” twine breaks on me sometimes. So I might need to find a stronger one this year. One that the weather won’t damage.
Rachel Gordon says
atDoes this work as well for larger, heavy tomatoes?
Lee says
atYes. You just have to make sure you prune to your tomato plants one vine.
Jenny says
atWould U-posts work for this or do they have to be T-posts? My local hardware store has a lot more options for U-posts and they’re cheaper. Thank you! I’m excited to try this.
Lee says
atMmmm… U posts are not as strong as T posts and you have to take into consideration that those tomatoes are very heavy when they are full-size plants. You can definitely try. As far as the design it should work, I am just not sure if they’ll hold the weight of the plants.