Steph I needed an easy tomato trellis because I have a love for indeterminate tomatoes. Most trellises I’ve seen just can’t handle these guys well. If you’ve ever bought one of those little tomato cages at the garden center, you know exactly what I mean. You pop one of those little things around your tomatoes and in what seems like 6.5 seconds, your tomato has outgrown that bizarre looking lump of metal.
In the prior couple of years I’ve just used six foot bamboo sticks. While it seems like an easy trellis option, this tends to be a bit too high maintenance in the long run for my tastes. I would find these would get knocked over many times by the birds or the wind and I would have to keep adding or moving the bamboo sticks slightly to effectively train the tomato when the tomato plant would pull out different growing tricks. Using this method I somehow managed to murder several of my beloved tomatoes. If you’ve ever tried bamboo sticks as your trellis, you’ve probably broken your share too. The stems and branches are very easy to damage when you are trying to do too much moving around on your plant and it’s something I want to avoid this growing season.
I set out to find, based on my experience with indeterminate tomatoes, what I thought would work best for me. I ran across some neat A-frame type trellis ideas. I ran across tall cages used for trellising. I found several cute ideas but I didn’t want it to be a big, heavy production that is hard to take down in the off season. So I went down to the garden center to get ideas.
When I found seven foot U posts I knew I had found my next trellis. I bought four, one for each corner of my tomato raised garden bed. I also bought some galvanized wire to run lines across the top. We decided on an X pattern inside of a box for the top wires. That gives some flexibility as the tomatoes grow. I also decided to double up the wire to make it a bit stronger. I already had garden twine to use for the tomatoes to grow up.
When I got my supplies home. We got a ladder and beat the posts down into the ground with a hammer. Then we ran wires from each post to create a box around the perimeter of the four U posts. After that we ran wires diagonally to form an X inside the box. This allowed me to place tomatoes pretty much anywhere inside the garden box and still be able to trellis it.
I used a garden twine and doubled it up. I folded it in half and knotted it onto the wire by running it through itself. Then I let the two pieces dangle down to the tomato plants. After that I took my garden staples and staked the twine down into the soil so it doesn’t move around.
Once I did this I took the round plastic loops I purchased for staking and used them to loosely attach the tomatoes to the twine. Last year I had too many breaks and snaps binding them with twist ties. I’m guessing these rings will give the plant the room and flexibility it needs, preventing breaks of the tomato plants.
Now as far as the aesthetics of this trellis method, I haven’t decided what I think yet. I try to make everything I do blend in as much as possible in my garden. This trellis is definitely noticeable, but I feel like the posts being green neutralized the effect somewhat. As the tomato plants grow, I know it will become less noticeable.
As the tomatoes grow, I’ll update you on how this trellis method works. Fingers crossed that it will give my tomatoes plenty of room to roam and I’ll get a fantastic crop this year.
