Beginner Gardening: Tomato and Bell Pepper Plants in Containers, 2 by Gymgirl

Gymgirl wrote:
Peggy,
Jump on board, and we'll figure out what's going on with your broccoli! Keep in mind we're in different growing Zones. You're doing cool/cold weather now, right? I'm doing spring/summer, and gearing up for fall/wtr beginning in mid-August. If we can keep up with each other on the thermometer, I'm game if you are!

Here's my latest tomato trellis -- and I'm never going back to a cage or a stake or a prison!!!

This is a seriously EZ system for anything you can grow in a straight line!

I used old 7' galvanized fence posts (set down 24" into the ground), 18" PVC pipe extensions (to bring the height back up to 7') and pipe joiner couplers (to attach the 18" section of the PVC pipe to the top of the fence posts) and elbow couplers (to run the overhead across).

The indeterminate tomatoes are being held up on a single line suspended from the overhead bar of the frame. A slip knot is placed around the base of each tomato seedling, and then the plant is just wound loosely around the line every 12" or so in height, keeping enough slack so the line doesn't cut through or damage the stem. Piece 'a cake! The key is to keep each plant to either one or two main stems. Any more stems going all over the place will stress you (and the plant) out!

I've let several get out of hand. One plant branched off into a 'VEE" and I tethered those two, but now it has about 3 additional thick stems that are NOT tethered. It's a bit tricky to install a line once the plant gets as bushy as mine are now. But, I managed to get several other stems tethered "after-the-fact" so, I'll patiently (VERY PATIENTLY) try to get at least two more of these stems tethered this weekend, before the weight of any fruits causes them to snap.

So, if you've got somewhere to line up your eBuckets, build a frame of some sort over them, and tethered them!

This is a pic of the tomatoes at 4'. As of today, they are almost 6' in height.



This message was edited May 17, 2012 4:12 PM