Anchoring Plants

Good evening everyone!

I have a question on how to help my plants anchor themselves. I have my hot peppers in raised beds about 18 inches high. They are growing very well...too well in fact. Everything is loaded! Unfortunately, the weight of the peppers has been causing the plants to lean precariously when we have a storm with any wind. I have them staked, but it is only marginally helping. The soil is very well draining and was amended with moo-nure this year to try and hold more moisture and give it some body, but it is still very fine and I am afraid that this "fineness" is hindering the plants ability to anchor themselves. I realize it is probably too late to solve anything this year, so I am looking for what can I do to help them next year.

Thanks inadvance for any ideas...

Jeff

I have to take pictures to show you how I anchor my tall tomatoes, eggplants ans peppers.

Belle

We made celindrical cages from hogwire about 2' diameter and 4'tall. They were mostly for tomatoes but we also used them for cukes and sometimes peppers. It works better if they are put in place before the plants get very big.
Vickie

Thank you bellieg and cando1.

I think I might go with the cages next year as a backup. What I am striving to do is improve the soil so the plants can hold on better. I think it needs more bulk and structure but I am not sure what to use to do it.

Jeff

Jeff,

I usually plant winter rye in my garden when it's done for the year. It has many benefits. It suppresses weed growth in the spring and helps to dry up your garden so you can get into it earlier in the spring. Besides the top growth it grows a huge root system both of which add more roughage to your soil. Of course leaves and animal manure are great if you have access to them. My sister used alpaca manure from a neighbor this year. She says it's been really good.

We also use cages made out of fencing around tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. The tomato cages get staked in place with fencing stakes. For our peppers we just cut a three foot fence length wise and stick the end wires of the fence in the ground. Since you have sandy soil you might want to use fencing stakes to anchor the cage to the ground. They come in a number of lengths. The tomato cage is 2.5 to 3 feet in diameter with three plants group inside. The fencing we use is 1"x4" hole and plastic coated. We're using it to keep woodchucks out of the tomatoes when they are young. If you don't have that issue then you might want to use to 6"x6" grid fencing. It's much easier to get veggies out through the holes in the 6"x6" grid fencing.