Garden Update -- Staking Tomatoes

In the last update you saw the making of my new tomato stakes. Well today I put those stakes to good use. But first we need some ties. Stakes are useless without something to tie the plants with. Some people use twine or other kind of rope. I've always found it's terrible for the plants. I prefer something that can support the plant and stretch a bit. So here it is:

Yes it's a shirt. An old worn out full of holes cotton T-shirt. Soft material and just a bit stretchy. All you need now is a good pair of scissors and some time. Then you end up with this:

One pile of tomato ties. I cut them around 3/4" wide give or take. Start with a cut then just tear it.

So now that I have ties it's time to head to the garden with those tomato stakes. One big problem though. How to get the stakes thought the anti-weed fabric (that crap is definitely coming out next year)? Well I found a simple but heavy solution to that:

One old spud bar. Thing weighs probably 40 pounds. Rips though the fabric with ease. It's also close to the size of the stakes so it makes a nice starter hole.

Add a little arm strength to force the stake down into the ground and there you have it one stake in the ground. Repeat 17 more times and just wait for the pain in those muscles you never use tomorrow. Tried using a small sledge but reaching above my head with it was harder then pulling down hard on them with my body weight. Did still need to use it to tap a couple that hit something hard.

With a couple of stakes in it's time to start tying:

This is where the rough lumber plus the stretchy cotton work together. Couple of ways to tie them. First is making a loop around the plant under a set of leaves. Leave the loop very loose so the plant can grow. Then Take the other end and wrap it around the stake a few times then tie it. The extra wraps give it the friction it needs to hold and not slip down the pole. Second is to wrap around the pole and plant in one go. One loose wrap around the plant and pole then a couple of extra wraps around without going around the plant. One you have a couple of ties on the same pole you don't need to do the multiple wraps around. The tie won't slip down past the previous ones.

Another method I use sometimes is to stretch a tie between 2 stakes then attach a tie from the plant to the one going between the stakes. I use this on cherry tomatoes since they send out a lot more vines than the regular ones do. I've also built squares between 4 stakes this way and just let the plants grow up through like a huge tomato cage.

Final results after an entire day of untangling tomato vines:

Not pretty but the tomatoes are off the ground. Day or 2 and the leaves will turn towards the light and thing will look better. Would have been better if I had put the stakes in when I put the plants and cages in. Also could have used at least 6 more stakes. If I do a garden next year there will be more stakes and more plants. As I mentioned in the previous post I'm also planning something different with the stake setup. Have to wait until next year to see how that goes.

I was kind of disappointed I didn't find a huge watermelon under all those tomato plants.