CHEAP and EASY tomato trellis tutorial | Maximize your garden space. Grow vertically!

hey friends and welcome back to the garden today i'm going to do a quick how-to video on how to trellis your tomatoes via the string method but first i want to give you a quick overview of the string method what we did last year that worked and what we're doing a little differently this year so let's go so here's a snapshot of our garden last year where i also used the string trellising method however i used a wood beam here where this year i'm using a wire cable and the reason that we're using wire cable this year is that i have a lot more tomato plants that i need to support and it's just going to be more cost effective but here i planted 13 tomatoes right down the middle about a foot apart and this is the reason i love the string trellising method it is just super simple allowing you to fit a lot of tomato plants in a small space and it just keeps it nice and tidy and you don't have to worry about your stems breaking because it's all held by a single stem on a single piece of twine and tomato clips then tied at the top right around your primary support whether that's a wood beam or in our case this year wire like i said earlier we have a lot more tomato plants this year so i've had to get creative about how we set up our tomato beds overall our tomato beds are pretty narrow about 2 feet by 10 feet and we've got 13 tomato plants in each one when i planted these tomato plants i offset them by roughly 18 inches in a zigzag pattern to still allow for plenty of light and air per plant the primary focus for those using the string trellising method needs to be pruning your tomato plants really well if you don't then your tomato plants start to get bushy and what that does is that limits the amount of air circulation and sun that each tomato plant gets and invites disease so this is what i mean when i say prune i mean taking out these little suckers in the armpit of the plant here some people call it the crotch of the plant and you want to get them when they're really young so they don't create a secondary stem here's a really small one but if you leave them they come up pretty fast but here's a slightly bigger one that you can see right here and you can see that the primary stem is up here and so this guy is just extra and needs to go or you're going to have a bushy plan so here we are at our second tomato bed we did already build our first one just as a quick run through to make sure that it was stable and it would do the trick but here we are with our 2 by 2 by 8 wood beams and all you really need for this is a drill and a circular saw just to help make the brace and here is the wire it's essentially like a clothesline and it can hold up to about a hundred pounds and we're going to be doubling this over to where it will definitely be able to support six to eight plants that will be on it the top hole is for the wire to go through and then the ones at the bottom here are just pre-drilled uh for the base so we're just putting two screws in at the bottom here one at the very base here about two inches up and then one about two three inches below the bed so it will also be handy for you to have a level to make sure that it's straight up so it looks pretty as well so we now have our four beams in place and we are just measuring between the two right here so that we can put a brace between the tops here so it makes it sturdier so it can withstand wind and hold the tomatoes in place and just for prettiness making sure it's level and by the magic of youtube here we are already done and the reason we have different colors here is we did reuse some of the wood from last year from our uh previous tomato trellis and so just to cut a little bit of a cost now we are going to work on our wire support we measured the wire roughly the size of the bed plus a little extra and doubled it over itself to where we have a folded end on one side which we will call the halfway point and the two cut wire ends on the other side which will later be connected to the drill to twist the two wires into one cable so what i'm doing now is i'm feeding the wire through the pre-made hole at the top here until we get to our halfway point and then we're gonna start twisting it and now we're at the halfway point and we're gonna start twisting so you do need this little hook part that attaches into the drill and then you take your two wires that you already cut the sides on and you fold them over to where it's secure before you start twisting so we pulled the wire out kind of at a diagonal kind of taut so we can start twisting this is the trickiest part of the whole operation you could technically do this with pliers but it would take a long time and a lot of wrist work here is our end product twisted nice and tight and theoretically will hold twice the weight of a single wire here we took the pliers and we just cut off the ends that were around the hook so that we can put it through the hole that we made earlier on the other side of the beam so i just pulled the wire through here and making sure it's tight but not too tight to where it pulls on the other wood pole here and then you bring it around and you start twisting the two lines together i went ahead and did the first trellis and already put it up just to show you guys how to do step by step but it's really just a lot easier to go ahead and take your twine and go ahead and tie it on while it's down like this so you don't have to get on a ladder for each one here i'm taking our pre-cut twine and knotting the top part just over our twisted wire support in every 18 inch increments to hang just above each tomato plant all right so i measured this twine at seven feet because our wood poles are eight feet long and i want them to be just a little shy of all the way in the bed because this is what will essentially take on the whole weed of the plant and for the string trellising method you need these little clips i'm sure there's several different kinds of them but these have worked well for me they've got this little uh tooth a little groove here where it goes right around the twine and then you clasp around the stem in this part so i'll give you a little close-up of that [Music] so here is our tomato clip [Music] see the little tooth here you want to get it right behind the tooth there and then you'll grab right underneath one of your tomato arms and then clip so that it holds it in place using your tomato clips will just take a little bit of practice but ultimately what i like to do is i like to take my tomato clip put it about an inch above the next uh leaf stem so that it's got a little bit of grab to it extra support but not so tight to the point that it might break off this leaf stem that might be a little tight but you just practice with it ultimately what you're trying to do though is get enough support to wear it when it's windy like it is right now that your tomatoes can withstand it and it's done a great job i've had some pretty severe storms and all of my tomatoes none of them snapped and i think that that's one of the extra benefits of the string method [Music] [Music] hey oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] and here is our first tomato bed the finished product all tomatoes strung and pruned i'll take you on over to the second bed over here and it's looking good a special thank you to my husband who was the mastermind behind all of this and helped me with every little step thanks for joining us guys we'll see you again next time [Music]

Channel: The Hopeful Gardener

Views: 104,488

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Id: 7lm-c92Cki8

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Tue May 17 2022