The BEST Method Of Tying Tomatoes: String Trellis Tomatoes

good afternoon everyone it's May 16th and it is another gorgeous day here on the south eastern coast of North Carolina and today I want to show you what I believe is the best way of trellising your indeterminate tomatoes I've covered almost every method of supporting Tomatoes there is on my youtube channel I've discussed staking and single stemming your Tomatoes which I'll link to above and is probably the simplest and cheapest way there is to support your indeterminate tomato vines I've covered placing cages around your Tomatoes which I've tried with smaller determinants and dwarf Tomatoes with some success I've built strong trellises out of T post and welded wire fence which I will link to above and that is a significant notch above using tomato steaks because it allows you to grow multiple main stems and support them beyond what tomato steaks can do and just recently I showed you how to Florida weave your Tomatoes using simple twine and wood Stakes which I will link to above as well while all of these methods have their pros they also have their cons the cons of using tomato steaks is they offer the least amount of support so you are forced to prune your plants to one main stem or have a tomato plant that grows out of control overwhelms the stake and eventually fruit clusters will get knocked off and branches will snap by winds and storms the cons of using cages are they're almost always under sized if you buy them at a store and even if you build your own custom out of something like concrete wire it forces the tomato foliage to grow in a dense central cluster that inhibits air flow and low air flow means you're creating a breeding ground for fungal diseases the cons of using t-posts and welded wire fence is it becomes very difficult to build the trellis with good strength taller than 6 or 7 feet and in most climates the tomato vines will be growing over the trellis by midsummer and you'll have to top your tomato plants early limiting their late season production and while florida weave is a fantastic way to trellis smaller Tomatoes like determinate and dwarf tomato varieties it struggles to support indeterminate tomato vines and just like the welded wire fence trellis you usually run out of room at 6 to 7 feet tall this is where I want to show you the best indeterminate tomato trellising method that exists string trellis in year 2 on hooks this method solves all of the problems of the other methods it allows you to grow as many main stems as you want it promotes airflow and helps slow disease by allowing your tomato plants to grow with a perfectly open center and it allows you to grow your tomatoes to a virtually unlimited height the height is only limited by the amount of twine on your tomato hook I have over 20 feet of twine bundled on my hooks so I can grow tomato plants taller than 20 feet if I want which is impossible in my roughly 250 day growing season there is only one con to this method it requires more expensive infrastructure and more individual pieces of equipment than some of the other methods now before I show you my setup you can do this on the cheap you can simply buy some 7 or 8 foot tall t-posts install them 6 to 10 feet apart pound them 18 inches into the ground and attach airplane cable to the top and you will have a five and a half to six and a half foot tall trellis so you do not have to have a massive overbuilt setup like I do you can actually do this cheaper then you can the t-post and welded wire fence method but you will need some more equipment before I tell you the equipment you need all of this stuff is linked in my Amazon storefront so check it out in the video description if you want the items that I use to build this the keys to my setup are 1/8 inch stainless steel airplane cable airplane cable thimbles clamps and turnbuckles you can purchase all of these as one single kit on Amazon I hooks and or cup hooks for the posts airplane cable cutters to cut the eighth inch steel cable double tomato hooks with twine and plant support clips now that you have all of the equipment that you need I'll show you my setup and how it works so the foundation of my garden support are these four by fours they're ten feet long and they're buried 3 feet deep so ostensibly at the top of all of these I have airplane cable that is mounted 7 feet high and this airplane cable is attached at each corner post from corner post to corner post and you can see it runs across the perimeter of my entire garden on the beginning side of the trellis I have the stainless steel cable that is looped into a u and inside that loop there's something called a thimble this comes in the thimble and turnbuckle kit and that helps the stainless steel cable maintain that rigid eye form and then the cable is doubled back around and then we place one of the clamps over it and I used a simple pair of bolt cutters to compress the clamp and make it completely sturdy and this end is fed over one of these open cup hooks so what we do is we take our airplane cable and we cut it longer than the length that we need and that's because we want there to be a little bit of slack for the installation so what we do is we loop that through this piece called a turnbuckle and we install the length of cable with the turnbuckle open completely so it's fully extended and then we hook that turnbuckle on to this eyelet here and it's important that you use a closed eyelet so the turnbuckle can't come loose then you simply take this turnbuckle and you turn it you turn it to increase the tension and that is going to pull the slack out of the cable as I turn this in it pulls the cable this way and it shortens the overall run and that is how we get a very nice tension in our cable and then on top of all of our intermediate posts I have this blue Hawk shelf hook that I bought from Lowe's they are a five pack for twenty dollars they're made for indoor shelving and on each of the intermediate hooks I have one of them and the purpose of these Shelf hooks is to simply make sure that there's no slack in the cable and this allows me to have a nice tight installation that isn't sagging in the center so now you know how the overhead trellis wire works I want to show you how it's connected here I have my cherry tomato you can see how the cherry tomato has the twine running down and it's held on by these plant clips so the clips clip on to the twine so we can simply follow the tomato clips up the twine and the twine go all the way up to those double tomato hooks right there and on there's double tomato hooks you'll see there is over 20 feet of twine spooled so I can in theory grow tomatoes over 20 feet tall with his setup and this is actually what the double tomato hooks look like they are manufactured by a company called am Leonard and while they are occasionally stocked on Amazon they usually are not in stock so I purchased these directly from AM Leonard they were $5.99 for a 10 pack and they have coupon codes often so I was able to get actually an even better deal than that so I have a whole bunch of these and they come pre manufactured with the twine already on it and it's a synthetic twine I think it's nylon so it will not wear out and Bend and stretch out with the elements like a cotton twine will and the other thing that we need are these trellis clamps these trellis clamps are what attaches to both the plant and the string so right here is where the string will go and you close this piece around the string and then if you imagine my finger is your tomato or cucumber vine or whatever you want to grow that snaps on around that stem so this is the stem it's fully supported and then the string runs vertically and it hooks on to this so it allows very little wiggle room with the tension of the twine on there now let's show you how to actually attach the trellis clips to the twine you'll see that I started to attach the trellis clips to the twine but the plant continued to grow so this whole piece right here is completely unsupported it's growing off of the twine so what I am going to do is I'm going to take my trellis clip and I'm going to pull the twine towards the clip and then I'm going to partially close the clip and now that is going to hook on to the twine and it's not going to be able to go anywhere so I'm going to take this and I'm gonna pull the main stem over and simply clip it like that so now this clip is completely secure around the tomato main stem and as I move the twine it's going to take the main stem of the tomato with it and that is what is going to provide our support and this system is very strong we have had many wind storms with 40 to 50 mile an hour gusts the spring it's been a very stormy spring and because the twine moves with the motion of the wind it actually doesn't fight against it so it discourages breaking it's very strong and it's a great way to support your plan in much heavier storm winds than you think it would now that you see how the attachments work I'm going to show you how to install a new tomato hook so here is my cherry tomato again you can see this main stem all the way over to the left is getting loaded with fruit clusters and it's completely unsupported so if I don't add something to it very soon it's going to snap under the weight so now I'm going to show you how to add another tomato hook I'm going to unravel the twine that comes with the tomato hook and I'm going to put this rubber band that comes with it back on just to hold it securely and I'm simply going to take this and I'm going to put it on top of the trellis and I'm going to move it over here so it's roughly in line with this main stem that's completely unsupported right here so now I have this new piece of twine that's hanging down I'm simply going to move the plant over I'm going to take this clip right here I'm going to pinch it on and I'm going to attach that to this branch and that is going to hold the tomato plant main stem in place then I'm going to take another clamp and I'm going to put it on up here and I'm going to pull the vine towards the clamp and hook it on just like that this entire main stem that was completely hanging down is supported but one of the absolute best things about this method is it's not just limited to Tomatoes it also is fantastic for staking cucumbers and anything else that grows vertically here you can see a cucumber vine I'm going to have this trellising up as well so all I have to do to trellis the cucumber is again take the clamp and then catch the catch the twine with it then hold the plant and then clamp it around the main stem of the plant and that is going to help the plant climb vertically you'll see this is a pretty big cucumber plant I have two of these tomato hooks on there so I'm going to do the same thing with this and now that's clamped on as well the other thing you'll notice is with these cucumbers there's a bit of slack in here so it's not holding with a lot of rigidity and that is not a problem at all there's a lot of slack in here so all you have to do is tug down on this cable a little bit wrap the twine around two or three times and that is going to pick the plants up so now my cucumber plants are picked up and they look very different than they did before this will keep them off the ground which will help resist pests that crawl all over the ground and keep that off my plants as well as provide more airflow for disease resistance it's Sunday May 17th and as luck would have it tropical storm Arthur formed overnight off the coast of Florida and it is now right off the coast of North Carolina and while it is not hitting us directly and we're not getting any rain we have been getting sustained twenty plus mile an hour winds all day with gusts and easily the 30 to 40 mile an hour range so this is a fantastic opportunity to show you all exactly how these string trellises are handling such gusty winds with a tropical storm right off of our coast here you can see how my tomato plants are blowing around in the fairly gusty winds and you may be asking yourself how can a string trellis provide nearly the amount of support and stability as a wooden stake or metal wire fence that you tie your Tomatoes to possibly could and there's actually an engineering explanation to that when you tie your tomato plants to a rigid surface like a tomato stake or a piece of welded wire fence or cattle panel that structure along with your tomato plant is absorbing nearly 100% of the force of the wind because it does not flex something very different is happening with the string trellises you can see how they're bending and they are flexing harmonically with the wind these string trellises have an element of expansion and deflection built into them so as the wind blows they expand and deflect in their motion with the wind they are only absorbing a fraction of the total force of the wind that a tomato steak or a piece of rigid cattle panel or metal wire fence will absorb so anything you tie to these string trellises are going to Bend and flex with the wind and they're not going to get nearly as beaten up because they're not going to absorb nearly the amount of force from the wind and the last thing I want to discuss with you on this video is my claim that you can grow your tomatoes or cucumbers to a virtually unlimited height with this string trellis method like I've mentioned multiple times up here I have over 20 feet of twine spooled up you'll see if I unwrap the twine right here I will be effectively lowering my cucumber or my tomato to the ground so what happens is your cucumbers and your Tomatoes they fruit up the vine and then as the fruits from the bottom of the vines mature you will be able to pick them off and remove them and just be left with a clean vine that you can then spool on the ground like a garden hose you can coil up your tomato and cucumber vines like a garden hose and just keep letting this string down and let it continually trellis up and up this up the string infinitely you can put a hundred feet of string on here if you want and that will allow you to grow in theory a 100 foot tall tomato or cucumber vine if it were physically possible to grow such a plant that big and then you simply tie them up as necessary and now my cucumber right here is picked right back up the way it was and as that continues to grow if it reaches this height right here I will simply lower the cucumber down as I need it because I have all of the trellis that I want right up here and there you have it everybody that is what I think is the absolute best method of trellising indeterminate tomatoes out there everyone thank you all so much for watching this video if you found it helpful please hit that like button and if you haven't already subscribed to the channel please subscribe for future updates and more videos like these if you're curious about anything I use in my garden including all of the equipment that you see to build this trellis everything I use is linked in my Amazon storefront in the video description thank you all again so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video

Channel: The Millennial Gardener

Views: 213,683

Keywords: trellis tomatoes, tying tomatoes, tomato trellis, string trellis tomatoes, the best tomato trellis, tying up tomatoes, cucumber trellis, trellis cucumbers, garden trellis, supporting tomatoes, florida weave, tomato stakes, tomato cages, best trellis, cattle panel tomatoes, how to trellis cucumbers, how to trellis tomatoes, how to string tomatoes, growing tomatoes, how to grow tomatoes, staking tomatoes, tomato stringing, florida weave tomatoes, string trellising tomatoes

Id: gxrAz8bWMXM

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020