(cheerful music)
- Welcome back to "Jacques in the Garden."
Today, we're going to be talking
about trellising and tying up tomatoes.
So in a previous video,
I showed you how I built or refreshed this bed
and actually planted these six tomatoes.
So today we're gonna go over
a few different options for how to trellis.
I actually don't still have a favorite.
There's I don't even know how many different ways
to actually tie up or trellis a tomato,
but I wanted to show you a couple of the ones
that I've used in the past,
and a couple that I'm gonna be using this year.
And after we set up this bed,
we'll actually also go over
how to trellis a tomato in a grow bag
for those of you who are growing in containers.
So with that,
let's get right into tying up some of these guys,
and we'll start with a simple single string method.
So one of the most simple methods for tying up tomatoes
is the single string method.
I've used a lot of different types of string
or twine in the past,
from jute fabrics to cotton twine,
and they all either break
or I find that the jute is so abrasive
that it gives my tomatoes more diseases.
So this past year, I've actually switched to using Paracord.
I'll look up the exact dimension of this one that I'm using,
but Paracord is great because it's entirely UV stable,
doesn't rot, doesn't break, could hold like 200 pounds,
so no matter how big your tomato gets,
you know you're gonna be secure with the Paracord strength.
So the way to start this,
I'm gonna start with this one back here,
pull a string down,
and there's a couple options
for how you could secure it to the base.
In this case, I just have a twig from the garden,
and all I've done is I've wrapped the paracord
around it a few times,
and tied a simple knot.
Another option is you could also use a garden stake,
or really anything that you could just shove in the ground.
Some people like to just tie a little loop
around the base of the tomato,
but I find that this works well,
and I have plenty of sticks around the yard.
So I'm gonna throw the string over the top,
so now I have it on both sides.
I'm gonna come in with the stake,
and I'm going to push it into the ground
right at the base level of this tomato plant,
and I'm gonna push it in so that the knot
is essentially either in the soil surface,
like right underneath it, or just at the surface.
So once you do that, I like to start my tomato
by actually coming in and wrapping around the base.
So I'll bring you in a little closer,
so you guys could see that.
So this tomato here is a Sungold tomato,
and what I'm gonna do is a tiny bit of cleanup.
So I have a branch and a sucker.
The sucker is the little growth
that comes out in between each separate leaf node.
So this is a leaf and this is a sucker,
but I wanna take off this lower one,
because it's so low to the ground that even if it fruits,
the fruit's just gonna be sitting on the ground,
which I don't want to happen.
So I'm gonna clean that up,
and then I'm gonna take my string,
and what I'm gonna do is just twirl it around my tomato.
Oh, the string fell from the top, but that's fine.
We could just bring it back up.
I'm gonna wrap it around.
And when you wrap around a sucker and leaf node,
I like to go underneath the leaf,
so that way, that you're not putting pressure
on the actual sucker,
but you're putting it on
both the combination of leaf and sucker,
which is a little bit stronger,
less likely to damage your plant.
So I'm gonna keep wrapping,
and there's another leaf node.
And the other thing you wanna be careful for
are the actual fruit stems,
'cause if you put all the pressure on there,
you could end up snapping those.
So I'm gonna skip that by just wrapping the string above it.
Come around that one,
and now we're at the top of the tomato plant.
So again, I have a leaf node
and another sucker branch come out,
so I'm gonna wrap the string
right underneath that leaf node.
I'm gonna come around.
There's another leaf node right here,
so I'm gonna go underneath it,
and then I'm gonna make sure that right here,
I go over the fruit section.
That way, there's no pressure underneath the branch,
which could break it.
Now, once I do that,
you could see that when I pull taut on the string,
it's actually very supported.
The tomato's now upright,
and the whole plant has something to lean against,
which makes it much more strong and less likely to fall over
from wind or anything like that.
So now you have a couple different choices here.
You could either tie a special knot
that allows you to loosen the slack over time,
so that you could keep wrapping it around.
That's called the Parisian method.
Personally, I'm really bad at knots,
so I've tried this in the past,
and no matter what I do,
I just can't seem to figure out the knots right.
So I'm gonna just go with a simple sort of overhand knot,
right at the top,
and you could see there's a decent amount of tension
on that to tomato.
And I'm gonna go back with another knot
and just tighten it up.
So this is now not going to release any slack,
unless I force it to release slack.
So at this point, what'll happen is,
if you don't release the slack,
you're not gonna have enough string
to kind of keep wrapping around the tomato,
and that's where you could go into something else,
like using a tomato trellis clip.
So I found that these little guys, the tomato trellis clips,
are really handy
for when you don't wanna deal with loosening the string,
wrapping it around,
and these can clip onto most anything.
This is kind of probably the thickest sort of Paracord
that you could use for this.
But the way it works is
that there's a little teeth in the middle,
and a little clamp, so if you go around,
oops, go around the string,
and you push the two clamps together,
you now have a clamp that can't slide up and down,
and now the tomato can grow up right in the middle of that.
So that's kind of the easiest way to set this up.
I still like to start with the wrap at the bottom,
because I feel like it gives a tomato
really good support at the beginning.
But as this grows, I will be just clamping on these guys
to keep supporting the tomato plant.
(cheerful music)
So this next method I want to just mention really quick.
I won't be doing it in this bed, but you certainly could.
I will be doing this when I plant my like 20 other tomatoes
out in a big section of the garden,
but what that is is the basket weave or the Florida weave,
and that's where you kind of just tie a section of string
every couple feet or every maybe foot or so.
So the way that system would work,
if you wanna look into it,
is that you would start
by going on the outside of a tomato plant,
come down, go around the opposite end
of the next tomato plant.
So now the string's on this side,
and on this tomato, it's on this side,
so on this next one, it's gonna go in front again,
and the idea is that when you come back around,
you actually do the opposite.
So now I'm gonna gonna come around the back, the front,
and the back again,
and what you get is this basket that supports
all the tomato plants together,
and that stops them from leaning one way or the other.
So you could totally do something like that here,
but I'm gonna save that for when I have my TEPO system out
for 20 tomato plants,
because I think it's just gonna be more robust there.
And this example, what I wanted to show you guys,
is a nice method for really a low maintenance
sort of trellis setup,
where you don't have to worry about pruning suckers
or supporting different parts of the plant.
And that is that you could actually just use
a classic garden trellis net.
In this case, this one is a five by 30 foot,
so this is gonna be a little awkward as I unfold this.
I don't know where the tail end or the front is.
(cheerful music)
Okay. (laughs)
So I found where it starts, which is right here.
So there are a couple advantages
and disadvantages to this system.
The advantage is that it gives you a lot of options
to attach your tomato plants to it.
The downside is that you kind of have to deal with
this tangly mess at the start at least.
So what I'll do is I'm gonna find the corner.
All right, so now I have my corner.
Usually these trellis nets come with
a little bit of loose string.
I think the idea is that that's enough
to tie around something,
but I've never used something
that has that tiny of a diameter.
So instead, what we're gonna do
is use a cable tie or a zip tie.
When you use these, you wanna make sure you get ones
that are called UV stabilized.
Generally the black ones are.
That means it'll hold up in the sun
and it won't snap on you.
So this is like a sort of a single-use plastic,
but in this use case,
it's quite nice because nothing else will work as well.
I have in the past tried doing it
with like a little piece of wire,
and that works all right,
but honestly, nothing beats the convenience of these guys.
So just to start,
I'm going to just tighten it up around the end corner,
because that's gonna give me an easy working start point.
So there's that.
And then I'm gonna come down to the opposite end
and tie off that section,
and that way I could sever
the rest of this long leftover netting
and save it for another use.
All right, so I'm pretty happy with that,
so now what I'm gonna do is come down
and just slice that off.
I'm gonna say that you're gonna wanna go
maybe two squares past where you think you need it,
just in case.
Things get a little weird sometimes.
All right.
So that's much better.
Now we don't have all that extra netting hanging out,
and we could start actually supporting this whole structure.
What we're gonna do here
is just to try to limit how many cable ties we need,
I'm going to put probably four across the top,
and then I'm gonna end up using
maybe two on each side of this conduit.
So I'm gonna come in above this middle
or in between these two tomatoes,
tying that down,
and then again, between these two,
and then one at the end.
What we're gonna wanna do at this next point
is come in and tying this up,
so it has a nice rigid structure to it.
So I'm gonna come in on the bottom corner with a zip tie,
and then tie it as low to the base that I can
without really ripping this.
So you can see I'm now behind this trellis netting.
The beauty of this setup
is that once this starts growing,
these tomato clips can clip onto this
at any one of these different squares.
So if you wanna clip over here, over here,
wherever you want,
you could fill this whole thing
with these little tomato clip nets.
The other thing you could also do
is just pull the sucker through one of these nettings,
and allow it to grow on the outside.
This is really an ideal setup
if you don't wanna prune in your tomatoes too much,
because this is going to allow you to support
as many suckers as you could possibly get on a plant
without worrying about where you're gonna tie it off,
where you're gonna support it,
and that's really the beauty of this system.
The other thing that I'll do
is sometimes I'll come down with a string,
tie it to a steak, and put it down in the ground,
and that lets me get a little lower.
In this case, this is only five foot length, which is fine,
because this beginning growth stage
doesn't really need that much support,
so once my tomatoes get up to this point,
I'm gonna, I could actually clip this one, so I'll do that,
is you're gonna come around,
grab your tomato in between one of the clips,
and then bring it into the trellis netting, and clip.
So now this plant is going to wanna grow up
along this netting,
and it's not going to be able to go too far out that way.
It's gonna be supported from the wind,
and once it starts bearing fruit,
this whole net is going to support
this whole entire three tomato system.
So like I mentioned,
I already tied up this part of the tomato plant here,
but if I don't wanna prune the suckers off,
the great thing about this is
that you could grab your second sucker here, bring it in,
and the beauty of the trellis net
is that you don't actually
need to be on the vertical to clip it.
So I could come in on this lower horizontal section,
set my clip, bring my tomato in,
and clip it there,
and so now what that does is it forces this tomato
to grow two separate paths without crowding themselves.
So that's really the thing I like about this,
is that you have so many different options to clip.
This is also really great for things like cucumbers
or binding squash as well.
So as promised,
I am gonna show you how I set up a tomato
if it's in a container,
and actually that trellis net system would work
if you set it up with like four containers underneath,
and just put a trellis net over it
but I like to do something like this.
So this is one that I built earlier,
like maybe three weeks ago now,
and you could see that the structure of the cage
is not something you could buy off the shelf,
but it is something you could make
with parts that you buy off the shelf.
So I'll show you exactly how to do that.
But first, let's set up the grow bag
and get our tomato in there,
and I'll talk a little bit about
how I think about planting tomatoes,
and also this is a nice little hack
that I personally really like,
is you could tilt your wheelbarrow backwards.
Makes it really easy
for you to actually get soil into containers.
So this container here is a 15 gallon root pouch.
It's a grow bag, and it's a new style that I'm trying out.
These root pouches have been really nice.
I've had 'em now,
I've had a few of them now for over a year.
The reason why I like them
more than some of the other grow bags I've tried
is that this material is a little bit thicker,
which actually stops the water
from running out the sides when you water it.
So traditionally, when I've watered other grow bags,
I'll add the water and I'll see all the water seep
as soon as it hits the side of the bag.
In this case, since this is thicker,
it allows the water to actually travel down into the soil,
which is really great,
and it's very frustrating
when you try to go water your grow bags
and all the water just runs out.
What I've done is I've filled this up about halfway,
and now I want to start test fitting this tomato plant here.
So this is a Early Girl Improved tomato.
I potted this up about a month ago.
So what I wanna do is put it in the ground
and see how deep I want to bury it.
Every part that you bury can grow roots,
which makes it more healthy and robust.
Instead of starting up here and having its root ball here,
it'll have its root ball down below
and then start creating new roots up above it,
which is really handy
for when you want to make watering really easy.
So at this point, I think it's a little low,
because I'm actually going to keep this tomato here
that's already set,
and a lot of people will tell you
that you have to actually remove
your tomatoes and your flowers,
but I found that to just not be true.
A tomato plant, if it can't support a flower or a tomato,
it'll simply drop it.
Now, in some cold climates, you might be better off
actually removing the flowers and the tomatoes,
because if you don't,
it'll probably be too cold
for that fruit to mature properly.
But here in San Diego,
we already are above 50 degrees at night,
and so there's really no risk
for the tomato to develop improperly.
So that looks about right.
What I'm gonna do now is take off these lower branches.
So what I like to do once I actually set my tomato
at the depth that I like,
is I'll actually come in
and throw a little layer of fertilizer there,
because that's where those first roots are going to be.
So I'm gonna just sprinkle it in around that section,
and that'll be layer one,
and now we could continue filling this pot.
Looks like I'm gonna have to get more soil.
By the way, this soil is about, oh, it's a mix,
one-third high quality potting mix,
or sorry, one-third compost,
two-thirds high quality potting mix,
and then I like to spring in some warm castings as well.
So now that tomatoes at the height that I want,
you could see that I left about two to three inches of soil.
I'm gonna actually come in,
sprinkle a last little layer of, not compost, fertilizer,
and now we're gonna actually construct our cage.
So what you see here before you is welded wire fencing
and this is one that's two inches by four inches.
If you could find one that's bigger,
that would be more ideal,
because it's gonna make it easier
to reach in and pull out your tomatoes,
but if not, you could always cut out a little section.
So what I'm gonna do is unspool this a little bit,
and try to wrap it around my pot,
so I can get an idea of what sort of length I need to cut.
So I'm gonna cut right here,
and what I'm gonna do is I'm not gonna cut it
as close to here as I can.
I'm actually gonna cut it so I have a tail left over,
and I'll show you why that is.
(cheerful music)
Now we have the basic structure of the cage cut out.
What I'm gonna do is come in
and nestle it inside the bag.
Now, the reason why I left these tails here
is that instead of having to use the zip tie,
what you could do is pull that tail over, grab it,
and you could twist it around the next cell.
So now this is tight and it's not gonna go anywhere.
So that's kind of a free thing,
because you already need to cut this.
You might as well reuse that metal for something useful.
The annoying thing I'll mention
is that you will tend to have
these little kind of sharper points,
so you want to angle them down
so that they're easier to avoid.
So now I'm gonna just go ahead
and twist around this whole structure.
Now you have your cage.
It's nice and secure.
What you could do is slip it over your tomato,
and if you twist it back and forth while pushing down,
you could bury that first cell entirely underground.
Now, if you wanna add a little bit more support,
you could grab a U-post,
which has these little clips.
and what you could do is drop it in.
Since this is just potting mix, it's very nice and light.
You don't don't need to hammer it in
like you would in traditional, like in your garden soil,
and what I'm gonna do is push it
until this little fin down here is buried,
and then I wanna get to a point where this welded wire
is gonna be able to sit on those little clips
that I just showed you.
So now that the U-post is on there,
it's gonna give it much more support.
It has no way to lean over or flop over.
This is now entirely a solid tomato cage.
Now, when it comes to harvesting,
one thing to consider is if you use a cage like this,
is that it's gonna be a lot easier for cherries,
because you could actually bend these quite easily
and then fit your hand through.
The other thing you could do is that, as you're harvesting,
you could actually go ahead
and just cut a square out every other section,
and that gives you a lot more space to get inside,
grab a tomato.
The advantage of this over a traditional tomato cage
is that it has a lot more support,
it's much taller,
and it's not gonna be gated by a little funnel shape.
So that's personally why I like doing this.
The last step would be to add some mulch on top,
but anyway, that's the whole point of this tomato cage,
is that you have a nice, stable structure
and your tomato can now grow like this one
and have total support,
and you're not gonna be worried
about your tomato flopping over.
So there's the original
and the new one that I just built for you guys.
I need to go back and tie those tomatoes up
before they flop over.
Thanks for watching.
I hope you guys picked up a few different trellis tips,
and I'll see you guys next time.
(soft guitar music)