So typically on these videos I'm showing you guys stuff that I've done before
I've been doing a while kind of tried and true techniques in my book. But today I'm gonna try something
I've never tried before and I don't know if it's going to work now
I've seen it done and I think it'll work but we're just gonna have to see you see this row of cherry tomatoes right here
No, they're not that big yet. They haven't been planted that long
But today we're going to try a trellising technique that I've never tried
on cherry tomatoes or any tomatoes for that matter now, we've got our big plot of
Mostly determinate tomatoes right here, and these puppies are looking fine
I've came in here and put another
Run a string there for my Florida weave trellis. We showed you how to do that in a previous video
All these guys are looking super great. I think I did lose one or two plants on the
Very end down there, but that's okay. And then this row here, we've got all these indeterminate types, and we've got some cherry tomatoes
Down on the end here and we showed you how in that video
We're going to use these T posts with the Florida weave to trellis these guys and that's working good so far we've got
three one two three
Lines of string right on these and we'll be running the string all the way to the top of those posts there
so today instead of doing another Florida weave on this little row of cherry tomatoes over here what I'm gonna try is
I'm gonna try using our Hortonova trellis to kind of support these guys as they grow
I've seen it done before I've seen pictures of it never tried it myself, but it's worth the try
I don't really, you know need this row of tomatoes
It was just some extra plants I had and I figured hey
we'll just throw in this row on the end of this plot here and
Try a different technique and see if we like it better if it works better
I think it's going to be easier than doing the Florida weave for these cherry tomatoes
But we'll just have to see so we've got two cherry varieties along this row here the first half is this variety called Black
Zebra cherry, which I've never grown before
But man, they look just really really tasty
so I'm excited about trying those if they make it and
then on the far end down here that has plants that are a little bigger is
the Sweetie Cherry
variety, and I have some of those
Planted on that Florida weave section behind me here. These guys seem to grow a good bit faster than these Black
Zebras, do they're just a little more vigorous for whatever reason but the sweetie is just your standard red cherry tomato
Whereas this is more of a specialty type here now. I did lose a plant
So right there where that post is, I lost one plant there which you know, oh, well that happens and then this guy here
Don't know if you can see that there with my shadow
Just kind of leaned over a little bit the wind kind of broke it over
But I have noticed that the tomatoes they'll kind of stitch themselves up and recover a little bit even if that happens
So I think this one is gonna make it and it looks like the rest of them
are gonna make it. They're just not as big as those guys over there cause
We planted these a lot later. Like I said, they were just some extra plants I had and I was like well
I'll do something with them instead of just throwing them away
So before we run our Hortonova trellis on those cherry tomatoes over there
I want to talk a little bit just about the Hortonova trellis in general what I like to use it on, what I would
Use it on and maybe what I wouldn't use it on and show you a couple examples around my gardens
So here's our squash and cucumber plot in this area. We call the dream garden and I've got two rows of
Hortonova trellis cucumbers in here. I've got these Diomede
Cucumbers here and I've got some Stonewalls right there on the other side of the plot and I've been using these guys on cucumbers
For over a year now
Works really good. Now once these things get loaded up a little bit just completely covered with the vines
Loaded down with big cucumbers. It will sag just a little bit, but it doesn't bother me at all
You try to stretch it as tight as you can
when you're
putting it together there with the zip ties and
It holds these big cucumbers pretty well. You can see one dangling right there
so definitely a winner on cucumbers for me so far and
just got to get it stretched tight and
It'll hold for you. Pretty good
here's that other row of cucumbers I was talking about this is a Stonewall variety and
they haven't quite climbed as much as that Diomede variety has yet, but they're producing an equal amount of
cucumbers and
This is looking good liking the way this is going so far
You do have to train them a little bit in the beginning once they start climbing up that thing
They do it pretty well on their own and if we turn around here
we can see we've got our Kentucky blue pole beans on another one of these Hortonova trellises here and
Works really well for pole beans
I don't ever really see a whole lot of sagging at all with the pole beans of course beans are obviously
not near as heavy as cucumbers are with you know, the foliage or the fruits, but these things are starting to
load up with beans here and
holds these guys
Really really well, and then the last Hortonova trellis that I have set up currently is
another row of cucumbers kind of in our cucumber succession planting
So those two rows I showed you earlier. We're both slicers the Diomede and the Stonewall this here is the max pack
Variety, which is a pickling variety and those guys are climbing real good. I really haven't had to train these at all. They just
Are loving that trellis climbing up there? We've got blooms, you know all over these things here and
Should start being able to harvest those about any day now. So as you can see there works pretty dang good for cucumbers
Works pretty dang good for pole beans. Those are the two main
trellis crops
I grow and what I've really been using the Hortonova trellis for in the last
Year or so now the crops I wouldn't try to grow on it just because it does have some strength limitations
You know, it's not as strong as a cattle panel. It's never going to be it's like really thick fishing line. So I wouldn't
Try to grow like a butternut-squash on it or a really heavy winter squash
I had some people asking would you grow our Cherokee tan pumpkin on it? And I wouldn't
Those things just produce so much foliage. I think it would just swallow that Hortonova trellis
So there are some limitations on what you can grow on them. I
wouldn't grow
big
Beefsteak tomatoes on them. I don't think it would hold them that well
But I think with these cherry tomatoes since the fruits are a lot smaller it just may work
What are you doing up there taking a nap?
You're off duty for rat-catching today, so I'm not completely
Against cattle panels as a trellis. I have some as you can see here and I have used them for years
And they work great for that heavier stuff
They just take a little longer to put up
It's a lot more work to install them and put them up and if you're moving them around a lot, you know
That can be aggravating at times that Hortonova is just a little easier these things obviously
last a lot longer because we're comparing, you know fishing line to
galvanized
Steel there, but it is what it is. Some things are going to be better with a cattle panel
Some things are going to be a lot easier with the Hortonova
So let me go grab some zip ties and a pair of scissors
We'll get this Hortonova trellis up real quick like and then talk about maybe our strategy going forward
So I've got my bundle of Hortonova trellis here and we sell this in several different lengths and heights. We've got a
4-foot tall version. We've got a 59 inch tall version, which is what I'm using today
so basically five foot tall and then several different lengths now, I like the big one here, which is
328 feet long and
I like it because I always have it I can cut it to length. This stuff doesn't go bad
This is a roll I've had since last year, so I'm never really worried about do I have enough?
I've got a big roll here. I can cut it the length as I need it
You know, most of my rows are only 30 to 40 foot long
But it's nice to always have it when you need it and you want to throw up a trellis with a quickness
So the first thing I'm going to do is, I'm just going to roll this thing out
To my approximate row length and so I'll just kind of unfold it here
And this stuff actually unrolls pretty nice. It's not messy at all. I'm just gonna put this brick down right here to hold it there
And I'm just gonna start to unroll it till I get down to the end of my row
And then down here
I've got my last tea post on this row and so I'm just going to kind of cut it to an approximate length
There we can
Trim it up later. Once we get it all secured with the zip ties
All right now for this stuff to work really well, you got to get it nice and tight
So the first thing I'm going to do is just unravel it here the very end
I'm gonna put the top up here on the top of this tea post just so it kind of stays right there
And then I can pull
Down on here on the bottom and get it nice and tight
I'm gonna try to get it as close to the bottom as I can
And I'm just gonna put me a zip tie down here
kind of
Cinch it in place
And then I'll put me another zip tie here
at the top
I'll put me one more here in the middle
And then instead of worrying about these posts in the middle
What we're going to do is we're going to go all the way to the very end
We're going to pull this thing as tight as we can and get it real tight that works better in my opinion
Then getting it tight to this next post into the next post into the next post you pull it real tight
from one end to the next
then
Zip tie it around those middle posts after you've got it tight from end to end
it seems to work a lot better that way so now on the other end of the row and
I've got it cinched on that post way down there and I'm just going to fold this stuff out
Just like that right there actually
There we go, so we've got to unravel there and we can kind of
Sneak it behind these tomato plants here in a minute
But the first thing I want to do is pull it as tight as I can
And I'm going to hook it around the top of that tee post there
And then that's what I'm going to zip tie in place here to make sure it's super super tight
Along the top here
Yeah we go, alright and then I'm just gonna make sure
We're on the right side of these tomato plants here before I
Cinch it down real tight
On the bottom. Get me another zip tie here pull it real tight and
there we go and then
We just want to put one in the middle here
For good measure
Alright so you can see here
We've got it pretty dadgum tight from end to end now we're going to worry about these middle posts
And what I'll do is I'll do the bottom first
Then the top so I want to make sure it's stretched nice from top to bottom and then put the middle one in there
So I'm going to get it all the way down here at the bottom
Zip tie it there pull it as tight as I can here at the top
And then we'll make sure we get one in the middle here
Now we'll do that for all these middle posts and
Got a nice solid trellis here. Alright. Alright. Alright, there she is
nice and tight there
You just got a start on one end
Get it tight on the other end and then worry about the middle post. Now, this is
The million dollar question. How do I treat these plants now and some of you that grow tomatoes on cattle panels might could tell me
Do I need to just kind of weave those plants as they grow?
In and through that stuff and one good thing about this stuff here is it's a little bit flexible as opposed to a cattle panel
so we can
Work our plants in and out of there without worrying about breaking them. So
Should I do that or should I use some zip ties and kind of cinch them?
to that trellis as
They grow up at night
I kind of would rather not have to do that because I think I'd have to leave the zip ties kind of loose
Because the plant stem grows, I don't want it to be constricted by a zip tie or anything
So I'm hoping I can just kind of weave them through here and they'll kind of you know grab around
These different little rungs of this trellis here as they grow and hopefully that will hold them
So if you do grow tomatoes on a trellis like this, let me know what you think
I should do should just let them kind of crawl
Through it as they grow up or should I cinch them to it there?
To anchor them even further and I'll be sure to keep you guys updated as these plants grow
Vertically along this Hortonova trellis as to you know, how I think it works as a good
effective
Method for trellising smaller cherry tomatoes like I mentioned I think actually I know this is quicker
than doing the Florida weave like we did before but we'll just have to see if it is as effective as
doing that, Florida weave
I'll put some links below so you can check out all of our Hortonova trellis
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