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  • From: "Jay Atkerson" <jatkerso AT bowlinggreen.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Tomato training
  • Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 15:57:34 -0500

I too, use 15' cattle panels but in a little different way. I do not cut
them in smaller pieces, but hang them on 8' landscape timber set 24 inches
in the ground. The panels hung at this level are about 15 inches off the
ground. The landscape timbers have a 20 penny nail driven at a slight angle
at the very top of the post where the cattle panel hangs. Often, midway
between the panel ends I drive a T-post to add further support in the wind.
Tomatoes (about three per 15' panel) are set out and pruned until they can
be tied to the panel with soft string or stretchy plastic tape designed for
tying plants. After many years of experimentation I have found this to be
the best way to support very heavy tomato growth and very easy to dismantle
at the end of the growing season.
----- Original Message -----
From: <bill AT farmerbill.downhomecountry.info>
To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 9:10 AM
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Tomato training


>
> rjweeks70 AT comcast.net wrote:
> > I wanted to poll the list and see what sort of tomato training everyone
does.
>
> I get 15' cattle panels @ about $15 per panel and cut them into pieces
> with bolt cutters, with 2 horizontal stays per piece. This gives about 8
> 15' pieces per panel @ roughly $2 apiece. I drive 5'-9' T-posts
> depending on whether I'm trellising peas or indeterminate tomatoes/ pole
> beans, with 3 posts per trellis and using the 2 end posts to support the
> 2 adjoining pieces. This gives a very stable trellis that should last
> for my lifetime, easy to move and costing about 50 cents a foot first
> year, free after that. The pieces store flat in a small area, although
> mine wind up staying put until they're needed or in the way. We've had
> 15 loaded tomato plants hanging from one trellis with no sagging. I
> either hang nylon netting from the stays for cucumbers, or run twine
> between the stays and a bottom piece of twine for tomatoes/pole beans
> and run the plants up the twine. You've got to prune the tomatoes until
> midseason though. 3 miles of baler twine for $22 is cheap and stringing
> it goes fast. Last year I tried double rows of tomatoes hanging from a
> central trellis with 5' between trellises, T-tape until the rains
> started, and using mulch for weed control. We got 17" of rain in central
> Ohio in August/September, and we need to try it again. Double rows of
> pole beans did great though. We had 500 tomato plants last year.
>
> > What do you like about your method of training? What don't you like?
>
> I like being able to reuse the trellises, multi-functional, no sagging,
> tomatoes seem healthy with close spacings, easy to pick. Dislikes would
> be time spent pruning and initial stringing up. I use these on my
> blackberries and grapes as well.
> --
> Bill Huhman
> South-Central Ohio
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