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| Huge tomatoes and it's only July 7th! |
My tomato plants are gigantic! I mean huge. Bigger than I've ever grown. Maybe some of you out there grow them this big every year and my photo is nothing new. However, in my neck of the woods, I'd be lucky to have them this tall by the end of the season, NOT beginning of July. How tall are they? Well, look at the picture again. That's my husband peeking out from behind them. (He is 5'10".) This is after I already trimmed the plants back! That's tall for tomatoes in my book!
How this luck descended upon my garden I'm not sure, however, there were three new variables thrown in the mix this year. First, I bought heirloom seeds. The tomatoes in this garden are all heirloom varieties (Cherry, Thessaloniki, and Moneymaker). Second, it's a new garden bed which means all new soil. Third, I pruned the tomatoes early on this year. Apparently, this is basic knowlege, for growing tomatoes, but I had never pruned before. So add all of those new varaibles together and we have a trifecta for giant tomatoes! And then the rains came bringing the damaging winds.
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| A collection of anything that can support these tomatoes! (cages, plastic, and steel) |
This is when I realized that my tomato cages and tomato stakes were not enough. So I was off to Home Depot for Steel rods. Then, it hit me, my plants were becoming like Medusa with branches getting so heavy that they needed more support. And this gardener was done forking out money. So we improvised. We had just completed a "cleaning out project" that included purging from the basement, when my husband reminded me that the shelf brackets would be great. So I bent them, hammered them in the ground, and voila!
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| Recycling old shelving pieces! |
Just to make sure they worked, a new storm blew in last night with plenty of wind. Every single branch was fine. No more snapping off like in previous storms. Now if they would just hurry up and ripen because I can't wait to try them!
our tomato plants are huge, too! that's great that you are being innovative in the support materials. we have stakes and cages, but more support would be even better. i'm even using the fence for one of the plants. one good tip i received is to tie the plants to the stakes using cloth from old t-shirts instead of string, because string will cut the stems.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave. Cloth is a great idea! The green ties you see in the picture are special tomato ties. They have a foam covering on the outside so they don't cut either. But we have tons of tshirts laying around too. Enjoy your harvest!
DeleteYou are so smart! Would never have thought of this!
ReplyDeleteI never knew I had to prune the tomatoes! My tomatoes usually only look like that at the end of the season. I love being innovative in the garden, great tips!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your tomatoes Sherri! There's many sites out there on how to prune tomatoes. It's easy. : )
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