April 2, 2024 • 20 mins
If you are looking for the best way to support your tomato plants this year without spending a fortune - today's episode covers how to create the perfect DIY solution that can hold the biggest of plants without worry!
Tomato cages have been around for years, but they can be expensive. Not only that, many cages simply grow out of the ground when plants get too big.
Tomato stakes are another option, but they too have issues. Not only are they hard to tie tomato plants to, they easily snap if plants get too big and heavy. And whether you use cages or stakes – the real issue is that they don’t last for long. In fact, most don’t make it past a season or two without needing to be replaced.
Jim and Mary walk listeners through the simple steps to build strong and sturdy tomato supports that make growing tomatoes easier than ever. And best of all - not only will they last for years and years, they are quite inexpensive to build too!
Tomato cages have been around for years, but they can be expensive. Not only that, many cages simply grow out of the ground when plants get too big.
Tomato stakes are another option, but they too have issues. Not only are they hard to tie tomato plants to, they easily snap if plants get too big and heavy. And whether you use cages or stakes – the real issue is that they don’t last for long. In fact, most don’t make it past a season or two without needing to be replaced.
Jim and Mary walk listeners through the simple steps to build strong and sturdy tomato supports that make growing tomatoes easier than ever. And best of all - not only will they last for years and years, they are quite inexpensive to build too!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody to the Simple Garden Life Podcast.
I am your host, Jim Competti, along with my co host Mary
Competti. And Mary, you're prettyexcited today to talk about tomatoes. Absolutely,
(00:23):
garden teams close. It is close, and today's subject is really one
of what are our favorites? Itis and I think some of it's because
it was accidental how we kind ofhampered across this. But we always get
people asking us every year about what'sthe best way to support tomato plants?
You know, what's the perfect solution. Well, today we're going to talk
(00:43):
about it, and it really iseasy and it covers all the things we
talk about. You know, there'sjust little doubt how important it is to
support your tomato plants in the correctway. And our question of the week,
which we'll get to later, isjust about this, like why do
you have to? And I lovethat that we've added that. I love
that the question came in. Butfor us, tomato cage is the very
(01:04):
first time we ever painted our garden. I guess we got to kind of
tell the funny story. So Maryand I did what we always tell people
not to do now, which isdon't plant everything under the sun. Absolutely,
our garden gets way too big.Yeah, And so in the early
years, we were excited about tomatogrowing because we love them and we wanted
to make lots of salsa and pastaand eat them in a salad. So
(01:26):
we planted I think around forty eighttomato plants. Way too many. Yeah,
I mean, it's just like wewere not feeding the entire city,
but we planted them. So weplanted them on day one. And we
don't do this anymore because now weput our tomato supports in right away.
But we planted them and then quicklyrealized, wow, we're going to have
to steak these, and that's whenwe started looking around at stores. Right
(01:49):
and then we got sticker shock.Oh, sticker shock, because you could
buy some tomato cages back then,that's fourteen years ago, ten twelve dollars
apiece. They were flimsy. Youcould buy some other ones for twenty dollars
apiece. It didn't take a rocketscience to figure out that fifty times ten
was five hundred dollars. I mightas well just buy my tomatoes, yeah,
(02:10):
at the local grocer, or waittill the farmer's market. So nonetheless,
we came up with a very simplesolution. We'll get to that in
a second, but I want tokind of go back. That's kind of
really what started mary our trekdown howto build your own tomato supports, and
we tried to cover some of thethings that are always a problem for a
lot of people, mainly the strength, the cost, the durability, how
(02:35):
long are they going to last?I mean, let's face it. You
know, we'll talk about this too. You get into tomato cages, you
what are you lucky to get outof them? You know, a couple
of years, right? They youknow, a lot of times they'll break
within the first year, bend.They're a nightmare at a store over the
winter for the next garden season.Oh, I love that you say that.
I mean, we used to havestacks when we had them in the
old days of sideways and left andright, and as you said, they're
(02:55):
just not very strong. And then, you know, here's my problem with
tomato cages. And we talk aboutthis all the time. The regular round
cages that you talk about. Thevery first thing that happens if you're growing
your tomatoes in the right way iswhen they start to grow, what happens
to the cage. It grows rightout of the ground with the tomato,
and or it grows half out ofthe ground. In the first storm,
you get it topples over. Andthen you mentioned the storage issue with them,
(03:19):
and my biggest beef with tomato cagesis that they're so hard to prune
your tomato plants. You can't findthe fruit and if you do find the
fruit, you're trying to maneuver yourhand between the wires to picket. They're
just not very user friendly. No, they're not. And they are still
expensive. And you said it best. They don't last very long. And
you know, we talk about tomatosteaks. That's another option, and it's
one my dad used to use.You know, he would go out with
(03:42):
those big steaks and you're just talkingabout like a single steak, just a
single steak, and you know,you put it in the ground and you
tie it off. But I'd like, you know, to talk to people.
I wish my dad was still aroundso I could ask them. The
question how did you tie those tothe steak, because it never worked.
The year we tried it, wewere putting screws in the side and tying
to the screws right right, andyou know, you try to grow your
(04:04):
plant upright, your tomato plant upright. You know, we all know about
the pantyhose and the t shirts totime off on. But when you tie
them to a single steak, itdoesn't give room for the plant to breathe,
to get the sunlight, to getthe air, to get the fruits
to ripen. And you can't tieevery branch that you need to, so
they end up coming back down.And then the other support problem is they
too you know, if you're usingwood steaks, they're going to break under
(04:26):
the weight, and you can't usetreated lumber because you don't want those treated
lumber. So what happens is afterone year, our first solution was,
you know, we use some pencilpoint surveyor steaks, so at least going
and wetach something to it. Theywere great at first, they were great,
but you know, no matter howmuch you try, they end up
you know, rotting off, andor I'd break it when I'd try to
drive it in and then last butnot least. There are all other kind
(04:50):
of options we talk about this.There's oh tomato towers and people take make
the square cages that go way upjust on. You go online right now
and you can find a million solutions. Oh yeah, but the problem is
they're just so expensive. I meanyou're talking some of these are now twenty
dollars. You don't know if they'regoing to last. And again you get
(05:10):
right back to where we were,which was, wow, why are we
you know, why are we notjust buying our tomatoes? I mean,
everybody loves to grow to their tomatoes, but you don't want to spend four
or five hundred dollars trying to supportyour tomatoes. No, not at all.
So okay, so why do youneed to support tomatoes? So that
leads to our question of the week, which is which is really good?
And I love this? I thinkit's what Cindy Dumont Mary, Yes from
(05:32):
Gainesville, Georgia. Yeah, Cindyasks, I have plenty of garden space.
Why do I need to steak tomatoes? Can I just let them sprawl
out on the ground like I dowith my cucumbers? You know, it's
a really great question, and weget that a lot. You just have
a neighbor that did that. Yeah, we did. And here's the problem.
The difference. There's a couple ofdifferences with tomatoes, and even with
(05:53):
cucumbers. Sometimes we like to trellus our cucumbers for the very same reason.
With cucumbers, and you can putstraw down, you can lay the
the fruit lays on top. It'sa little bit easier picking quickly early in
the season. Tomatoes do not dothat. Tomatoes take a very long time
to ripen. And while they're layingon that ground, even if you mulch
them, they are so easy tobruise. They're so easy to spot.
(06:14):
But more importantly, you have tomatob like to worry about, which is
a soil born disease, and it'slaying right on the soil. It also
makes them wonderful for raccoons and otheranimals to come in and have a treat.
All different types of pests. Canyou know they can climb right upon
all the soil, They can getyour tomato plants, they can ruin your
tomato plants, And all that timethat you could have spent staking your tomato
plants is now going to be ruinedbecause your tomatoes are no longer good.
(06:38):
Yeah, and then let's go tothe other aspect we talk about. You
know, the physical reasons why youshould steak them, but there's also a
lot of reasons for health for yourtomatoes themselves, not just because of the
blight. So tomatoes need air andoxygen, and the plants need air to
ripen, to create more flowers,to do all those things. When they're
laying on the ground and smash together, they get more moisture trapped. All
(07:00):
kinds of issues happen there. Butyou also don't get any type of airflow
that helps pollination. So if youlet your tomatoes sprawl just by nature,
you're gonna have a lot less fruitbecause you're gonna have a lot less pollination.
Well, another point to that toois once you have your tomato plants
on the ground, the actual stemof the plant continues to create roots.
So as it's on the ground,you're creating more roots it can, and
(07:24):
that takes away from the actual plantand fruit production. Yeah. So,
I mean, great question, Butyou want to stake them, and it's
very easy, and that's what we'regoing to talk about. So what is
this perfect solution. Well, thereis some good news. We talked about
this. It's a DIY solution tosupport your tomatoes. And it's not just
affordable, but as we found,they're really easy to make, really incredibly
(07:45):
strong, and they're so durable.Oh yeah, and this is something that
for us has developed. When wedid our first ones, we used woodsteaks
and then we changed it. Sowe're super excited to tell you about this,
and you're gonna find out that.The other thing is these last forever.
I mean, we've had ours fivesix, seven years, going to
make it ten years easy and probablyfifteen because they're just super durable. And
Mary's favorite thing of all is we'regoing to talk about how you put them
(08:07):
up and how you take them down, and how easy they are to store.
If you've ever stabbed yourself when youwent into your shed or your garage
and there with tomato cages that aresticking out, you will not have that
problem. So we'll be right backafter this and we're going to tell you
how to build your very own incredibletomato supports. And we are back and
(08:28):
it's time to talk about building yourown DIY. Okay, we are back
and we're talking about how to buildyour own tomato supports on the on the
cheap, as we like to sayit. But as always we want to
remind our listeners that you can alwaysreach out to us at the farm at
ow garden dot com with your questionsconcerns about hey, how do I do
(08:48):
this or how do that or topicsfor future podcasts. We get a lot
of them in and we always lovegetting them, and again you can just
reach us there. You can alsofollow along on simple Garden on Facebook.
We put our updates there and wealso have all kinds of great advice there,
and you can check out our YouTubechannel at Old World Garden Farms where
we have all kinds of quick shortsabout how to do everything from printing your
(09:11):
tomatoes to building razorow gardens and everythingelse. So all right, Mary,
let's get to the point of howto build your own steaks. And I
guess we kind of have to saythat for revealing everything that we've used these
really for about fourteen years variations.Yeah, it's been an evolving process for
us, and you know, welooked at over the years of what works,
what could we do better? AndI think we've come up to the
(09:35):
great solution. Yeah. I mean, so the last five years now we've
been using this solution, and Idon't think I can't never say we'll never
improve one, because maybe some newthing will come out that we can do
with it. But for right now, this has just been phenomenal for us.
So when we first started building ourown supports, we like to call
them steak of cages, and itreally was kind of interesting go back to
that era when we had forty eightplants in the ground and realized we were
(09:56):
going to spend a fortune. Wewent out and bought five foot roll fencing
I think it was three foot roadfencing, and then we bought some just
common steaks, yes, survey orstakes a pencil point, yeah, and
Mary cut eighteen inch sections from thisroad fencing and then we would use some
you nails or staples to stap themto the wood and they made look almost
(10:18):
look like a small radar. Itdid look like a radar in our garden,
but they were fantastic. We poundedthem in the ground. You could
tie the tomatoes off to the openface of the of the fencing and it
was a little curve because of therole and I still remember how it looked,
but really really worked well. Theissue, and Mary alluded to this
earlier, was after a year ortwo, especially storing, it was a
(10:39):
little bit easier because they went together, but there was still a lot of
space. But after a year ortwo, there's wood steaks just didn't work
right. By the time we'd pullthem out of the ground to close our
garden for the year, a fewof them would break off at the pencil
point, and you know, sowe just had to kind of kind of
figure out a better solution. Yeah, and then the other problem was we
used the road fencing, but itwas lightweight, and after about three or
(11:00):
four years, you know, itwould have its own issue and sometimes even
in a couple of years we startto bend and Yeah, again, incredible
because it allows you to tie theplants off quickly and easily. Mary talked
about the cages and reaching through.That's not an issue with these years straightforward,
But we kept evolving and so whatwe've come to now, which like
I said, it's it's really probablythe easiest way to make them and super
(11:24):
super strong. There is a littlebit of cost up front, but it's
a cost when you we'll go throughthe cost of how we build these,
and we can build these for anywherefrom ten to fifteen dollars each, comparable
very much to anything by the market, except when you factor in that they
can last for ten years, andthey're way better, right, I mean,
the economical benefit of making these goesa long way, especially if you're
(11:46):
going to garden for more than oneyear. Exactly. I feel like we're
becoming one of those reality shows wherewe're not getting to the answer. So
let's let's go. So let's talkabout how to make these supports and what's
what's all in them? So wemake our supports now from two simple things.
A six foot long metal te postthat you know is used for fences.
Is that a better way to saythat, Mary, to talk about
(12:07):
what it is? No? Ithink you know. They come in different
sizes, six foot, eight foot, I think those are They're called tea
posts. They're metal. You justdrive them in the ground. Yeah,
and you can. You can buythese at any local farm store or even
like your your local big box storewill carry them. But the key is
to get the heavy duty. I'mjust gonna say buy the six footers,
not the five or four footers.Because time you drive them in the ground,
(12:28):
they're just not tall enough. ButI like them because they're super strong,
and you know, we'll get tothe cost, but it's not very
much. I think these are youknow, I think we bought ours for
like six fifty apiece. They're lastforever. I mean, they're going to
last forever. They're heavy duty metal. You can pound them in, you
don't worry about them breaking. Andthen the second part of this we talked
(12:48):
about we used to use rolled fencing. Well we found out that hey,
let's make them a little stronger andget cow or goat pans. We like
livestock pans. Yeah, livestock pans. Okay, so they're all, oh
good. If you get a greatdeal on one, that's great. The
reason we say goat panels are thebest and I like them is goat panels
start at the bottom a little bitsmaller, and they go to the top
(13:09):
as you're spacing of the panels.And these are galvanized. I don't know
how thick they are. They're prettypretty strong. They're thicker. These are
not real. Yes, these arestrong panels that you can hold a goat
in, so you know how strongthey are. Now what we do.
They come in sixteen foot sections,and you're like, well, I'm not
growing sixteen feet of tomatoes. Youcould put that sixteen foot section just down
(13:31):
your row and tie off. Butwhat we like to do is we cut
those sections into twelve to eighteen incheswide and we use them I guess twelve
inches for our smaller tomatoes, andwe use these for peppers. I mean,
they're fantastic for pepper pants too,right, we use it for both.
And then we do eighteen inches wide. We just use a pair of
(13:52):
bolt cutters. Metal cutters cut throughthem at eighteen inches wide. For our
larger airling tomatoes. The goat panelscome forty two inches high, which is
perfect when you put them on.You can find some other of the cawpanails
that might be five foot high forthey're all going to work. But I
really like that level and that thicknessof these panels. And then here's the
(14:13):
beauty of this versus. I toldyou when we bought the wood panels,
we used to stay more you nailthem. So what do we do now?
We go out in the spring beforeplanning day, maybe a day before
maybe the day of, and wego right down the line where we're going
to have our tomatoes planted. Andthen what we do is use zip ties
to tie them off. Right.We actually used about three zip ties per
(14:37):
post. We do one at thebottom, one in the middle, one
at the top to hold it alltogether. Yeah. So you have this
panel, you have your metal postdriven into the ground, which is very
easy to do when it's by itself, there's nothing attached to it. As
soon as that metal post is drivenin and pe bus is how long you
drive twelve to eighteen inches. Ilike them deep because that's why I like
getting the six foot steaks. Theygo in a little bit deeper and they're
going to stay really strong. Actually, at the bottom of each steak is
(14:58):
kind of a horizontal piece. Yep. You drive that through the ground to
the soil. Yeah, it makesit's very easy for us to do that.
And then we just take these panelsthat are forty two inches high or
whatever height the panel you buy,but eighteen inches wide or twelve inches,
and we square them right to themiddle, so the middle of the panel
goes to the middle of the post, so you have a little bit on
each side. We like it evenYeah, we like it even and your
(15:20):
plants will too. And you ziptie the bottom, middle, and top.
Then you plant your plant. Andif I can give one bit of
advice, if there's one thing youcan do to help your tomato plants is
please, no matter what you use, I don't even care if you use
kid, get your tomato supports inday one. Absolutely yeah. And because
of two things. Number one isyour tomato plants when they're young need support.
(15:41):
People think, oh, I'm gonnalet them grow for a while,
Well guess what the first wind comesalong wipes it out or a big storm.
You've got to support them from dayone. One. Tie off is
perfect at the bottom. That's whatmakes these so great because with with this
version of the t post and thenthe panel, you rest the panel on
the ground, you zip tie itthen middle high, Well, that plant
(16:03):
is right down there low and youcan tie it off right away, especially
with springstorms coming. You know,we've had a lot of storms lately,
and you know, if we hadtomato plants in the ground right now,
they would be toping over if theydidn't have that support. Absolutely, So
you know, once they go inand now you're set, and as the
tomato plant grows, up. Youcan just tie off to those little squares
so easy. We use either greenyarn. Yarns are a little secret.
(16:26):
You can buy what a thousand feetfor a couple of dollars and just the
stretch and it's nice and we tieit off. But you can use tomato
supports or whatever, tomato tie offs, whatever. But now you have this
perfect support system that allows it togrow high. Yeah, and I think
you know, we really need toreiterate to put your tomato supports in before
your plants, because if your tomatoesare in the ground and they have been
growing for a month before you decideto put them up, you are disturbing
(16:48):
the soil. You're hitting their rootswhen you're putting your tomato supports in.
That can damage your tomato plants andthen you're yield. Yeah, there's no
way to know where your roots havegrown underneath that soil. So you might
be thinking, oh, I'm behindthe plant. You might be driving right
through one of the major routes.So that's a very good point to bring
up and why we do it.So now let's cover some a few quick
questions about how they grow. Soit's great they grow up. You keep
(17:11):
tying them off. And people say, but I grow heirlooms and they grow
eighteen feet tall. Well, youcan get an eighteen foot tall panel if
you want. But listen, youcan prune your tomatoes at the top.
It actually helps them. They'll branchout a little more when ours get to
seven or eight feet or six feet. We prune off that top. You're
not going to harm them. Sothat's another answer. But the real beauty,
beyond the incredible support and the waythat they hold the tomatoes and the
(17:34):
vines up, really for me isat the end of the season. Mary,
it comes at the end of theseason when you go to take them
off because you just zip those ziptie or you just cut the zip ties.
And now how do you store them? Right? You know, we
cut the zip ties off, weclean off the things, clean off the
panels, we disinfect them. Allyou have to do then is actually stack
the panels together and then stack theposts. Yep, that's right. So
(17:56):
let's do one final thing before weend here. Let's talk about the final
cost for us. So I'm tellingyou right now we've had five plus years
of this system employed and we stillare using the same things every year over
and over again. So you've gotto factor that in. If you're buying
five dollars tomato supports for I don'teven know where you'd find those, but
you're replacing them every year. Afterthree years, you've spent fifteen dollars and
(18:17):
you're not getting very good support.So for us, the t posts,
as I said, usually six fiftyto seven dollars at your local farm store.
You can find them heavy duty,right, get the heavy duty ones,
yep. Avoid using those cheap threeto five dollars posts because they're going
to bend in half. We actuallyhad a storm, I don't know three
or four years ago, and wehad a couple of other plans and we
had those in there holding the fence. Those just snapped in half. I'll
(18:40):
never forget that. So when youfactor in the cost, you know it's
not bad to pay that. Thenthe goat panels, as we said,
about sixteen foot long sections forty twoinches high. You can use boltcutters to
cut them down. For a largetomatoes, we said eighteen in the small
twelve panels are right around forty eightto fifty dollars each. And where can
you find those goat pans? Samething your local farm store, big box
(19:00):
store. Farm stores usually tend tobe a little bit more reasonable with cost.
But here's the thing. You say, well, fifty yeah, but
you you know, you're making anywherefrom on a sixteen foot panel, If
you're making twelves, you can makethirteen or fourteen up to you know ten.
Well, it comes out to youknow, seven to eight nine dollars
a piece for those panels, andyou put them with that seven dollars,
(19:22):
you're talking anywhere from twelve to fifteendollars to make a tomato steak that's going
to last you ten years. That'sway less expensive than mini options. Oh
yeah, and let's just go overthe fact that they also hold your tomatoes
up way better. They're easy towork with, easy to put away.
We love them. I mean,all I can tell you is we've been
using them. When people come tothe farm and they come to the test
gardens here at all our garden,they're like, what are those? How
(19:45):
do you make them? If yougo to simplegardenlife dot com, we have
a complete article about this, includinga video from our farm, from our
garden how we make them. Goto simplegardenlife dot com. Up in the
search bar. Just search tomato steakor best way to support it'll come up.
You'll see it right there, andit's a really good article. It'll
(20:06):
take you through it step by step, right and if you have any questions,
you can always email us at thefarm at odwgarden dot com. That's
right, So I think that doesit. You know what, We've got
a few weeks to go before we'reever going to be putting our tomato plants
in, but I can't wait.I can't wait either, and hopefully that
you guys try out this dioy systemthis year and love it as much as
we do. So Mary, Ithink it's that time. Remember whenever you
(20:29):
do, find the fun and gardeningand grow something beautiful. So long,
everyone, happy gardening. We hopeyou've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the
Simple Garden podcast on iTunes, ApplePodcasts, Spotify, or most of your
favorite podcast apps. You can alsohead over to simplegardenlife dot com where you
can listen and read all of theshow notes to every episode, and if
you have any questions, any ideasfor show topics, or if you want
(20:51):
to share your favorite garden tip,email us at the farm at owgarden dot
com until next time, Thanks everyone,
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody to the Simple Garden Life Podcast.
I am your host, Jim Competti, along with my co host Mary
Competti. And Mary, you're prettyexcited today to talk about tomatoes. Absolutely,
(00:23):
garden teams close. It is close, and today's subject is really one
of what are our favorites? Itis and I think some of it's because
it was accidental how we kind ofhampered across this. But we always get
people asking us every year about what'sthe best way to support tomato plants?
You know, what's the perfect solution. Well, today we're going to talk
(00:43):
about it, and it really iseasy and it covers all the things we
talk about. You know, there'sjust little doubt how important it is to
support your tomato plants in the correctway. And our question of the week,
which we'll get to later, isjust about this, like why do
you have to? And I lovethat that we've added that. I love
that the question came in. Butfor us, tomato cage is the very
(01:04):
first time we ever painted our garden. I guess we got to kind of
tell the funny story. So Maryand I did what we always tell people
not to do now, which isdon't plant everything under the sun. Absolutely,
our garden gets way too big.Yeah, And so in the early
years, we were excited about tomatogrowing because we love them and we wanted
to make lots of salsa and pastaand eat them in a salad. So
(01:26):
we planted I think around forty eighttomato plants. Way too many. Yeah,
I mean, it's just like wewere not feeding the entire city,
but we planted them. So weplanted them on day one. And we
don't do this anymore because now weput our tomato supports in right away.
But we planted them and then quicklyrealized, wow, we're going to have
to steak these, and that's whenwe started looking around at stores. Right
(01:49):
and then we got sticker shock.Oh, sticker shock, because you could
buy some tomato cages back then,that's fourteen years ago, ten twelve dollars
apiece. They were flimsy. Youcould buy some other ones for twenty dollars
apiece. It didn't take a rocketscience to figure out that fifty times ten
was five hundred dollars. I mightas well just buy my tomatoes, yeah,
(02:10):
at the local grocer, or waittill the farmer's market. So nonetheless,
we came up with a very simplesolution. We'll get to that in
a second, but I want tokind of go back. That's kind of
really what started mary our trekdown howto build your own tomato supports, and
we tried to cover some of thethings that are always a problem for a
lot of people, mainly the strength, the cost, the durability, how
(02:35):
long are they going to last?I mean, let's face it. You
know, we'll talk about this too. You get into tomato cages, you
what are you lucky to get outof them? You know, a couple
of years, right? They youknow, a lot of times they'll break
within the first year, bend.They're a nightmare at a store over the
winter for the next garden season.Oh, I love that you say that.
I mean, we used to havestacks when we had them in the
old days of sideways and left andright, and as you said, they're
(02:55):
just not very strong. And then, you know, here's my problem with
tomato cages. And we talk aboutthis all the time. The regular round
cages that you talk about. Thevery first thing that happens if you're growing
your tomatoes in the right way iswhen they start to grow, what happens
to the cage. It grows rightout of the ground with the tomato,
and or it grows half out ofthe ground. In the first storm,
you get it topples over. Andthen you mentioned the storage issue with them,
(03:19):
and my biggest beef with tomato cagesis that they're so hard to prune
your tomato plants. You can't findthe fruit and if you do find the
fruit, you're trying to maneuver yourhand between the wires to picket. They're
just not very user friendly. No, they're not. And they are still
expensive. And you said it best. They don't last very long. And
you know, we talk about tomatosteaks. That's another option, and it's
one my dad used to use.You know, he would go out with
(03:42):
those big steaks and you're just talkingabout like a single steak, just a
single steak, and you know,you put it in the ground and you
tie it off. But I'd like, you know, to talk to people.
I wish my dad was still aroundso I could ask them. The
question how did you tie those tothe steak, because it never worked.
The year we tried it, wewere putting screws in the side and tying
to the screws right right, andyou know, you try to grow your
(04:04):
plant upright, your tomato plant upright. You know, we all know about
the pantyhose and the t shirts totime off on. But when you tie
them to a single steak, itdoesn't give room for the plant to breathe,
to get the sunlight, to getthe air, to get the fruits
to ripen. And you can't tieevery branch that you need to, so
they end up coming back down.And then the other support problem is they
too you know, if you're usingwood steaks, they're going to break under
(04:26):
the weight, and you can't usetreated lumber because you don't want those treated
lumber. So what happens is afterone year, our first solution was,
you know, we use some pencilpoint surveyor steaks, so at least going
and wetach something to it. Theywere great at first, they were great,
but you know, no matter howmuch you try, they end up
you know, rotting off, andor I'd break it when I'd try to
drive it in and then last butnot least. There are all other kind
(04:50):
of options we talk about this.There's oh tomato towers and people take make
the square cages that go way upjust on. You go online right now
and you can find a million solutions. Oh yeah, but the problem is
they're just so expensive. I meanyou're talking some of these are now twenty
dollars. You don't know if they'regoing to last. And again you get
(05:10):
right back to where we were,which was, wow, why are we
you know, why are we notjust buying our tomatoes? I mean,
everybody loves to grow to their tomatoes, but you don't want to spend four
or five hundred dollars trying to supportyour tomatoes. No, not at all.
So okay, so why do youneed to support tomatoes? So that
leads to our question of the week, which is which is really good?
And I love this? I thinkit's what Cindy Dumont Mary, Yes from
(05:32):
Gainesville, Georgia. Yeah, Cindyasks, I have plenty of garden space.
Why do I need to steak tomatoes? Can I just let them sprawl
out on the ground like I dowith my cucumbers? You know, it's
a really great question, and weget that a lot. You just have
a neighbor that did that. Yeah, we did. And here's the problem.
The difference. There's a couple ofdifferences with tomatoes, and even with
(05:53):
cucumbers. Sometimes we like to trellus our cucumbers for the very same reason.
With cucumbers, and you can putstraw down, you can lay the
the fruit lays on top. It'sa little bit easier picking quickly early in
the season. Tomatoes do not dothat. Tomatoes take a very long time
to ripen. And while they're layingon that ground, even if you mulch
them, they are so easy tobruise. They're so easy to spot.
(06:14):
But more importantly, you have tomatob like to worry about, which is
a soil born disease, and it'slaying right on the soil. It also
makes them wonderful for raccoons and otheranimals to come in and have a treat.
All different types of pests. Canyou know they can climb right upon
all the soil, They can getyour tomato plants, they can ruin your
tomato plants, And all that timethat you could have spent staking your tomato
plants is now going to be ruinedbecause your tomatoes are no longer good.
(06:38):
Yeah, and then let's go tothe other aspect we talk about. You
know, the physical reasons why youshould steak them, but there's also a
lot of reasons for health for yourtomatoes themselves, not just because of the
blight. So tomatoes need air andoxygen, and the plants need air to
ripen, to create more flowers,to do all those things. When they're
laying on the ground and smash together, they get more moisture trapped. All
(07:00):
kinds of issues happen there. Butyou also don't get any type of airflow
that helps pollination. So if youlet your tomatoes sprawl just by nature,
you're gonna have a lot less fruitbecause you're gonna have a lot less pollination.
Well, another point to that toois once you have your tomato plants
on the ground, the actual stemof the plant continues to create roots.
So as it's on the ground,you're creating more roots it can, and
(07:24):
that takes away from the actual plantand fruit production. Yeah. So,
I mean, great question, Butyou want to stake them, and it's
very easy, and that's what we'regoing to talk about. So what is
this perfect solution. Well, thereis some good news. We talked about
this. It's a DIY solution tosupport your tomatoes. And it's not just
affordable, but as we found,they're really easy to make, really incredibly
(07:45):
strong, and they're so durable.Oh yeah, and this is something that
for us has developed. When wedid our first ones, we used woodsteaks
and then we changed it. Sowe're super excited to tell you about this,
and you're gonna find out that.The other thing is these last forever.
I mean, we've had ours fivesix, seven years, going to
make it ten years easy and probablyfifteen because they're just super durable. And
Mary's favorite thing of all is we'regoing to talk about how you put them
(08:07):
up and how you take them down, and how easy they are to store.
If you've ever stabbed yourself when youwent into your shed or your garage
and there with tomato cages that aresticking out, you will not have that
problem. So we'll be right backafter this and we're going to tell you
how to build your very own incredibletomato supports. And we are back and
(08:28):
it's time to talk about building yourown DIY. Okay, we are back
and we're talking about how to buildyour own tomato supports on the on the
cheap, as we like to sayit. But as always we want to
remind our listeners that you can alwaysreach out to us at the farm at
ow garden dot com with your questionsconcerns about hey, how do I do
(08:48):
this or how do that or topicsfor future podcasts. We get a lot
of them in and we always lovegetting them, and again you can just
reach us there. You can alsofollow along on simple Garden on Facebook.
We put our updates there and wealso have all kinds of great advice there,
and you can check out our YouTubechannel at Old World Garden Farms where
we have all kinds of quick shortsabout how to do everything from printing your
(09:11):
tomatoes to building razorow gardens and everythingelse. So all right, Mary,
let's get to the point of howto build your own steaks. And I
guess we kind of have to saythat for revealing everything that we've used these
really for about fourteen years variations.Yeah, it's been an evolving process for
us, and you know, welooked at over the years of what works,
what could we do better? AndI think we've come up to the
(09:35):
great solution. Yeah. I mean, so the last five years now we've
been using this solution, and Idon't think I can't never say we'll never
improve one, because maybe some newthing will come out that we can do
with it. But for right now, this has just been phenomenal for us.
So when we first started building ourown supports, we like to call
them steak of cages, and itreally was kind of interesting go back to
that era when we had forty eightplants in the ground and realized we were
(09:56):
going to spend a fortune. Wewent out and bought five foot roll fencing
I think it was three foot roadfencing, and then we bought some just
common steaks, yes, survey orstakes a pencil point, yeah, and
Mary cut eighteen inch sections from thisroad fencing and then we would use some
you nails or staples to stap themto the wood and they made look almost
(10:18):
look like a small radar. Itdid look like a radar in our garden,
but they were fantastic. We poundedthem in the ground. You could
tie the tomatoes off to the openface of the of the fencing and it
was a little curve because of therole and I still remember how it looked,
but really really worked well. Theissue, and Mary alluded to this
earlier, was after a year ortwo, especially storing, it was a
(10:39):
little bit easier because they went together, but there was still a lot of
space. But after a year ortwo, there's wood steaks just didn't work
right. By the time we'd pullthem out of the ground to close our
garden for the year, a fewof them would break off at the pencil
point, and you know, sowe just had to kind of kind of
figure out a better solution. Yeah, and then the other problem was we
used the road fencing, but itwas lightweight, and after about three or
(11:00):
four years, you know, itwould have its own issue and sometimes even
in a couple of years we startto bend and Yeah, again, incredible
because it allows you to tie theplants off quickly and easily. Mary talked
about the cages and reaching through.That's not an issue with these years straightforward,
But we kept evolving and so whatwe've come to now, which like
I said, it's it's really probablythe easiest way to make them and super
(11:24):
super strong. There is a littlebit of cost up front, but it's
a cost when you we'll go throughthe cost of how we build these,
and we can build these for anywherefrom ten to fifteen dollars each, comparable
very much to anything by the market, except when you factor in that they
can last for ten years, andthey're way better, right, I mean,
the economical benefit of making these goesa long way, especially if you're
(11:46):
going to garden for more than oneyear. Exactly. I feel like we're
becoming one of those reality shows wherewe're not getting to the answer. So
let's let's go. So let's talkabout how to make these supports and what's
what's all in them? So wemake our supports now from two simple things.
A six foot long metal te postthat you know is used for fences.
Is that a better way to saythat, Mary, to talk about
(12:07):
what it is? No? Ithink you know. They come in different
sizes, six foot, eight foot, I think those are They're called tea
posts. They're metal. You justdrive them in the ground. Yeah,
and you can. You can buythese at any local farm store or even
like your your local big box storewill carry them. But the key is
to get the heavy duty. I'mjust gonna say buy the six footers,
not the five or four footers.Because time you drive them in the ground,
(12:28):
they're just not tall enough. ButI like them because they're super strong,
and you know, we'll get tothe cost, but it's not very
much. I think these are youknow, I think we bought ours for
like six fifty apiece. They're lastforever. I mean, they're going to
last forever. They're heavy duty metal. You can pound them in, you
don't worry about them breaking. Andthen the second part of this we talked
(12:48):
about we used to use rolled fencing. Well we found out that hey,
let's make them a little stronger andget cow or goat pans. We like
livestock pans. Yeah, livestock pans. Okay, so they're all, oh
good. If you get a greatdeal on one, that's great. The
reason we say goat panels are thebest and I like them is goat panels
start at the bottom a little bitsmaller, and they go to the top
(13:09):
as you're spacing of the panels.And these are galvanized. I don't know
how thick they are. They're prettypretty strong. They're thicker. These are
not real. Yes, these arestrong panels that you can hold a goat
in, so you know how strongthey are. Now what we do.
They come in sixteen foot sections,and you're like, well, I'm not
growing sixteen feet of tomatoes. Youcould put that sixteen foot section just down
(13:31):
your row and tie off. Butwhat we like to do is we cut
those sections into twelve to eighteen incheswide and we use them I guess twelve
inches for our smaller tomatoes, andwe use these for peppers. I mean,
they're fantastic for pepper pants too,right, we use it for both.
And then we do eighteen inches wide. We just use a pair of
(13:52):
bolt cutters. Metal cutters cut throughthem at eighteen inches wide. For our
larger airling tomatoes. The goat panelscome forty two inches high, which is
perfect when you put them on.You can find some other of the cawpanails
that might be five foot high forthey're all going to work. But I
really like that level and that thicknessof these panels. And then here's the
(14:13):
beauty of this versus. I toldyou when we bought the wood panels,
we used to stay more you nailthem. So what do we do now?
We go out in the spring beforeplanning day, maybe a day before
maybe the day of, and wego right down the line where we're going
to have our tomatoes planted. Andthen what we do is use zip ties
to tie them off. Right.We actually used about three zip ties per
(14:37):
post. We do one at thebottom, one in the middle, one
at the top to hold it alltogether. Yeah. So you have this
panel, you have your metal postdriven into the ground, which is very
easy to do when it's by itself, there's nothing attached to it. As
soon as that metal post is drivenin and pe bus is how long you
drive twelve to eighteen inches. Ilike them deep because that's why I like
getting the six foot steaks. Theygo in a little bit deeper and they're
going to stay really strong. Actually, at the bottom of each steak is
(14:58):
kind of a horizontal piece. Yep. You drive that through the ground to
the soil. Yeah, it makesit's very easy for us to do that.
And then we just take these panelsthat are forty two inches high or
whatever height the panel you buy,but eighteen inches wide or twelve inches,
and we square them right to themiddle, so the middle of the panel
goes to the middle of the post, so you have a little bit on
each side. We like it evenYeah, we like it even and your
(15:20):
plants will too. And you ziptie the bottom, middle, and top.
Then you plant your plant. Andif I can give one bit of
advice, if there's one thing youcan do to help your tomato plants is
please, no matter what you use, I don't even care if you use
kid, get your tomato supports inday one. Absolutely yeah. And because
of two things. Number one isyour tomato plants when they're young need support.
(15:41):
People think, oh, I'm gonnalet them grow for a while,
Well guess what the first wind comesalong wipes it out or a big storm.
You've got to support them from dayone. One. Tie off is
perfect at the bottom. That's whatmakes these so great because with with this
version of the t post and thenthe panel, you rest the panel on
the ground, you zip tie itthen middle high, Well, that plant
(16:03):
is right down there low and youcan tie it off right away, especially
with springstorms coming. You know,we've had a lot of storms lately,
and you know, if we hadtomato plants in the ground right now,
they would be toping over if theydidn't have that support. Absolutely, So
you know, once they go inand now you're set, and as the
tomato plant grows, up. Youcan just tie off to those little squares
so easy. We use either greenyarn. Yarns are a little secret.
(16:26):
You can buy what a thousand feetfor a couple of dollars and just the
stretch and it's nice and we tieit off. But you can use tomato
supports or whatever, tomato tie offs, whatever. But now you have this
perfect support system that allows it togrow high. Yeah, and I think
you know, we really need toreiterate to put your tomato supports in before
your plants, because if your tomatoesare in the ground and they have been
growing for a month before you decideto put them up, you are disturbing
(16:48):
the soil. You're hitting their rootswhen you're putting your tomato supports in.
That can damage your tomato plants andthen you're yield. Yeah, there's no
way to know where your roots havegrown underneath that soil. So you might
be thinking, oh, I'm behindthe plant. You might be driving right
through one of the major routes.So that's a very good point to bring
up and why we do it.So now let's cover some a few quick
questions about how they grow. Soit's great they grow up. You keep
(17:11):
tying them off. And people say, but I grow heirlooms and they grow
eighteen feet tall. Well, youcan get an eighteen foot tall panel if
you want. But listen, youcan prune your tomatoes at the top.
It actually helps them. They'll branchout a little more when ours get to
seven or eight feet or six feet. We prune off that top. You're
not going to harm them. Sothat's another answer. But the real beauty,
beyond the incredible support and the waythat they hold the tomatoes and the
(17:34):
vines up, really for me isat the end of the season. Mary,
it comes at the end of theseason when you go to take them
off because you just zip those ziptie or you just cut the zip ties.
And now how do you store them? Right? You know, we
cut the zip ties off, weclean off the things, clean off the
panels, we disinfect them. Allyou have to do then is actually stack
the panels together and then stack theposts. Yep, that's right. So
(17:56):
let's do one final thing before weend here. Let's talk about the final
cost for us. So I'm tellingyou right now we've had five plus years
of this system employed and we stillare using the same things every year over
and over again. So you've gotto factor that in. If you're buying
five dollars tomato supports for I don'teven know where you'd find those, but
you're replacing them every year. Afterthree years, you've spent fifteen dollars and
(18:17):
you're not getting very good support.So for us, the t posts,
as I said, usually six fiftyto seven dollars at your local farm store.
You can find them heavy duty,right, get the heavy duty ones,
yep. Avoid using those cheap threeto five dollars posts because they're going
to bend in half. We actuallyhad a storm, I don't know three
or four years ago, and wehad a couple of other plans and we
had those in there holding the fence. Those just snapped in half. I'll
(18:40):
never forget that. So when youfactor in the cost, you know it's
not bad to pay that. Thenthe goat panels, as we said,
about sixteen foot long sections forty twoinches high. You can use boltcutters to
cut them down. For a largetomatoes, we said eighteen in the small
twelve panels are right around forty eightto fifty dollars each. And where can
you find those goat pans? Samething your local farm store, big box
(19:00):
store. Farm stores usually tend tobe a little bit more reasonable with cost.
But here's the thing. You say, well, fifty yeah, but
you you know, you're making anywherefrom on a sixteen foot panel, If
you're making twelves, you can makethirteen or fourteen up to you know ten.
Well, it comes out to youknow, seven to eight nine dollars
a piece for those panels, andyou put them with that seven dollars,
(19:22):
you're talking anywhere from twelve to fifteendollars to make a tomato steak that's going
to last you ten years. That'sway less expensive than mini options. Oh
yeah, and let's just go overthe fact that they also hold your tomatoes
up way better. They're easy towork with, easy to put away.
We love them. I mean,all I can tell you is we've been
using them. When people come tothe farm and they come to the test
gardens here at all our garden,they're like, what are those? How
(19:45):
do you make them? If yougo to simplegardenlife dot com, we have
a complete article about this, includinga video from our farm, from our
garden how we make them. Goto simplegardenlife dot com. Up in the
search bar. Just search tomato steakor best way to support it'll come up.
You'll see it right there, andit's a really good article. It'll
(20:06):
take you through it step by step, right and if you have any questions,
you can always email us at thefarm at odwgarden dot com. That's
right, So I think that doesit. You know what, We've got
a few weeks to go before we'reever going to be putting our tomato plants
in, but I can't wait.I can't wait either, and hopefully that
you guys try out this dioy systemthis year and love it as much as
we do. So Mary, Ithink it's that time. Remember whenever you
(20:29):
do, find the fun and gardeningand grow something beautiful. So long,
everyone, happy gardening. We hopeyou've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the
Simple Garden podcast on iTunes, ApplePodcasts, Spotify, or most of your
favorite podcast apps. You can alsohead over to simplegardenlife dot com where you
can listen and read all of theshow notes to every episode, and if
you have any questions, any ideasfor show topics, or if you want
(20:51):
to share your favorite garden tip,email us at the farm at owgarden dot
com until next time, Thanks everyone,
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