When To Stake Tomatoes – Growing In Buckets
Posted on July 18, 2008 – 5:48 pm by admin
Do you know how many people search for “When to steak tomotoes?” I bet a lot. Well, I think I spelled it correctly.
I was driving down the road today and noticed that the neighbor had a bunch of tomato plants growing in buckets, just like me. His buckets may have been nicer, but mine are doing just fine. I don’t even remember where I got them, but let it be known, five gallon buckets are wonderful things.
I have been reading that staking tomato plants is mainly to keep the tomatoes off the ground to avoid fruit rot. Since I am growing the plants in 5 gallon buckets, what’s my reasoning? Well, take a look at the photo to see…
As you may have noticed, they are getting very tall. I started off with little three foot bamboo stakes, but have moved on to 7 foot posts. Every day I look out there, the plants have gotten just a little bit taller. Just to let you know, I also tied the posts to the railing on the porch. When I slid the post in to the bucket, I noticed that it was loose and could easily fall over.
A few weeks ago, before I started staking the tomato plants, one of them fell over. Not the bucket, but the plant itself. Anything can cause that…the weight of the plant, a hard rain, wind, etc… I caught it just in time and started tying them up with soft string I had in the garage. I keep it nice and loose so I don’t do any damage. I bought a new garden hose yesterday and noticed that it came wound in long twist ties. I used them just a few minutes ago as even more straps.
I think many people look into this topic way too much. They ask all sorts of questions about what to use and how to do it. How’s this…just stake your tomato plants so they don’t fall over and use something that is long enough and won’t do damage to the plant.
2 Responses to “When To Stake Tomatoes – Growing In Buckets”
By Growing Tomatoes Guide on Feb 18, 2009 | Reply
Tomatoes are one of the of the easiest and most fun vegetables to grow! There is nothing better then watching your plants grow, produce a big crop and then you enjoy your home grown tomatoes! Home grown tomatoes really do taste different than the supermarket kind. I hope you have fun growing tomatoes this year!
By Tomato Grower on Apr 11, 2009 | Reply
I tie my tomatoes to a stake using a kind of figure eight. I get a good portion of string and tie it tight to the stake in a double knot. Then with the left over string I tie the vine loosely to the stake. Thanks for a nice post!