Tomato Growing Thread 2021

This will have been mentioned before I'm sure .I've always used canes to support my toms but keep seeing this 'ere string business,just wind the plants round it but I've yet to be convinced..
Does it work?

 

I have just read about them again and am not sure now on my kitchen patio where I already have an Avocado, a Prunus cerasifera ,a Bamboo and several other shrubs! I did get some Dwarf Tamarillo seeds too but wasn't successful with them, well, three came up then disappeared.

 

I bought them (commercially used, preloaded with twine, for Tomato greenhouses), I expect the grower had a few boxes left over and put them up on eBay, but I reckon a coat hanger could be bent into that shape if you only want a few.

I could photograph one next to a rule if that would help anyone?

 

Fruit came second year with me, I had to overwinter it, which is not difficult if you have enough height as frost free and fairly dry was enough.

IMO they are nothing like tomatoes apart from the fruit containing lots of seeds.

 

When I used canes some slide down the cane, or the means by which they are attached to the canes "strangled them" / somewhat, or the cane, and plant, toppled over.

I don't twine the string around the stem much - not like a spiral spring for example, its one go-around-the-stem every foot or so.



As such there is no strangulation, as the stem grows it has plenty of space to push the string to one side.

There is a lot of weight in a full truss-ladened Tomato plant, so it needs to be attached to something robust at the top.

I loop the twine under the plant's pot-rootball when I plant it - to avoid having to tie the bottom to the stem (same strangulation risk I reckon). But that may not work for Jute type twine, as it would probably rot-through in one season.

The main benefit is if you can have a reserve of string at the top (tie to top-rail but leave some spare for later, the thingummyjig John mentioned) is to be able to lower the plant once it reached the top. By then the bottom trusses will have been picked, the leaves removed, so that stem will be "layed" and in effect the plant will come up at the next station along

 

My honest opinion, no.
Not bothered growing them again and that was years ago.

 

Yes, I tried it on some polytunnel cordons last gear.

I tried string string which I thought too harsh on the stems, plus some soft plastic [1] coated, supple (electrical) 600V Thermoplastic Equipment Wire about 2mm dia including insulation that I was given absolutely loads about 20 years ago and still have hundreds of metres of it.

My polytunnel canes had oreviously been fixed at the top to screw eyes (Wilko pick and mix) screwed into horizontal timber battens fixed by swapping the standard bolts on 3 x 6m polytunnels for longer dome headed bolts (Wilko pick and mix again) to hold the battens in place along the horizontal rails. Now I have a First Tunnels polytunnel I need their expensive clips to hold battens in place.

Free wire is much cheaper than reduced Wilko canes, plus avoids chance of pushing cane tips through polytunnel covers, is so much easier to store at the end of season, can be dunked in sterilizing solution, and the wire I've got should last for many, many years.



That's a bit of a pickle as my first (plywood) reel fell to pieces, but the second reel hasn't been unstarted.


[1] Oh dear, the dreaded plastic again, now what's the most 'eco', using fresh twine every year or re-using the plastic covered stuff I've already got and will see me out before it needs replacing?

 

The BBC overnight minimum temperature forecast changed in the early hours from 4 deg C to 6 deg C. If 6 was forecast yesterday afternoon I wouldnt have bothered covering loads of stuff up (which I now have to go and remove).

My edge of village plot is regularly 2 deg C below the forecasts. The forecasts have changed today to include several more days when it only needs them to be reduced by 1 degree, and combined with a further reduction of 2 degrees for everything tender to get frosted.

At least these days I'm now using easy to dryThermacrop fleece, which eliminates lots of drying wet coverings (and squashed plants) when it rains overnight or before I get there to remove it.