Choose the Right Support for Your Tomatoes
Why support tomatoes?
Tomato is a creeping herb. The xylem of the stem is underdeveloped, and the seedlings can grow upright due to low burden when the seedling is small. With the increase of leaves, the appearance of flowers and fruits, and the inability of the stem to bear the burden, the creeping growth state occurs, which affects the ventilation and light transmission between rows of tomato plants and causes serious plant diseases and insect pests on the ground. Therefore, it is necessary to build a frame and cordon tomatoes to improve its growth environment.
Best time to support tomatoes:
It is the right time to support tomatoes when the seedlings grow to about 15-30 cm height. Don't be too late, otherwise the stem will grow too long and side tendrils will be too many, which can cause tomato leaves and vines to easily get injured and broken.
Tools for creating tomato frame:
Materials used for setting up frames can be found from the nature, such as bamboos, straws, wicker, aspen branches, cotton branches. The length of frame materials depend on corresponding tomato growing method.
Different types of tomato support:
Types chosen to build up tomato frames will rely on plants height, growing period, pruning methods, etc. The most common ways to support tomato plants is with:
1. A-frame Cordon Support.
The support material is about 1 meters high. Place uprights into the ground outside each tomato plant, then tying the upper part of two adjacent uprights in each row together with bendy branches, or cross all the uprights at the top with a horizontal pole tied above, which is a framing form applied to the growing method of leaving 2-3 ears of fruit on a single whole branch.
2. A-frame with triple crossbars.
The uprights are about 50-80 cm high. Place three of them on each side of tomato bushes with their tops crossed together. Connect a row of frames with a horizontal pole on top, then tie a same pole on each side 20 cm from the ground. The branches and vines of the tomatoes are then fixed to the horizontal bars on both sides. This method is suitable for growing of early-maturing, short-framed, double-stem whole-branched tomato varieties.
3. Simple tall wooden stakes.
The stake is about 70 cm high. Insert one directly next to each tomato plant. This method is suitable for the cultivation of self-capped varieties featuring short and high density .
Other forms of frames include: hedge linkage, tipi form lattice structures, non-support hanging forms, etc.
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