Tomatoes need our support. (You trying maintaining vertical with 10 pounds of green, red orbs hanging off your branches. ) Some people cage them in, others rely on the stake. As for me, I’m a fan of trellising.
I create a vertical plane that the toms can grow up for maximum sun exposure, air circulation and tidiness (a feature more prevalent in my garden than my house).
It’s a pretty basic idea–a point A to point B design framed by two rigid poles or stakes with wire or twine connecting the two at one foot intervals. (Boz inspects the trellis, checking for appropriate tensile strength and any tasty, errant compost clods.)
I use foam twist ties or green gardening tape (seen in first photo). Nothing complicated about it.
How to Make a Tomato Plant Trellis
- Choose the beginning and end points of your trellis.
- Don’t forget to leave room on each side of your end tomato plants.
- Drive Pole A and Pole B into the ground until secure (no wobbling).
- Tie a wire or heavy twine from Pole A to Pole B.
- Note: twine stretches, you may have to re-tighten later.
- Add more wire/twine up the poles at one foot intervals.
- I usually go up five feet, making five wire rows.
- As tomatoes grow, attach larger stems to each available wire.
- Use a soft foam twist tie or wide garden tape.
- choose a tie that won’t cut into the vine as the plants and fruit add weight
- Sit back and wait for you bounty (that is after weeding and watering and…)
My ‘artistic” representation of Tom’s Tomato Trellis.
- One year ago: Pacific Coast Iris Steal the Show
- Two years ago: Summertime, and the Hammock Is Ready
44 responses so far ↓
1 renae // Jun 3, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Did you draw the trellis at the end of the post? Very nice. Compost clods… ugh.
2 Tom // Jun 3, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Renae, why yes I did. It’s a little Rousseau meets Grandma Moses.
3 chris // Jun 3, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Tom, great post. The drawing is nice too! I have seen this method used with great results.
4 Sophie // Jun 3, 2010 at 7:50 pm
That’s a great idea, Tom!!
I will do that with my 3 tomato plants!! they are growing higher every day. One plant is already nearly 2 meters high!
5 June@Four Green Acres // Jun 5, 2010 at 1:57 am
How clever you are, Tom! When I get a look at your garden, I swoon. Your tomatoes are so pampered. I love your system. (And I especially love that shot of Boz lying in the soft, tilled soil: oh, the order, the sheer potential of good earth and rain and sunshine!) My own garden is a fortress of chicken wire and garden fleece and… Well, it’s ugly. That’s just the plain truth. Maybe it’s because I don’t start with a beautiful rendering with pen and ink. Yeah. Maybe.
You remain my hero!
6 Tom // Jun 5, 2010 at 4:28 am
June, I’m blushing. If it’s any consolation, the inside of the house is anything but orderly. Thanks for your very kind words. Tomorrow we are expecting a heatwave, uh, that would be 72 degrees. So in go the squash, pumpkins, eggplant and tomatillos, oh yes and my favorite aspirational fruits…melons.
7 Holly // Jun 5, 2010 at 5:05 am
Looks great Tom!! Wow, that’s a whole lotta tomatoes! Looks fabulous!
8 Thomas // Jun 5, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I’m trying the same trellising system for the first time this year. I see they are working well for you.
I used plastic tomato clips but really like your foam twisties. Where did you get them?
9 Tom // Jun 5, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Hi Thomas, I picked up the foam wire ties at our island True Value. They’re pretty easy to find at most hardware stores or garden centers.
Here’s a link to the brand I used: http://www.idealtruevalue.com/servlet/the-142191/Detail
10 Sustainable Eats // Jun 6, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Hi Tom, this is such a great inexpensive and easily stored solution. Have you ever considered making hand drawn garden cards? I’d buy them! Useful facts and garden art in one.
11 Dorie // Jun 7, 2010 at 3:43 am
Great post Tom! I especially LOVE your bullies. Could just eat them up
12 Tom // Jun 7, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Dorie, I believe an appreciation of bullies (English, French or otherwise) is a sign of high intelligence. Boz and Gracie surely concur. Thank you for the compliment. -TC
13 brion // Jun 7, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Tom – Will and I are growing pickle cuc’s. I’ve got them in a long linear container, looks likw a window box. Can i trellis these?
sgt
14 Tom // Jun 7, 2010 at 4:35 pm
You bet Brion, cukes love to climb. And since they’re in a container, I’d fertilize them, too, say every couple weeks, with a diluted liquid fertilizer.
15 brion // Jun 7, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Tom – Will has already been fertilizing them with a fairly diluted stream of uric acid.
16 Tom // Jun 8, 2010 at 12:24 am
Brion…apparently the acorn does not fall far from the tree.
17 rowena // Jun 8, 2010 at 6:49 am
I may have to consider trellising next year just to simplify things in the garden. It’s getting to the point where I’m finding that I have to buy an extra dozen or so bamboo poles each year to support whatever is growing/climbing in the plot!
18 Tom // Jun 8, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Buon Giorno…Mahalo…Rowena, if you ever need stakes, look for any freshly cut stumps in the woods. Usually they have straight saplings springing from the base of the trunk. They make keen stakes.
19 Grow. Cook. Eat. August 11 | DigginFood // Jun 11, 2010 at 2:22 pm
[...] with flimsy tomato cages? Tom from Tall Clover Farm has great directions and an illustration for building a simple tomato trellis. I’m going to try this technique in my front yard tomato [...]
20 Yolanda // Jun 13, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Tom,
This is lovely! I tried it yesterday, but I fear my wire is not strong enough to support the plants. What guage wire did you use?
Thanks!
21 Tom // Jun 13, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Hi Yolanda, I used some 14 gauge and some 12 gauge wire left over from my grape trellis. It’s heavy enough to use year after year.
22 Tomato Fortress of Love // Jun 23, 2010 at 7:45 am
[...] the trellis. If the vines get too heavy with fruit I can screw c-hooks into the vertical posts and trellis the tomatoes horizontally as [...]
23 What’s at Stake: Pole Beans Need Your Support // Jun 28, 2010 at 9:45 pm
[...] and poles–I’ve found a great solution for a long row of pole beans. It’s my tomato trellis, modified with vertical rungs of bamboo [...]
24 Steve // Nov 12, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Tom, what an interesting site.
What is the maximum distance you place your T stakes for your tomaotes?
Thanks,
Steve
25 Tom // Nov 12, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Hi Steve, mine are between 40 – 50 feet apart.
26 Steve // Nov 13, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Another question Tom.
Did you have any problem with your wire sagging when the tomatos reached maturity and pulling your T post inward?
Thanks,
Steve
27 Steve // Nov 13, 2010 at 8:55 pm
One more Tom,
Do you weave your plants up the wires?
Thanks,
Steve
28 Steve // Nov 13, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Change up to through on last message.
SW
29 Tom // Nov 14, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Hi Steve, the posts were 8′ t-posts driven in the ground 2′ so no they did not bend inward, but maybe an inch or two. And yes, I would weave the plants up through the wires and also tie them to the wires where needed for support.
30 Ed Macose // Jan 3, 2011 at 4:43 am
Sir Tom,
I am in charge of extension and training programs of our college. I could share your trellis system to our farmers. That’s great.
Ed
31 Tom // Jan 3, 2011 at 7:51 am
Thanks Ed, and I appreciate the esteemed title “Sir.” Yep, I could get used to that.
32 Amy // Mar 17, 2011 at 11:37 am
What kind of wire is best for this and what is the ideal distance between the two posts? Thanks, Amy
33 Tom // Mar 18, 2011 at 6:56 am
Amy, I was using 10 to 12 gauge as I had some leftover from grape trellising, but that’s a bit of overkill. I recommend 14 or 16 gauge as it’s easy to handle and bend. My posts were 50 feet apart, but I have extended them to as far as 75 feet, as that was the length of my planting row.
34 Drew // Mar 27, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Amazing, Tom! Really. SO I have a small 10×10 plot in a city garden. How close together can I can I plant these tomato plants with this system?
35 Tom // Mar 27, 2011 at 6:56 pm
Hi Drew, I plant mine about 3 feet a part, but then again I have a large garden.
I’d think you could get away with 5 tomato plants in a ten foot row or say two feet apart. Paste, cherry and grape types can be more crowded than the big beefsteaks. Hope this helps. The good news is when tomatoes are stressed a bit, you get more fruit. When lavished with fertilizer tons of space you get some nice leaves.
Good luck!
36 Carl Bunn // Apr 3, 2011 at 2:19 pm
I grow 80-85 Tom plants of all kind every year-great idea to save space-C.B.
37 Nicky @dirtandmartinis // May 12, 2011 at 9:13 am
I’m so glad I found your site via Katie at gardenhoard.com! I love this tomato trellis and am going to give it a try. Thank you, Nicky
38 » Fridays in the Garden: The Glorious Tomato CKP National Blog: Resources and Updates on Our National Initiatives // Jun 3, 2011 at 12:53 pm
[...] to grow more varieties and still give each plant everything it needs to be successful. This is a great idea for building your [...]
39 Ross // Jun 6, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your post. I built the trellis for my tomatoes over the weekend! It turned out great. I had some old vinyl covered laundry line laying around and used that instead of wire….looks good!
40 Alice // Jun 16, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Hi Tom,
I was thumbing through your posts on your blog and Im trying to figure out a problem with my tomato plants, maybe you can shed some light? The tops are yellowing a bit and I dont know what that means. There are some pictures of each of my three tomato plants on my blog called “tomatoes” and earlier blogs on “gardening” have pictures from when they first were brought home and transplanted. Can you shed any light?
41 Tomatoes, the adventure continues! « A mama, baby and shar-pei in the kitchen // Jun 16, 2011 at 1:16 pm
[...] is the link to his blog (http://www.tallcloverfarm.com/1655/tomato-trellis-a-cagey-alternative ), and his little intro – doesnt he sound like someone you would like for a friend? “My [...]
42 Tom // Jun 17, 2011 at 4:37 am
Hi Alice, I checked out your lovely blog — great stuff. Now about your tomatoes yellowing. It can be a lot of things, but I think I’d focus on two, either too much water or a nutrient deficiency in the soil. Here’s what I’d do. Wait for the soil to dry out a bit, that is maybe even wait until the toms droop a little and are telling you, “we need water.” See if that practice doesn’t facilitate a rebound. At that time maybe maybe add a liquid fertilizer too, say diluted to half strength so you don’t get all leaves and no toms.
I think your soil may be a little moisture retentive as I saw the squash plant with brown tips, and that in most cases is a sign of over watering in a soil that is poor on drainage.
Good luck, remember, tomatoes like a little stress. Often time pampered plants have lush foliage and few toms, and horrible looking plants have gorgeous toms.
43 Sharon // Jul 18, 2011 at 9:23 am
Tom, Have you considered a bamboo trellis? We have too many plants for your gorgeous trellis, and they got too big. I made a sort of lean to of bamboo rods and just let the toms lay themselves over the frame as they grew! Much of the fruit dangled through easily reached and it supported lots of weight. Love your blog came for figs stayed for everything else!
44 Cate // Aug 24, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Yes! This is my method as well. Great minds think alike! It works great and is far less expensive than caging. Also, I can get at the tomateys a lot better, which is very important.
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