Disclaimer: This article may include affiliate links which helps In Harmony Farms earn a small commission when clicked on. We commit to never suggesting anything we don’t use ourselves or firmly believe in. We appreciate your support and hope our suggestions bring you peace of mind. You can read our full disclaimer here.
We go deep into the trellis world my friends. Your beautiful tomatoes are growing and thriving in the garden, but now they are getting so big and healthy that you realize they need to be trellised. What are you to do? Keep on reading that’s what you do! We have adapted a super simple, efficient, long-lasting system that we want to share with you.
This system may take a bit to set up, but once you do it, you’ll have it season after season. We are strong advocates for doing the work once and doing the work smart! So, strap on them gardening boots and throw on some gloves because we are headed out to the garden!
Table of Contents
- Do I Really Need To Trellis My Tomatoes?
- Can I Use A Trellis Cage?
- 3 Types of Tomato Trellising
- Florida Weave
- Lower & Lean
- Trellis To Make You Jealous
- How to Build Trellis To Make You Jealous System
Do I Really Need To Trellis My Tomatoes?
There are two types of tomato gardens, the one that is absolute chaos with tomato bushes falling over and tomatoes hidden under everything. Then there is the tomato garden where you can differentiate where each plants begins and ends. Where you can harvest easily and feel like you’ve got your entire life together! Well…let’s not go that far, but you get my point!
The purpose of trellising your tomatoes is to not only keep order in the garden, but to keep your plants healthy. All plants need ample air flow, if you decide not to trellis, you restrict that air flow which increases your chances of pests and disease. So yes! You need to trellis your tomatoes…in our opinion!
Can I Use A Trellis Cage?
You can, but what we found is that it is extremely difficult to remove the cage once your tomato plant outgrows it. We advise against using trellising cages but at the end of the day, you do you!
You want to create a trellising system that your tomatoes can grow with. Tomatoes grow extremely fast so to have something that can support that growth is ideal.
3 Types of Tomato Trellising
Florida Weave
Last season we decided that we were going to try out the famous Florida weave trellising system for our tomatoes. This system, in theory, sounds fantastic. The Florida weave concept is to help keep your plants completely supported throughout its lifespan by weaving heavy duty polypropylene twine back and forth.
The downside of this system is that you have to weave it back and forth throughout the entire season. Depending on how many plants you have this can be very time consuming. Not to mention ad bit difficult as you are trying to weave a mature plants back and forth.
Lower & Lean
This system was a huge success when we had only a hand full of plants and limited space. The benefits of this system is that instead of taking up ground space, you are utilizing vertical space instead. Making this ideal for those who have small spaces.
Lower and lean was a make up of two 8×4 posts at either end with two cables going across. Then you use these string things that allow you to pull down as much string as needed then you attached the string to the base and all along the stem of the tomato plant. As your plant matures and grows taller you simply give it more string and slide the string thing over. This will give your plant more room to grow vertically.
While this system worked really well when we had a smaller space to work with, our new favorite system is this next one!
Trellis To Make You Jealous
This system lives up to its name! We got this concept from YouTuber Josh Sattin Farming. And it is a system that we will continue to use season after season because it just makes sense!
How to Build Trellis To Make You Jealous System
Tools Needed:
Galvanized Electrical Conduit & Connectors
- Start out by driving t-posts into the ground every 5-8 feet.
- Then use 1 1/4 pvc T’s and place on top of each T-post. (One per post. These can usually be found in the plumbing section of your local hardware store)
- Then feed 1/2 inch galvanized electrical conduit through each pvc T.
- Then attached the electrical conduit together by 1/2 electrical connector. Simply attach to one side of the conduit then slightly pull the other conduit through to attach then position them back to where the connector is hidden inside the pvc T.
- Lastly, attached your roller hooks to the conduit.
- That is it!
It is slightly similar to the lower and lean but instead of moving your line over so that your tomatoes begin to lean over and continue to grow, you just continue to support and clip your line to your tomato plant as it grows. The concept is lower maintenance and also very cost effective. To understand a bit more on how this system works watch our YouTube video below!
At the end of the day your tomatoes need support if you want healthy flourishing plants that produce all season long. You can continue to fight this concept and have a chaotic tomato garden or put our suggestions into practice and reap the benefits!
For more articles on tomatoes you can read this article on “how to grow tomatoes the easy way!” And also be sure to read about how to control garden pests using natural solutions here!
Until next time…
Leave a Reply