→The tomato vine, in all its forms, is a floppy creature that needs the gardener’s help. ¶ The plant’s sprawling nature is no weakness: It forces the person behind it to find wonderfully low-tech methods of supporting it. The resulting props reflect the utilitarian beauty of the summer vegetable garden, the creative ingenuity of every gardener and, best of all, the idea that there is no one way to raise a perfect tomato. (Or much else in the garden.) ¶But if you are into watching gardening “types,” there is nothing quite as revealing or entertaining as matching the tomato prop to its inventor. There are two basic approaches to the enterprise: You can stake your vine or stick it in a cage. The cage is about two steps above just letting the thing sprawl. That too is an option. But if you choose the cage, make it tall enough and secure it with a stake. ¶Here is the central question: Where do you fit in our gallery?
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Adrian Higgins
Adrian Higgins has been writing about the intersection of gardening and life for more than 25 years, and joined the Post in 1994. He is the author of several books, including the Washington Post Garden Book and Chanticleer, a Pleasure Garden.
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(Vidhya Nagarajan for The Washington Post/Vidhya Nagarajan for The Washington Post) - Vidhya Nagarajan for The Washington Post
(Vidhya Nagarajan for The Washington Post/Vidhya Nagarajan for The Washington Post) - Vidhya Nagarajan for The Washington Post
The Innocent
The Innocent uses a short, three-foot funnel-shaped cage and believes, gullibly, that the prongs will secure the cage, that the welds will hold and that the tomato vine will know when to stop. No. In other words, pull it and start again. “I tell people to use those for peppers,” said Jon Traunfeld, a horticulturist who trains Maryland’s Master Gardeners.
The Gardener
The Gardener uses a single wooden stake (one-by-one-inch oak is excellent) that is eight feet tall. With practice, a mallet and a little stepladder, the Gardener pounds the stake vertically (more difficult than you think) two feet into the organically amended, double-dug and generally absurdly prepared garden bed. Then the mania really sets in: The vine is pruned frequently, so that it has just two rising stems from the original leader and first sucker, and then all other suckers that emerge from the leaf joints are pinched out when young. This keeps the vine narrow and upright. The tomato harvest is less than with a caged version, but the fruit quality is high, and the Gardener can place the vines closer together, about 24 inches. The Gardener lies awake at night, wondering if he or she caught every emerging sucker. The Gardener ties the vine every eight inches as it grows with cotton strips from old shirts, precisely cut on long winter nights. The Gardener doesn’t get out much.
The Perfectionist
The Perfectionist makes the Gardener look like a slacker. The Perfectionist uses a cage and two stakes. The cage is made from concrete reinforcing wire fashioned into a cylinder five to six feet high. The grid is large enough, typically six inches, to reach in and pick a ripe tomato. The stakes are buried as deep as two feet and attach to each side of the cage to anchor it. The Perfectionist spaces the tomato plants a generous four feet apart to allow for uncrowded growth. With just three plants occupying a 12-foot bed, the Perfectionist needs a lot of real estate in the sun.
The Farmer
The Farmer has even more real estate in the sun. The Farmer grows many tomato plants in a row, spaced at least two feet apart, and then uses a support system called basket-weaving. He or she pounds in a stake between the second and third plant, the fourth and fifth plant, the sixth and seventh plant, and so on. The Farmer takes a ball of twine and weaves the string between the stakes. This is repeated higher up as the vines grow. Another agricultural method is to put up a trellis with a single but sturdy cross member and run strings down to each plant. As it grows, each tomato vine’s leader is twisted around the string. The string method requires a lot of sucker removal. In August and September, neighbors of the Farmer cross the street, avoid eye contact, pretend to talk on their cellphones — anything to prevent the Farmer from approaching them with yet another bushel of tomatoes to share.
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