A Tomato Trellis Can Add Charm
Many people enjoy the wonderful pastime of growing tomatoes along with other vegetable crops in their gardens. In fact, online there is a considerable amount of information provided on the subject so you are not about to run out of information anytime too soon with respect to growing tomatoes.
Tomatoes can be added to your backyard arrangement in many locations depending whether you wish to grow them singly, or within your backyard vegetable garden. Some gardeners who lack space will actually provide areas on their terraces to grow them. However, one application of tomato growing is to use a trellis in order to yield tomatoes in greater abundance and add charm to the location.
A good many gardeners provide stakes for their tomatoes. However, there are some very organic-style gardeners out there who believe it is okay to allow the plant grow without the support of stakes or any other kind of support. This means the plant quite literally grows on top of the soil. Plants which are allowed to grow in this manner grow dimensionally larger. However they are exposed to disease or infested with insects or pests of some form or other. Also if fruit - which is the actual classification of a tomato - touches the soil it usually becomes bad.
All of this can occur before the gardener has a chance to pick the fruit from the vine. You can get around the situations of rotting fruit, infestation and disease to some degree by adding a great deal of mulch to the garden. However, even with the preceding application you are going to face the inevitability that your tomatoes to some extent are going to go rotten.
One way to keep your tomato plants up off the ground is by employing the use of what is known as the tomato cage. The cage is comprised of wire and can come in the form of a circular pattern or square design. You install the tomato cage when you plant your tomatoes. The cage provides abundant support as the tomato plant becomes larger and full of fruit. The only drawback to such an application is the plant generally becomes larger than the cage by the middle of the warmer summer months. Here again, the plant begins to bend and starts touching the soil.
Another matter of issue is once the plant becomes rather large the cage can be blown over by a gust of wind or even falls over due to the fact the weight of the plant and fruit is too much for it to support.
Growers have found a unique way around the situation by using a trellis as a supporting structure for the tomato plant. The trellis is a good solution since it allows your tomato plant to continue to grow in an upwards direction rather than growing outwards. If you affix the trellis to your home, a shed, a fence or simply two stakes, it can easily hold the tomato plants’ weight to the end of the summer.
Also if space is a premium, you can use the trellis idea to grow a greater number of tomato plants within a given area. You can grow tomatoes trellis-style within a two foot square area; whereas if you grow tomato plants the traditional way it requires an area of four square feet. This is due to the fact you naturally need an area to walk and pick fruit from the vine during the growing season. With the concept of the trellis you can easily double the number of tomato plants grown and within a smaller more compact area. Also if your back has a tendency to give out easily you need not worry. The trellis eliminates a great deal of bending. Certainly though you may need to do some reaching — however, this can prove considerably easier than effecting harvest by traditional means. Give the trellis concept of raising tomatoes a try the upside potential is you will get more tomatoes.