What do you use to hold up your veggie plants?

[olien]

We have Tomatoes, beefsteak & cherry, cucumbers & zucchini. Well, these are my plants I am concerned with at least. I am new to gardening & need help.
DH put the round flimsey tom. cages aropund the plants, but I know this will not be good enough.
I read somewhere about bamboo teepees for the cuces??
Is the zucchini Ok to just lay on the ground?

What did you guys do?
:

[Jenn_M]

I use poles for my tomatoes. Here is a picture. They are plastic coated with a steel core.

I've used a trellis for cucumbers but I've also just left them to sprawl on the ground. Same with zucchini. They seem to be fine either way.

[velcromom]

This year, my pole beans are climbing up sunflowers and my cukes are growing below broom corn so they'll use it as a trellis. My tomatoes are caged with a circle of concrete rebar mesh, it's nice and sturdy, lasts years and has nice big squares you can pick a giant tomato through. I need more though, I kind of overdid it on the tomatoes this year!

[lmonter]

This year I'm trying cattle panels for my indeterminate tomatoes. The ones that can get 5-8ft long. We'll see how that works. I do have cages for my determinate tomatoes though - otherwise the weight of the fruit sends the whole plant overboard to hang out on the ground with the slugs.

I have a goofy looking older trellis for my cucumbers to grow up, that works pretty well. This is probably it's last year though, some of the little wires are completely falling off. Definitely easier to find the cukes before they become baseball bat sized, and keeps them off the lawn (which made mowing a challenge for hubby).

Zucchini is just a giant bush plant. You know how lettuce grows? In kind of a rosette kind of pattern? That's what zucchini does, just on a much, much, much larger scale. Although I think there may be one or three kinds of zukes that have vines instead of bushing out. I don't grow those varieties though, I'm okay with my bushes. I can just plop those pretty much wherever I think I have enough room, no staking needed.

This year I'm trying some new things... Using tomato cages for peas to keep them upright and where I want them without using my 6ft trellises for those 2-3ft crops, and trying winter squash on my cattle panel arches (along with alderman peas and pole beans, which I know will do fine on the cattle panels). We'll see how much food I can squeeze out of this little yard yet.

[olien]

Originally Posted by Jenn_M

I use poles for my tomatoes. Here is a picture. They are plastic coated with a steel core.

I've used a trellis for cucumbers but I've also just left them to sprawl on the ground. Same with zucchini. They seem to be fine either way.

Thanks for the pic. Do I have to use anything special to tie the plants to the stakes? I wonce read pantyhose works well & doesnt damage the plant. Sound weird though.

[serenetabbie]

I am cheap, so I use 6 or 7 foot branches to make tipis for most of my climbers. Peas and cukes almost always go on them... although I have used the wire tomato cages for them in the past. The biggest issue I had with that was taking all the vines off the cages when the harvest was done. This year I am trying the florida weave for tomatoes.

And yes, pantyhose work well for tomatoes I have to wear them once or twice a year to different functions, and always *always* get a run in them. I just save them for the garden.

[cymbeline]

My tomatoes are in cages, but then I had to add extra supports because they have grown out of control. They are about 4.5ft high right now and still growing!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2429/...d4a1a978_b.jpg

I have since transplanted the bell peppers to another bed since the tomatoes were stealing their nutrients and sunlight! I guess the fertilizer is working, ha.

I stacked two tomato towers for the cukes which are now all the way to the top. about 6ft high:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3307/...1b506115_b.jpg

The squash just hangs out on the ground, but it takes up a LOT of space (about 2x2 per plant right now, still growing):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2434/...2605d87a_b.jpg

[olien]

Originally Posted by serenetabbie

This year I am trying the florida weave for tomatoes.

And yes, pantyhose work well for tomatoes I have to wear them once or twice a year to different functions, and always *always* get a run in them. I just save them for the garden.

The florida wave looks cool. I think I am going to try it! The fence posts described in the link have to be cheaper than bamboo stakes at the garden center.

Originally Posted by cymbeline

I stacked two tomato towers for the cukes which are now all the way to the top. about 6ft high:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3307/...1b506115_b.jpg

Good idea for the cukes

Thanks everyone for the links & pics!

[Close2Me]

skinny bamboo sticks

[Talula Fairie]

Originally Posted by cymbeline

My tomatoes are in cages, but then I had to add extra supports because they have grown out of control. They are about 4.5ft high right now and still growing!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2429/...d4a1a978_b.jpg

I have since transplanted the bell peppers to another bed since the tomatoes were stealing their nutrients and sunlight! I guess the fertilizer is working, ha.

I stacked two tomato towers for the cukes which are now all the way to the top. about 6ft high:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3307/...1b506115_b.jpg

The squash just hangs out on the ground, but it takes up a LOT of space (about 2x2 per plant right now, still growing):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2434/...2605d87a_b.jpg

WOW!!! Look at your garden!!!! It's amazing!!!!

To answer the question for the OP, I didn't do anything to support my cukes or zucchini/summer squash. My tomatoes I have in cages or stakes. I prefer the cages but they are kinda spendy for a good one so it's mostly stakes for me...which I am beginning to suspect they may outgrow.

[serenetabbie]

Olien; I had some old metal fence posts in the garage from when we took an ugly chain link fence down, but I did buy a few more. I bought the heavier duty ones from the fencing aisle at a big box store since I plan to re-use them every year and I think they were around $4.50 each . What was really weird (IMO anyway) was that they had thinner, flimsier plastic stakes/posts in the garden center for $6 each!

[tankgirl73]

I'm loving the idea of the Florida weave. I've got a bunch of bamboo sticks which I was so excited to find (and dirt cheap too) at the Home Depot. But I wasn't sure how sturdy they'd be once they plants get really heavy. I've heard of them breaking, but also since I'm using a SFG, some of them only have about 6" of dirt for support, and the "Mel's Mix" is very loose stuff. Doesn't make for the most stable of stakes. Plants on the outer edge of the box, I could dig the stakes into the lawn dirt, but the ones on the inside that won't work.

With the Florida weave I can plant some long rebar poles that we have on the outside of the box, one bamboo pole in the middle -- it doesn't have to be super-strong since it's just to keep things orderly, the rebar is providing the real support -- and string the twine along.

I've already done this, just today, for my one row which is bigger than the rest (things got transplanted several days to a couple weeks apart, as I got the boxes finished -- the ones transplanted first are about 8" tall and getting bushy, the ones planted more recently are still little more than teeny seedlings, just starting to get their 'legs' under them, so to speak.) It looks great!

Now, my only remaining issue is that my tomatoes aren't all in line with other tomatoes. I put all the vining things side by side, as I was planning to do some kind of trellis for everything but hadn't figured out exactly what yet. So there are cucumbers, kidney beans, and green beans, all in the same rows as the tomatoes. Has anyone used the Florida weave with beans and/or cucumbers? All the stuff I can find about it online is about tomatoes. Do beans and cucumbers NEED something different, or can this work for them as well?

[serenetabbie]

I dunno, it seems like any sort of support would work well for climbers Tankgirl. This year I ran out of twine/rope and just threw the net from a broken soccer goal over one of my tipis for the peas. Seems to be working great so far. That idea for using the less $ bamboo for the middle is fantastic. SInce I have not managed to scrape together the cash to buy all the posts, I am going to try that too!

[dillonandmarasmom]

We use what we have, what we can find around us, and what others are getting rid of. This year, my tomatoes are in a cage (all of them in one big rectangular one) with bamboo shoots harvested from a neighbor's yard staking each plant. These are pear tomatoes that tend to go crazy and bushy if I don't contain them pretty well.

For my lemon cucs, I used what I had of a flexible 4"x4" wire grid fencing (only about 12" tall) staked intot he ground with more bamboo. Of course, they have more than outgrown this and are vining along the ground, taking over the bed shared by the honeydew.

My peas (sugar snap) are growing up a 5 foot teepee made from more bamboo.

Next month i will be planting more corn, then some pole beans at the corn's base with squash in between rows. (three sisters). I am in zone 9, so our corn, squash and beans season runs very long.

There are various pics on the green thumb blog in my sig.

[bandgeek]

I haven't used them yet, but I found 5 ft bamboo sticks (no idea if they are real bamboo or not) at dollar tree 5/$1. I was all concerned about the cost of supporting my plants....I had no idea stuff could be that cheap!