Stake, trellis, or sprawl from a swc?

creister · January 24, 2010

Does anybody have any experience using any of the above methods of support with swc? If so what do you do, and what where the results?

rnewste · January 24, 2010

creister,

I have always used vertical growing with tomato cages, but I would be concerned with the "sprawl" method, you would experience breakage of the branches as the weight of the tomatoes will snap the vines as the tomatoes try to sit on the ground, below container level. Keep in mind (unless you are burying the containers in the ground) that the vines will arch acutely coming out of the top of the SWC container.

Raybo

dice · January 27, 2010

I took one Woody's folding cage (wood A-frame) and
tied an 8' piece of steel pipe to the top of it, then tied
gillnet type trellises to the ends of the pipe with 1/8"
nylon rope, so one Woody's cage would support 3 plants.
I had one SWC under the folding cage and one on each
side of it. Worked great. (Spudakee under the A-frame
with Cherokee Chocolate and Cherokee Purple on the sides,
in the net trellises.)

rsg2001 · January 31, 2010

I like the super-tall , wide cages from Gardeners Supply company - they're square, foldable almost 4' cages to which you can add an equally tall extension cage. They happen to fit their swcs and come with clips that let you attach the cages to the lip of the container. They work great, although they are a bit tricky to assemble.

stormymater · January 31, 2010

I had breakage with sprawl from my containers last year - quite a bit.
Amazing how the vines will continue to flourish sometimes when they look like their vascular connections are horribly damaged. I also would cut the broken ones & put them in a partially shaded area in a bucket of water & within a week they had roots enough to plant (as if I needed more tomato plants) & went on to provide many wonderful tomatoes. I found tending the plants & picking fruit to be more enjoyable with the vines supported ( I love our CRW cages). I was saying bad words more than once as I crouched over picking hundreds of white currant, gold rush currant & Hawaiian currant tomatoes, meanwhile getting gnawed to pieces by mosquitoes. If you are gonna go for sprawl don't do it with currant tomatoes unless you have a condition that is improved with crouching. Wasn't as awful for the bigger varieties I let sprawl over bales of straw - less vine breakage too.

January 24, 2010	#1
creister Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Abilene, TX zone 7 Posts: 1,478	Stake, trellis, or sprawl from a swc? Does anybody have any experience using any of the above methods of support with swc? If so what do you do, and what where the results?

January 24, 2010	#2
rnewste Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Campbell, CA Posts: 4,064	creister, I have always used vertical growing with tomato cages, but I would be concerned with the "sprawl" method, you would experience breakage of the branches as the weight of the tomatoes will snap the vines as the tomatoes try to sit on the ground, below container level. Keep in mind (unless you are burying the containers in the ground) that the vines will arch acutely coming out of the top of the SWC container. Raybo

January 31, 2010	#4
rsg2001 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: New York Zone 6 Posts: 479	I like the super-tall , wide cages from Gardeners Supply company - they're square, foldable almost 4' cages to which you can add an equally tall extension cage. They happen to fit their swcs and come with clips that let you attach the cages to the lip of the container. They work great, although they are a bit tricky to assemble.

January 31, 2010	#5
stormymater Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Pleasure Island, NC 8a Posts: 1,162	I had breakage with sprawl from my containers last year - quite a bit. Amazing how the vines will continue to flourish sometimes when they look like their vascular connections are horribly damaged. I also would cut the broken ones & put them in a partially shaded area in a bucket of water & within a week they had roots enough to plant (as if I needed more tomato plants) & went on to provide many wonderful tomatoes. I found tending the plants & picking fruit to be more enjoyable with the vines supported ( I love our CRW cages). I was saying bad words more than once as I crouched over picking hundreds of white currant, gold rush currant & Hawaiian currant tomatoes, meanwhile getting gnawed to pieces by mosquitoes. If you are gonna go for sprawl don't do it with currant tomatoes unless you have a condition that is improved with crouching. Wasn't as awful for the bigger varieties I let sprawl over bales of straw - less vine breakage too.