O.K. You've tried every method for growing tomatoes on the planet. Me too. Well you can high five whoever is closest to you right now, because YOUR SEARCH HAS FINALLY ENDED!
Dear Florida Weave, You suck. Dear Tomato Cage, You suck. Dear Weird Spiraly Wire thing, You super-suck.
Dear String Method, I love you with all of my heart. You do not, nor will you ever suck. Sincerely, Everyone who has ever tried you.
Don't know about the string method? You can read all about it in my first post on the string method and how to do it.
Before I go on and on and on and on and on and on about how if you grow tomatoes you shouldn't bother with any other support system than the string method, let's have a quick reminder of what an heirloom tomato looks like when left to its own devices by the month of August.
So, yeah. Impressive for sure. Also space sucking, a little bit tangled and frightening to children, pets and any adult who doesn't have some sort of martial arts training.
I remember sticking my head in this plant to pick a tomato and thinking ... well here goes ... this is why people buy life insurance ... then hoping I'd be able to pop back out in the next 5 minutes before some sort of tomato vine strangulation occurred.
The string method on the other hand ... is a work of art. And you get the same amount of tomatoes because the plant isn't spending all its energy on creating miles and miles of stems and leaves sticking out every which way.
This is how a tomato plant approximately the same age looks in my yard this year. LOOK AT IT!
The string method is just a matter of planting a tomato, pruning out all the suckers leaving only the one main stem, and wrapping that stem as it grows around a string. In this case the string is attached to a screw at the top of my fence. Here are all the details in case you missed it the first time around when I talked about it in the spring.
Once the vine reaches the top of the string you can either continue the string horizontally or you can drop the whole plant down (you can see there are a couple of feet of bare stem at the bottom) by loosening the string, and letting it climb up again.
The reason the stem is bare at the bottom is because after your tomato has set fruit you remove all the leaves underneath that first fruit set. Once you pick that fruit, you remove all the leaves from below the next fruit set. And so on. You eventually end up with a lot of bare stem.
I tried the string method at my house on a whim to see how it would work against a fence but the main reason I tried it was for my community garden to save space and work. In the spring when the seedlings were about 18" high, I attached my string and started training them.
Now the tomatoes have made their way almost to the top of the string.
And the plants and fruit are PERFECT.
There was no disease at all because there's so much air flowing between the plants to keep the leaves dry. Since you pinch off all the leaves below the fruit nothing is near the ground to get disease splashed up on it when it rains.
It's tomato Narnia. Actually, since I'm from the 80's it's tomato Nirvana.
There's exactly enough greenery to produce nice tomatoes but not so much that the fruit is shaded. Every tomato gets plenty of light and air.
Everything grows so perfectly and in order that it's almost bizarre.
All in a single row up the vine you have ripe tomatoes at the bottom with cluster after cluster above them in various stages of growing and ripening.
And not a single plant looks as though it's going to reach out and wrestle you to the ground.
Not all experiments in the garden turn out this well. Not all experiments in the kitchen turn out well. Or decorating, DIY, fix it, hairstyle or makeup experiments.
But for every contouring experiment that makes you look like a paint by number, or every marshmallow/potato/fish salad that makes you sick, there's a string method.
So keep experimenting and learning and trying. It ain't that hard. Any of it.
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Cool!
Dear Karen, I recently had a garage sale. To no great surprise the four sets of ancient cross country skis and poles did not sell. I stared at them for a long time trying to decide what to do with them as I hate to throw anything away that might be repurposed. Then in a flash it came to me. I will use them next year in my garden to tame my heirloom tomato jungle using the string method that Karen teaches! So I took the bindings off and stowed them in my garden shed ready for next year. Who says you can't use cross country skis in Manitoba in the summer. Oh all the poles will be dandy garden stakes for my flower bed.
Great idea! Now I know what to do with my old cross-country skis!!! Thanks for the tip.
Once saw a poor plant where someone had misunderstood about removing only the leaves below the fruit - the people had removed every single leaf on the plant and cut of the leaders. It didn't grow much - of anything!
Well,no, it wouldn't, lol. Oh well. That's how you learn! I've done plenty of stupid gardening things over the years all in the name of experimentation. :) ~ karen!
How deep do you need to pound the stakes into the ground to make them stable enough to support the tight horizontal string? I'm thinking if it's not really deep, the pull on it from the vertical strings and the plants could cause the stakes to lean toward the plants. Can you tell I always try to envision what can go wrong? I hate being blind-sided by problems. Also I don't have room in my little space to set up a ladder for pounded the stakes. Any ideas?
I was at a huge tomato greenhouse in the UK last week and they use the string method too! Across all 18 hectares! :)
My plants totally look like your first photos and I admit I definitely backed away slowly the other day.... I didn't know what kind of crazy would happen if I tried to fix the mess now. But they did grow so well this summer. I will certainly be doing this string method next year, if I got lots this year I can't imagine what next year will produce!!!
Thanks so much for testing all those different methods. Will have to try this one next year!
What's the word on potted tomatoes? I have a patio that backs to a large wall that reflects lots of heat, and I've been thinking of putting some large pots with a tomato plant in each (next year). Will potted tomatoes need a string?
It doesn't matter so much if they're potted or not. What matters is if they're determinate or indeterminate. Both will do great in pots against a wall but the indeterminate tomatoes (ones that grow until the frost kills them) are the ones that need the string method because they get so tall. ~ karen!
ok - I am bookmarking this page with all the helpful links - my wild and crazy tomatoes are an out-of-control comedy of errors just waiting for an accident to happen (I almost put a stake through my own heart halfway through the season when one fell over and I tried to refix it)
Do you prefer the string method over the Florida weave?
Definitely! ~ karen
I understood that the leaves immediately below fruit are needed to feed the fruit. This makes sense to me - the leaves send nourishment upwards as long as they are growing well. So yes prune the leaves below the fruit but except for the last one. Reference at the end of this article https://bonnieplants.com/library/how-to-prune-tomatoes/
Also here - one of my favourite gardening sources, and it's from right here in Ontario.
http://www.gardenmyths.com/growing-tomatoes-removing-bottom-leaves/
There's an experiment for next year - try some each way and see which is most successful.
Of course there are as many methods for growing tomatoes as there are gardeners! Thanks for this, I will definitely try strings next year.
HI Agnes! Yes, the article actually says that greenhouses do remove the lower leaves. :) The main reason I remove the lower leaves is for better light for the plant, to keep things tidy and to prevent early blight which is rampant at our community garden. No need for me to do a test next year ... my test is complete! This is what I'll be doing from now on. :) Just one walk around my garden and I can see that people who have left their lower leaves on have tomato plants that are almost dead from blight. :( ~ karen!
Ooops, I guess I didn't say clearly that I agree ! Absolutely yes, do remove almost all leaves below the fruit - only except the one leaf immediately below.
Yeah, I don't need you to do a test next year. I need you to do a "step-by-step" for me and my friends. Early. We need help.
I do this on my pre existing 3-wire horse fencing. I have 3 cherry tomato plants and They are so neat and orderly and explode with fruit!
This is fascinating - I now live in a condo but am starting to wish I had a garden again!!
Tried this method this year in pots cause I have $&@" muskrat that took my plants in the ground last year. This rocks!
I am still confused about the bottom of the string - is it not secured to anything except the bottom of the tomato stem or did you secure it to the ground somehow? Definitely need a new method for next year and like this possibility.
Hi Josephine. :) Some people clip the string to the bottom of the tomato, some people tie it. I did neither. I just wrapped it a few times around the bottom of the stem. The tension from the string keeps it in place. ~ karen!
I've grown tomatoes with the string method. It's the only way to go IMHO. It's the best way to get a bumper crop.
We took your advice using the string method in one garden.
I have another garden that I used the cages.
The string garden is by far the better way to go !
My plants are at least 5 feet tall and are still growing ....
and they produced very nicely !
Excellent! ~ karen
dear Karen, I am determined to master this technique before I die. I am already old so next year I am going to camp out next to my plants and when those little suckers appear every five minutes I will be there to get them. We saw this method being used in a Detroit urban garden project where they have lots of volunteers, so maybe everyone took a shift called "sucker and pruning detail". We had bookoos of rain lately and there is no going near the tomato jungle and actually not many tomatoes either. We like the sweet baby girls but they have turned into the mean baby girls. Thanks for all you do.
Sweet baby girl is my favourite cherry tomato! ~ karen!
This is beautiful..not kidding...
How the heck did you get all those stakes in the ground? Stilts? Operating a post hole digger while on a scaffold?
I have the garden space and gumption to try the string method, but I need some direction on garden prep / stake engineering.
Hi Carrie! My soil is fairly friable, so I inserted the posts after digging and raking the garden in the spring. I literally just pounded them in with a mallet while standing on a ladder. ~ karen!