RE: FW: Gardening 2001 - now sq foot ?'s

I like using the string method for indeterminate tomatoes. It is easy to
do but of course you must keep an eye on it every couple days to wind
the plant around the string---or is it the string around the plant? You
must however have something overhead to tie to, like a pipe or conduit
though it can probably be made of wood also.

Also, a lower maintainance way(lower maint after it's all together) is
using concrete reinforcing wire from a 5 ft tall roll, you can calculate
the amount needed using pi times the diameter (3.141 x diameter =
circumference) The mesh is somewhere around 6 or 7" squares, great for
reaching your hand thru & pickin that Giant Belgium or Orange Strawberry
Tomato. If the squares are 6", 9 squares long = 54" from the roll = 17"
diameter cage (10 squares = 19", 11 sq = 21" 12 = approx 23", 13 = about
35" diameter, and so on...) Don't forget you will have to add a 1/2
square to give you material to twist it together in a loop. Keep in mind
that this stuff is some heavy duty stuff, somewhere around 1/8 to 3/16"
diameter wire; I used lineman's pliers in the past but my hands regreted
it, so for this year I bought an inexpensive set of bolt cutters for
$9.99 from Harbor Freight.

Also, I paint the wire; I buy the wire in town from a surplus lumber
yard for about $50 for a 5' x 150' roll which should make 30 cages or
so. To get a true 5ft tall cage, the bottom wire (horizontal) is cut
near the perpendicular (Vertical) joint and bent down to stick into the
ground 6".

I also use the wire to make supports for shade cloth or row cover (the
pic of the pepper tunnel: in 1999 the tunnel was made of concrete
reinforcing wire and covered with plastic and holes burned thru, a hole
per square), as trellises for cantaloupes & melons (yes, grow them
vertically!) and even can use it horizontally for those crops that tend
to blow over easily. (They grow up THRU the squares.) You can see a 5ft
cage in some of my pics that I used this past year for tomatillos; I
painted it white gloss enamel. As the branches get long enough to grow
thru the grids, I tuck them back inside the cage--no more sprawling
tomatillos but a nice & neat tall plant. Same for tomatoes. Some
tomatoes never get large enough for a cage this size, some pass thru the
top and keep going, & most try poking out the sides. If you manage the
stems well, you can use large cages for indeterminate tomatoes also.

If anyone needs to view the pics they are at:
http://server3001.freeyellow.com/bowtiesupply/img/garden/

Also check out the 4 gallon square containers for under a $1.00.

-----Original Message-----
From: Nan Sterman [n*@mindsovermatter.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 11:10 PM
To: veggie-list@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: FW: Gardening 2001 - now sq foot ?'s


Mark -- I surfed through you garden photos and I have a question:
what is your favorite tomato support system and why do you like it?

Nan
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Nan Sterman
San Diego County California
Sunset zone 24, USDA hardiness zone 10b or 11
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