We have a "EARLY GIRL" tomatoe plant. we just picked off 90 tomatoes because the vines got so long and heavy, that they bent the cage. They went over the top,which is 4 feet high, then grew down to the ground and are now growing out all over the garden. They usually keep growing untill the end of October. Are we supposed to prune them in some way as they are growing? The vines are over 10 feet now. HELP. San Rafael, Ca.
If you prune the vines, you/ll lose your last-season crop!
What you can do is construct a teepee over the cage and tie the vines to it. I lash three, 8-foot poles (oak or maple saplings from my woodlot) together with twine over the cages. It/s a quick, easy, and cheap solution, although it/s best to do before the vines overrun the confines of the cage.
The tepee idea sounds like the way to go, to keep that plant off the ground.
I had the same problem with those little cages my first year gardening. They're not too bad for determinate plants that don't get too big, however for indeterminates, like your Early Girl, either a much larger cage, or staking is the best way to go.
Using one stake per plant doesn't seem to work easily enough for me. I'll try to describe how I staked mine this year. So far it's working great, and I'll probably do it this way from now on.
Basically I built a fence. I bought some of those lightweight green fence posts with the little tabs to attach the fence to them, and the um... cleat thing at the bottom that you step on to press them in the ground. The tallest posts were 6' tall, and about a foot of it was below the cleat, so only about 5' of it would be sticking above the ground. They have some holes drilled through them already, which made it easy to use some pieces of wood to extend the height if them to about 8' by using some cheap hardware to bolt the wood to the stakes.
After sticking those in the ground, I took a roll of 6' high green, plastic coated fencing. The stuff comes in rolls of various lengths. Unroll some and cut to the length needed for that row and attach to the posts. It doesn't have to go all the way to the ground, since the plants don't need any support at that point. The 6' high fence still isn't tall enough for the modified stakes, so using wire cutters I trimmed another lenght and attached to the top part of the stakes.
It sounds like a hassle. It's really not that bad to construct. you can tie off the tomato vines very easily to the fence, and plant your tomatoes on both sides. All the materials I picked up at Home Depot. I'm sure it's not the cheapest staking method... however that stuff should last a long time.
Gary NorthWest Ohio
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