Hi All,
We have has several big wind storm come through and they blew down, rather, bend over some of my wire tomato cages. And we have had several freezing night.
Odd, the tomatoes that blew over did not die. (Everything else did.)
1) Do I even need cages for tomatoes? They grow out over the top and then all over the place. Should I just give up on the cages?2) does on the ground protect tomatoes from freezing? Or is this just some odd placement thing I am missing.
Many thanks,
-T
In your dry climate you might get away with tomatoes on the ground. For the rest of us, they rot and are more accessible to more pests (such as slugs) when lying on the ground - but it might work for you in the desert.
Might as well try the experiment next year - I'd suggest some of each, and bigger cages if you are using the usual little ones. Our "old home cages" were roughly 8x5 foot sections of 6" mesh reinforcing wire, with
3 sections of 1/2" rebar wired onto the bottom as stakes to go into the ground - I have got to make some of those, they work much better than the "2 or three hoops and 3 or 4 legs" type that are sold here. Makes a roughly 30 inch diameter by 5 foot tall cage, but you can reach inside for the fruit inside it.Fussier people train onto a tall stake or twine supported from overhead and prune down to a single stem. I have not yet reached that level of fussy (or spare time to be fussy in.) Given that it's used in commercial production there must be some value to it.
For limited values of freezing being near the ground helps. For less limited values of freezing it does not. When the ground has not frozen yet, it's a source of heat on a freezing night - this is also most of why covering crops in (moderately) freezing weather can protect them from freezing.
Thank you!
We have no slugs and I frequently pick tomatoes off the ground that have blown off the vines.
Rebar !!!
Went to pick a few baskets of cherries on the two downed plants. To my surprise, it is an unholy pain in the back to stoop over and pick tomatoes from a vine on the ground.
So, I go tho thinking, come up with come kind of cage that can be removed so the plants can hug the ground when the first freeze comes.
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