My way to stake up the tomatoes and why

Another garden bed that is simply thriving this year! You might remember a picture of my experimental garden bed, where I used Tomatoes, Carrots, and Basil for companion planting.

This was only few weeks ago.

And here is the bed now. You can't even see the carrots (luckily they don't need a whole lot of sun do mature... they are just comfortably growing between the tomato plants)

Here is my giant basil.

Since the tomatoes grew rapidly, I didn't quite keep up with trimming them and getting rid of the suckers. Well, really I was busy at work and with the kids so I didn't actively go into my garden for about a week and it was done... Those plants were massive.

So I asked my lovely and handy husband to make me a trellis. I am not a fan of cages... First of all this is more appealing to my eye and looks more natural than a piece of metal in my garden bed (just my opinion, many people successfully use them and they work great for them - no judgement here)

He got some wooden sticks (maybe there is a better name for it... I wouldn't know it ;-) and some nails and he went according to my tomato plant setting. I think it looks great! And since our garden beds are the same size, we will be able to move it to the next year's tomato bed.

First of all the reason why you want to stake up your tomatoes is to keep them off the ground so they don't start rotting. The structure is close to 6 feet high on 3 sides (I have three rows of tomatoes). I took a string and tied it around the stem of each tomato plant that needed support. Make sure you don't tighten it too much because the stem will thicken as the plant matures. Then tie it to the top but don't pull too hard so the plant doesn't get pulled out of the ground. Here is a detail.

There is no wrong way to support your tomato plants. It is your garden and you decide what your method should be :-) Happy Staking!