Your Small Kitchen Garden

Because I pluck suckers from my tomato plants, the plants tend to grow very tall. I build trellises that support the plants up to about seven feet, and invariably the plants grow three or more feet above them. That last three feet of foliage rarely produces ripe tomatoes though there may be flowers and later green tomatoes before frost kills the plants. Having seven foot plants in July suggests they may pass 11 or 12 feet before the season ends.

I grow a lot of tomato plants in my small kitchen garden. Just over a month ago, I posted about how I’m maintaining this year’s tomato grove and I embedded a video there that shows how to pluck tomato suckers and start young tomato plants on hang string trellises. Find the post at Tomato Plant Maintenance in My Small Kitchen Garden.

I planned to post a second video a week later to demonstrate how to twist a tomato plant together with a hanging string and provide support for the plant. Seems things got away from me. Many of my plants have already grown above the tops of my trellises which are about seven feet tall. I can no longer twist those together with the hanging strings.

On the other hand, I created the promised video a week after I posted the first. It’s embedded below. Please have a look to see how to manage growing tomato plants on a hanging string trellis. Find information about how I assembled my hanging string trellises, at my blog post titled Tomato Supports in Your Small Kitchen Garden.

Maintain a Tomato Plant on a String Trellis