Quote:
Originally Posted by Starlight
Thanks for sharing your idea. May give your idea a try, sure would beat trying to tie plants up everyday. For the fence staples, do they fit into a regular staple gun that does 1/2" staples or does it take a special type of tool?
Your plants and your peppers sure looking good there. : )
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Sure does beat it. I used to have to tie up my plants as they grew and force them back inside the cages so they didn't grow through and hang back down to the ground. We were having a real bad fungal disease problem before this. And the plants got so thick inside the cages that there wasn't enough room for the tomatoes. They were getting smashed between the stems and the wires. It was a mess. The only time I do any tying now is if a bottom stem doesn't grow up through the lower panel, like the one you see in the picture. I didn't tie that one before hand and the weight of the tomatoes on it pulled it down to the ground. Sometimes a stem will start growing over the sides of the lower panels so I turn it back and tie it along the edge of the panel to keep it from going down to the ground. The higher ones never make it that far. I normally prune off any lower stems so water can't splash up on the leaves.
It has been a great system for me. It holds the plants upright like a bush, even though they are indeterminates. Those pics with the maters and peppers are from 5 years ago when I first made the trellises. Like I said, we get 50 mph winds here sometimes, and it destroys the peppers too. So rather than toss the tomato cages I had, I cut them in half to use around the peppers. They work better for them. Both plants get staked well at planting. The stakes hold them until the trellises and cages go in.
The fence staples are the kind you hammer in like these:
http://tinyurl.com/h2tpusx
I think I'm going to do away with the ropes and dowels and just screw some L brackets onto the 2x2's to lay the panels on. Like I said, raising them up doesn't work since the leaves grow downward. It would break them all if they were raised up, and there is no need to. It will be quicker and easier to put them on.