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Old November 28, 2018   #1
ChristinaJo
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Default Tomato cages, no pruning or stakes,one stem?

Which do I use this coming year? Which seems the best and get the most produce? Is there really a difference?
Lay some knowledge on me ,please
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Old November 28, 2018   #2
clkeiper
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depends on how much time you have to keep up with your tomatoes. cages take the least amount of time to me. I do some on strings and some in cages. the strings take continuous pruning and clipping them up.
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Old November 28, 2018   #3
Cole_Robbie
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I have been around family gardens all my life, and I have only seen cages used. The only place I have seen single stem pruning and perfect looking results is the Internet. When I try it, even if I can keep up with it, the fruit end up getting sun scald from not being shaded by foliage. I think there is a chalky shade spray for developing fruit, but I never got that far.

I do think it is worthwhile to prune off branches that fall on to the ground, and the lowest foliage that gets splashed with dirt in the rain. Making room for air circulation would be a big benefit of pruning, to prevent disease, and especially in wet weather. That extra space is really nice for spraying, too. Caged plants tend to bunch up in a jungle, giving bugs a place to hide from the spray.
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Old November 28, 2018   #4
KarenO
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It depends a great deal on what varieties you choose to grow as some methods work better on different plants.
Here’s a nice article I like that may be helpful.
There are no absolutes, you will hear things like “ always” and “ never” in relationship to pruning and supporting tomatoes but it is very dependent on your weather/ your season length/ your growing situation/ disease and pest pressures and especially variety.
https://www.finegardening.com/article/pruning-tomatoes
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Old November 28, 2018   #5
carolyn137
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When I first moved to where I am right now there was a very large raised bed,maybe 30 ft long X 10 ft wide. I had to clean it out since the previous owners had planted the whole darn bed with tulip bulbs, well many kinds of bulbs and did that as a selling feature for my home and the 30 acres that went with it and no,those 30 acres could NOT be used for a garden. Dug those bulbs out and planted tomatoes in there with no supports at all, except at one end I planted several kinds of garlic bulbs that had been sent to me by a friend in the midwest.

Fast forward and I wasn't able to do any gardening,no need to go into that.

So what I ended up doing was to buy several large individual containers,several different sizes, and one of those spiral conical supports was put in each container.

So plant a tomato plant in the center,it grows and then gets to the top of that circular support,so just let it flop over and start hanging down and Freda, who helps with my gardening would harvest the tomatoes as they ripened and if there were any foliage diseases brought them into me so I could make a diagnosis and suggest what to do about it.

In that way, IMO, I met the criteria you asked for which was

Tomato cages were used
No pruning was done
One plant/stem, to a container.

Carolyn, who in way back time made her own cages out of concrete reinforcing wire,be sure to wear heavy gloves and also pliers to bend the wires together to make a circle ,keeping one foot on the roll end so it didn't roll back and trap said foot . They were about 4ft tall,just let the plants grow and harvest when necessary. Some ripe, some half ripe, etc.
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Old November 28, 2018   #6
Whwoz
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Must agree with KarenO's comments and do like that article after a quick read. Have never pruned, caged or done anything more fancy than tie to a single stake where we are Down Under. But bear in mind that our humidity is often under 30% in summer and on a really hot day can get down to zero. This means that we don't have to deal with fungal/bacterial diseases that attack the plants foliage. This is one of the main things to think about and is mentioned above by other posters, you need to use the growing method that allows air movement through the plants to dry foliage and fruit under your growing conditions. The more enclosed and wind protected your garden, the more open the plants need to be.
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Old November 28, 2018   #7
jtjmartin
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High humidity and I like to grow more varieties, closer: single stem lean and lower. (I LOVE lean & lower)

Dwarf tomatoes: cages

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Old November 28, 2018   #8
GoDawgs
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I use cages made from 5' of field fence. For sure I start pruning off any bottom foliage that's even thinking about touching the ground. Since it's so hot and humid here mid summer I sometimes open up the plant to help air flow but keep enough foliage to prevent sunscald. Keeping suckers removed helps keep that extra foliage from forming if I remember to do it.

KarenO, thanks for that link.
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Old November 28, 2018   #9
ChristinaJo
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Thanks y'all. I appreciate it.
KarenO, thank you for the link!
I've always grown my tomatoes in cages out of concrete wire. I thought I might get more production if I tried the stake method...
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Old November 28, 2018   #10
clkeiper
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The stake method is better for determinates than for indeterminates imo. I use single stem on a string in the green house or hightunnel, not in the garden by the way.
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Old November 29, 2018   #11
MrBig46
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I do not know anyone in the Czech Republic who would grow indeterminate tomatoes in cages. Only pure beginners try it without pruning. It is not true that the only advantage of pruning is to protect against disease.
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Old November 30, 2018   #12
zipcode
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Here in Germany I've never seen any garden that is not single stem and staked. I actually think they overdo it, some varieties (like cherries with 8-10 fruit per truss) have very poor production with this method.
So I think you need to be flexible and depends on various factors. Pruning is more work but more space efficient, so if space is a problem, question is answered. For most OP cherries I would let more stems or not pruned (a typical variety is Galina). Multiflora cherries (which includes most hybrids) can be one stem.
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Old November 30, 2018   #13
Nan_PA_6b
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I think minimum effort for maximum results is a tomato cage & no pruning. Some of the bigger plants will tip the cage over; in that case I put a metal stake down through the cage to hold it upright.
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Old November 30, 2018   #14
maxjohnson
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Most productive for me has always been indeterminate growing on big trellis of 7ft minimum.
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Old December 1, 2018   #15
b54red
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I agree that you must take into consideration the conditions you are growing in to determine which method works best for you.

Down here in lower Alabama where the humidity is usually extremely high and disease and pest pressure to match I have after many years of experimenting settled on using the lean and lower with one stem. It makes it easier to spray and the foliage dries out faster resulting in less disease. The disadvantage is I get less tomatoes earlier but they continue to produce for a long time so it evens out. One big advantage is being able to grow more varieties in less space than with any other method. It does take constant pruning but that is actually less work than trying to keep plants alive in cages once they get full of foliage.

I started out using simple stakes which worked great for determinate varieties but with the indeterminates and our long season the plants quickly out grew the stakes so I went to much taller and more sturdy stakes with very limited pruning. This worked better but still the plants would become unmanageable by mid June so I would add more stakes but that just became a huge mess also.

I went next to Texas tomato cages made with concrete reinforcing wire. These big cages worked much better than stakes and were much easier to maintain until the plants outgrew them. I gradually increased my early pruning so they were limited to only two or three stems and this worked much better with a bit less disease problems. However the cages would still get overgrown and eventually folige diseases would take most down. I used this method for quite a while until I tried something else.

I went with large trellises next. They were seven feet tall and extended all the way down my beds on both sides. I finally figured out that if I planted my tomatoes 5 to 6 feet apart and limited them to three or four stems at the most that I could keep it from becoming too crowded on the trellis until late in the summer. I got my best production per plant with this method and the plants were easier to spray. The downside was the constant tying up and pruning that was required and it would get worse as the season went on. Eventually it would get the better of me and the trellises would get over loaded with foliage and then diseases and pests would take over. If you have a good bit of room and only want to keep up a few plants I would recommend this method. However if you want to grow a lot of plants I would recommend the lean and lower method which I now use on almost all my plants. Once you get everything set up and going it is actually the easiest method to maintain over a long season but it does require some extra work in planning and getting it all set up.

If you have high humidity and heavy disease and pest pressure I would recommend you go with either the trellis method or the lean and lower. If you have low humidity and light pest and disease pressure I would go with very large Texas tomato cages and limit the number of stems so they don't get too crowded and also to help with larger fruit.

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