Staking and Trellising

Wooden tomato stakes

The garden is on the summer upswing, with lots of rain to fuel its growth. Plants start getting to the point where they need some direction in order to avoid becoming a sprawly mess by mid-July. That's where plant stakes and trellises come in.

Trellising can include everything from ornate wrought iron stands to a simple wooden stick in the ground. Anything you can use to provide support to a growing plant. I was lucky enough to have the former owners of this house leave a lot of their staking and trellising supports in the shed when they moved. There are some nice wire hoops as well as various sticks for attaching plants to.

When choosing a trellis, choose something that will support the full mature plant's weight. This might include large fruits like melons or tomatoes, so remember the weight of those as well! My cucumber vines in the front yard are slowly collapsing my wire trellis out there... too many cucumbers. (A common problem of mine). Wooden stakes are good but need to be driven into the ground far enough that they will hold up if you put some weight on them.

The wire grid in the middle is the cucumber trellis.
The vines will need to be tied to it to train it up the trellis.

The other consideration is the final height or breadth of the plant. If you have a large sprawly vine that you're trying to grow upwards (like indeterminate tomatoes or a bean vine) you will need to provide room height or length wise for it to sprawl. My indeterminate cherry tomato plants are on 6 ft stakes which are probably too short for what the plant will get to- I'd like to eventually get 8 ft stakes. Eh, you work with what you've got.

The blackberries are young still, so I've rigged up a small arbor for them to branch out on this summer. Next year I'll work on a more permanent arbor with larger posts that can support wires which will hold up better.

Temporary blackberry trellis

Tie the plants to the support as they grow, but tie them loosely or with stretchy bands to avoid cutting the stems as they get bigger. I found these ties at the garden center and they're nice and wide and stretchy. If you don't have those I've also been using rubber bands.

Tomato tied to the supporting stake

Trellising keeps plants up off of the ground so they are less prone to things like rot and fungi. Fruit that sits on the ground can also get discolored and rot earlier, so a vine that has fruit hanging in the air will produce better quality produce for you to enjoy!