cattle panels beckon... do it !!!

I was gonna ask what a cattle panel was but another post popped up as luck would have it that had photos!
So...does compacting the branches help bring on disease etc?

I have, You might consider pruning & trellising the plants. That should provide for more air flow.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Soil and Raised Bed Question

I think that you should cease and desist immediately! Let them maters sprawl and to get the cages completely off your property, pack them up and ship them to me. I can give the address to ship them to when you are about ready for UPS or FedEx to pick them up. ":^)

Seriously, you should do what you think works best for your particular set of circumstances and that you are comfortable with, without worry.

I have grown tomatoes in cages for years and am in the process of building what will probably be the last ones that I will {{gwi:56494}} out of a roll of 5' X 150' CRW. It is kinda hard for me to believe how fast and well these babies are growing at this point in time.

I have seen no problems that I could associate with crowding or lack of air flow. I think that inevetiably, there will be the yellowing and browing of leaves on the lower branches as they get old and past their useful purpose, but I think that I would have many more disease problems if they were allowed to sprawl and come into contact with the ground.

If you do let them sprawl, plan on mulching well with hay, straw or shredded leaves. Then, you will still have a higher risk of losing some maters to rot, slugs or pill bugs, that can use the mulch as cover if conditions are right for them.

Best of luck with what ever you chose to do and keep us posted or tell us this fall how it went.
Bill P.

gulfbeach

I've let my tomatoes sprawl in the past when I had enough garden space, though I tie them to cattle panels now. My tomatoes did just fine when they sprawled, though they sprawled on a bed of straw about 8" deep that I'd gotten to mulch the garden so I wouldn't have to weed. (Working full-time and three small children limited my time.) I let the sprawl as much as they wanted and didn't have any problems with slugs or other critters that travel over a garden area to get to tomatoes. A lot of people let their plants sprawl and probably always will!

Gulfbeach,
I use cages and also let them sprawl. I mulch heavily like Anney says she does. I think it boils down to area, weather conditions and your garden practices. It is hot, windy and can be dry here with low humidity usually. I get more pounds per plant from the sprawlers. As I expand my garden I'm using less cages. I started using cages first for comparisons and also because I wanted to plant closer together. I now plant all 36" or more apart in single rows or rows 4' ft. or more apart. I would suggest you try it with one or two first and compare. That is my suggestion for any different method. Because it may not work well under your conditions. JMO. Jay

I agree with most all of the above but if gonefishin doesn't get your cages, I'll take 'em. ;)

Like him - I've grown in cages for more years that I care to remember and will keep on doing so with no problems. BUT for good air circulation, caged tomatoes can't be planted as close together as staked ones so maybe that is your problem - planted too close together. As a compromise, you can still cage and still sucker the plants to increase air circulation if you want. And changing location to avoid soil diseases is also a good move.

But like they say - try it all 3 ways - caged, staked, sprawl with mulch - and see what works best for you in your garden. Good luck.

Thanks 4 all the replies. My plants ar about 2.5 feet apart.Don't know why i try to save space doing that. I use oak leaves (average 2" to 3") thick for ground cover/mulch. Usually very humid in my region and sandy soil.No rain in 3 weeks as of today.In a drought.
Questions.
Where do i find cow panels and are they called a different name?
For u that use cages. Do you keep feeding branches through the cage as plant grows upward and how do you stop plant from lifting cage out of the ground?
What does sucker the plant mean? Trim the plant?

gulfbeach

I don't know where you are except in Florida, but what you're asking about have various names. One is cattle panel, another is feedlot panels. I've been able to buy them at Tractor Supply Company, linked below. If you want to check them out, go to their Store Locater and put in your zip code. You can see if there are any near you.

Then the link below will give you the pricing for them. You may have to re-enter your zip.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tractor Supply Company - Feedlot Panels

Guldbeach, suckering the plants probably means cutting or pinching off all the suckers that come out in the fork between a linb and the stem of the plant. They normally flower and bear fruit. I DO NOT sucker, prune or trim anything on my tomato plants. I sometimes lift a limb up to the next square so that it is comfortable and not bent downward, and tuck only the growing tips back inside the cages.

I have never had one exert an upward pressure on a cage, much less lift it. There are advantages and disadvantages to every method, you just have to decide which way has the most advantages and move away from those that have the most disadvantages in your opinion.
Bill P.

I have had similar problems using the "cheap" tomato cages you typically find at Walmart, etc. The material they are made of is so light weight that the weight of the tomato plant will render the cage useless. I have started using cattle panels cut in thirds and rolled to form a very heavy cage -- BTW this also works very good for raising cucumbers (the plants grow up inside the cage instead of sprwaling all over the garden and you can just reach in to grab the cucs). The only difficulty with this is that you have to make these cages yourself -- I have never seen these for sale anywhere.

On a side note, I have tried suckering my plants in the past and saw no real benefit -- just gave me something to do before the fruit started growing. Suckers are the shoots that grow up in the fork of a tomato plant (between the main stalk and a limb). I no longer sucker the plants -- just didn't see much of a benefit to it...

Gulfbeach, I know what you mean about cages. I hate them. Never, ever, will I use another cage. The other guys here have a lot more time in the tomato world than I do, so you should take them seriously, but just as a matter of preference, yeah, I can't stand cages and fully understand your question.

I am going with the cattle panel approach next year. I ended up using stakes again this year, hoping I could just prune suckers and keep things under control. However, I once again lost control of it. Once they get tall and bushy, it's hard to keep track of everything with multiple plants, and by the time you find the rogue sucker buried under the foliage, it's already got fruit on it, and it's tugging down the rest of the plant.

Florida weave is worth a try, too. I tried that for a while, but it failed because the stakes at the end caved in from the central weight. I guess you really have to post the end stakes deep, like for a suspension bridge. It probably also works better if you're not planted against the south side of the house where you can't work both sides as easily.

I saw some flat concrete reinforcing panels about 4X7 feet at Home Depot yesterday. I think that they were under $4.00. They could be used as a vericle suuport for tomatoes, just weave the shoots in and out. They would be a lot easier to store in the shed for the winter.

MacDuff

I just make a trellis using 6 foot steel fence posts and rolls of garden wire. With a shorter fence post in the middle to hold it taught. The trellis is in the middle of the bed, with tomatoes planted on either side of the trellis. Then I will train them onto the trellis using garden twine.

I think it is a bit nicer looking in the garden than concrete reinforcing wire or cattle panels, because it is green color.. And you can cut it to exact length no matter how long your beds are.