My tomatoes have had it.

I haven't had the best results with my tomatoes this year.  I got a lot of them, but they were small.  The romas were barely bigger than grape tomatoes.  The beefsteaks were barely bigger than the romas.  I think we got too much rain.  Anyway, the vines have turned brown and are very sad looking now.

I picked the few remaining red tomatoes.  Then I started to cut them down.  They aren't going to recover and they're a real eyesore.  I have three other tomato plants that I put in around mid-July.  They're doing alright.  I've gotten a few tomatoes from them.  I'm hoping that they continue to produce more.

How are the tomato stakes working out?

Back in May I put up a post about tomato stakes.  I cut down saplings in the woods,cut them to 8 feet in length, and pounded them in the ground to hold up my tomatoes. 

May 12, 2013

June 28, 2013

July 17, 2013

They haven't quite reached the top of the stakes yet, but they're getting close.

They've been producing a lot of tomatoes.  Most of them are Romas.  I don't know why my beefsteaks are taking so long to produce.  

I'm happy to be getting so many, but I'm disappointed that they're half the size that I expected them to be.

Tomato stakes

Last year I had tomatoes get so tall that I couldn't reach the tops of them.  I had to extend the stakes that I used and then tie those stakes off to other stakes.  It was crazy.  I got really good, really big beefstake tomatoes though.

This year I didn't want to have to deal with stakes being pulled over and plants growing and falling down because I didn't have something tall enough to tie them to.  So I went into the woods behind my house and cut down trees.  Little ones that were 1-1.5" in diameter.  Then I cut them to 8' lengths and had my son carve points on the ends with his pocket knife.  After that I got out the step ladder and hammered them into the ground in the raised beds.  While I was doing this the neighbors drove by and gave me the stink-eye.

I added stakes on both sides of the bed and then lashed some horizontal sticks to them to add stability.  I did end up using some shorter stakes on the plants in the middle of the bed.  If they get out of control I can always lash some more sticks across the bed between the tall stakes on the two sides.  

Hopefully, what I have here will be sufficient for holding up all of my tomatoes.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see.  So far the tomatoes have been doing pretty well, unlike my peppers.