Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave, When we practice to deceive.  But we're not deceiving anybody.  Today, I want to show you a method called the Florida Weave.  It's not a dance or a hairdo.  I don't know why it's called that.  It was probably developed by a Floridian.  What it is is a successful, easy method for keeping tomatoes upright.  No more stakes.  No more cages.  I learned this from the Internet many years ago and have used this technique ever since.

Let's take a look...  You need just a few items:  some sort of anchor points - I use metal t-posts, and some twine - I use the baling twine that I salvage from the round bales of hay we feed the cows.  I have approximately 15 foot long rows.  I drive a t-post into the ground on each end of the row and then one in the middle.

When your tomatoes are approximately 8 inches tall, you are ready to begin the Florida Weave.  It is a little hard to explain, so I'll describe and then show a few photos.  First, tie off the twine to a t-post on the end.  Pull the twine and zig-zag in and out of each tomato until you reach the center post.  Pull tight and tie off.  Then, continue zig-zagging in and out until you reach the end.  Pull tight and tie off.  Then, continue back the other way, doing the same thing, except go on the OPPOSITE side of the tomato than you did on the first pass.  Pull tight and tie off.

Let's look at some photos:  In this one, you can see how the twine is supporting the tomato plant.

This photo illustrates how the tightly pulled twine around both sides of the plant effectively holds the plant up.  Weave in.  Weave out.

As often as you wish, repeat the steps above as the tomato plant grows.  I run new twine and do the Florida Weave about every 6 to 8 inches.  While I'm doing it, it gives me a great opportunity to check out the health of the plant and pull all the 'suckers' off that are growing in the "elbows" of the tomato plant.

Firm supporting anchors like t-posts with twine pulled tight, enables a supporting skeleton structure for the tomato plants.  I plant indeterminate tomatoes, but this would work with determinates as well, I would think.

As the 'maters start growing, you'll need a stout supporting structure to hold up the weight of the fruit.

Won't be too much longer!  Oh, one more thing, you can add extensions to your t-posts and continue weaving as high up as you can reach.  My hat's off to the developer of the Florida Weave.

You Say To-May-Toe, I Say To-Mah-Toe

We haven't picked the first tomato yet, but will probably do so tomorrow.  We planted the tomatoes from seed in early January like we always do.  This year's tomatoes seem bigger, healthier than in previous years.  I'll tell you why.  Lime.  I limed the soil this year.  Getting the soil pH right enabled the plants to use all the nutrients in the soil that were previously locked up. 

We grow indeterminate heirloom tomatoes and this year, the plants are over 6 feet tall and still growing!  Absolutely covered in blooms.  Can you see them?

Here is a tomato that will be ready to pick pretty soon.  It is always nice to get early tomatoes.  As it warms up, all the pests like stink bugs show up and scar up the fruit.

Indeterminate tomatoes vine, whereas determinate tomatoes make a bush.  We have 62 tomato plants planted on a number of 15 foot long rows.

Here's the crazy thing.  It has been very dry this spring.  We haven't had much rain at all.  I have not watered the tomatoes since I put them in the ground.  How can that be?  Mulch!  I laid a thick layer of hay in the walkways and around the tomatoes and it has served as a barrier to keep moisture in the soil.  It also keeps weed pressure down.

Check these tomatoes out.  The seeds for these were given to me by a lady from church who saved them from some tomatoes she bought at Wal Mart.  Perhaps you've seen these?  They sell them on the vine, sort of like a cluster of grapes.

Here is the key to keeping indeterminate tomatoes tamed.  If you don't control them, they vine all over the place and your garden becomes unkempt and unruly.  The taming mechanism?  The Florida Weave trellising system.  All it requires are some t-posts and some baling twine.  As the tomatoes grow, every five inches we tie a new piece of twine and zig zag back and forth all the way down the row in and around the vines.  Then wrap tightly on the other t-post and come back on the opposite side of the vines and tie securely on the t-post you started on.

You can see a better illustration below of how the twine criss-crossed supports the vine.

I pull the twine very tight.  Sometimes too tight, and it scars up the vines.  But that's okay as long as the plant keeps thriving and putting on blooms and fruit.

Won't be much longer now...

Hopefully we'll be able to translate all these green tomatoes into red ripe ones we can enjoy.

We'll eat them raw, make pico de gallo, dry some, and can some. 

The Spring Tomatoes are Officially Done

This afternoon I cut down the twine support from our Florida Weave Trellis that supports our tomatoes and pulled up the t-posts that anchor the trellising system.The tomatoes were about done.  I stacked up the cut vines and I'll compost them.  First, I threw the remaining tomatoes that were ravaged by stink bugs to the chickens.  They gobbled them up with the quickness.

Overall, we had a really nice crop this year.  If I had a "do-over" I would have transplanted them into the garden a couple of weeks earlier.  Early tomatoes don't have to deal with the heat and bug pressure, but you run the risk of frost damage. We ate plenty of tomatoes sliced.  We made lots of pico de gallo.  We made Italian tomato salad. We put up many pints of stewed tomatoes.  We put up many quarts of salsa.  Here's a few other things we did with the tomato crop:

We cut up the tomatoes, sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh rosemary, and put on the dehydrator overnight.  Here is a post that explains how to do it step by step either in the oven or in a food dehydrator.

The flavor is concentrated and the rosemary adds a nice flavor to the dried toms. They are almost like candy.  We store them in either pint jars or Zip Loc bags and snack on them all the time.

I almost forgot to mention that we also made tomato sauce.  It is a pretty easy task that involves blanching the tomatoes, removing the skins, coring out the stem and any blemishes and then cooking them down.  We use an immersion blender to puree the tomatoes once they've cooked for a while.

We let the tomatoes continue to simmer for hours until its reached the consistency we're looking for, then it is time to put them in jars, top with salt and a tablespoon of lemon juice and then process in a water bath processor.

In most canned tomato sauces they must run the tomato sauce through a sieve to remove the seeds, but we always skip that step and can it with the seeds.

We finished up with a nice little batch of tomato sauce and this should build up our inventory in the pantry and hold us over until the fall tomatoes come in.

Now that the rows of tomatoes are pulled up, I'm thinking about what to plant in that space.  Right now, purple hull peas seem like the logical choice.  It's almost time to plant the fall crop of tomatoes!

Dream Weaver – Tomato Edition

When I think of the phrase “Florida Weave,” it reminds me of a hairdo you might get on a beach vacation to Florida.  Actually, it has nothing to do with hair care and everything to do with supporting indeterminate tomato varieties using a trellising technique.  In the past I’ve used various methods including staking and tomato cages with little to no success.

Since stumbling upon the Florida Weave trellising technique on the Internet, I’ve never been tempted to even try another method.  Before I learned of this method, my tomato vines were unruly, falling on the ground, and hard to find the fruit, much less pick it.  The Florida Weave solved all those problems and I’m thankful to whoever came up with this idea.

Every year I post how to do it in the hopes of sharing the technique with someone who doesn’t know about it.  All you need is some T-posts and baling twine.  It is a small investment that yields immediate results and pays for itself quickly.  Fortunately, I always have both T-posts and baling twine on hand.

The very first thing you want to do is get your t-posts and sledge hammer (or t-post banger) and drive a t-post on either end of your tomato rows.  My rows are 24 feet long so for extra support, in addition to having t-posts on either end, I drive a post right in the middle of the row also.

Driving in the t-posts to create the skeleton of the Florida Weave

Then about six inches off of ground level, I anchor some baling twine to the t-post on one end and weave the twine in and out of all of the tomatoes on the row in serpentine fashion.  In other words, after tying off at one end, you’d pass the twine around the left side of the first tomato plant and then around the right side of the second tomato plant, and so on and so forth until you get to the end of the row.

Then, you would alternate sides coming back to the original t-post you started from, passing the twine on the opposite side of the tomato plant that you placed the twine on the first pass.  It is important to keep the twine pulled very tight.  The twine hugs the tomato plant tightly on either side, creating a supporting structure that keeps the vining plant upright and off the ground.

Baling Twin hugs the tomato plant and keeps it upright and erect

Pardon all the weeds that are in the garden.  These will be covered with a thick mat of mulch soon.  I wanted you to see an example of the support structure of the Florida weave after the first level.

A look at the Florida Weave after the first level of twine is in place

Your work is not done, though.  Keep a close eye on your tomatoes as soon it will be time to put in the second level of trellising.  After a few days, your tomato plants will have grown another six inches and it will be time to repeat the process, only six inches (or whatever desired length) up from the first level.  I’ve shown the second level of trellising below.  Note the tautness of the twine and how I’ve wrapped the twine tightly around the t-posts.  As your plant grows and puts on fruit, it will be heavy and require a firmly fastened support structure, sort of like the cables on the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Second Level of Twine

As you can see below the tomatoes continue to grow and it will soon be time to put the third level of trellising up.  You just keep repeating the process as the tomato grows.

Almost ready for level #3!

Sooner or later, though, the height of your tomato plant will exceed the height of your t-posts and the top of the vine will spill over into the row, making it hard to walk and harvest tomatoes.  In using this technique a few years, a friend suggested an expensive, easy solution to this problem.   Using lengths of rebar or ¾ inch conduit and hose clamps to fasten it down to the t-post, you simply extend the height of the t-post upward by several feet to accommodate the additional growth, adding more levels of baling twine.

Florida Weave.  I give this technique a 5 star recommendation and two thumbs up! Compared to other techniques, the Florida Weave is a dream.

The Best Method I Know of to Trellis Tomatoes

We plant heirloom, open pollinated tomatoes in our garden.  These tomatoes aren't the hybrid, determinate (bush-type) varieties that you attach to a stake.  These tomatoes are indeterminate, meaning they vine and just keep growing and growing and growing.  I've tried unsuccessfully to stake them, but their volume is just too much for the stake and inevitably the tomato plant weighs down the stake and the entire thing comes tumbling down.  It makes a mess.

The Internet proves to be a great source of information and I learned a trellising technique while researching that really works and although I've posted about this in past years, I'll share it again for new readers. People a lot smarter than I am came up with this tomato trellising idea that is called The Florida Weave.  That sounds like a trendy hairstyle or a crocheting technique, but funny name aside, this really works.

If you use wooden stakes and live in our climate, each year you have to purchase new stakes as they rot over the course of the year.  Not so with the stakes used for the Florida Weave - you use metal T-posts.  They'll last forever.  The method will hold up tomatoes in rough weather.  The tomatoes you see below just went through two separate storms carrying > 60 mile per hour gusts of wind and they are just fine.

The Florida Weave

Let's go step by step.  My garden rows are 30 feet in length.  I drive a T-post on one end, a T-post in the middle, and a T-post on the other end.  These serve as the main support skeleton of the apparatus.

T-posts provide the 'spine' of the trellising system

I purchase round bales of hay for our cows.  When I put the bales out in the pasture, I remove the polypropylene baling twine and wrap in around a stick to save for later.  Now is later!!  I take the twine and anchor it firmly around the T-post on the end.  Then I weave (see how it gets its name?) the twine around each plant - to the right side of one plant, to the left side of the next.  When I come to the center T-post, I firmly wrap the twine and continue weaving until I get to the T-post on the end. 

I tie it tight and re-trace my steps, only this time, I weave the twine on the opposite side of the tomato stem, weaving until I get to the end and then I tie it up tight.  You can see in the picture below that the twine forms a support structure around the plant. 

We appreciate your Support!

With the first strand complete, we put our twine away, but keep our eyes on the plants.  In a week or so they will have grown another 6 inches.  At that point we'll repeat the steps just shown (just 6 inches higher) and we'll have two strands of support.  We'll repeat the process again and again.  I think last year, I had 6 horizontal strands.

The thing I'm going to change this year is I will try to add some additional support going up. My T-posts are 6 feet in length and these tomatoes grow taller.  In past years everything is real neat and tidy until the tomato plant grows higher than 6 feet, then the top kind of falls over.  I tried to train the vines to climb along the top twine, but it still got kind of messy.  This year I'm going to try to extend the height by wiring another post to the top of each T-post and continue up vertically.  We'll see how that goes.

Healthy young tomato enjoying lots of support

These tomatoes have weathered some rough storms in April that brought high winds and over a foot of rain cumulatively.  I think now we'll get some more stable weather and we'll be able to watch the tomato plants really flourish over the next month or so.  Lots of the plants are putting on blooms. The plant below has a double bloom.  This is not uncommon and the fruit will be fine.  It will just produce an odd, atypical-shaped fruit.  Apparently, they appear on early blossoms and some think they are caused by cool weather or cross-pollination.  You aren't supposed to save the seeds from fruit like this if you want to produce the uniform-looking perfect tomato.  

Double Bloom on the tomato

Back to the Florida Weave, this process has really made growing tomatoes much easier and orderly for me and I recommend it highly.  There's always little tweaks to help make things better, but all in all, this technique is a winner.  

Trellising Tomatoes with the "Florida Weave" Method

I remember years ago when I watched TV more than I do now, there was an award on one of those Award Shows (Academy Awards, maybe?) for Best Supporting Role. They would call up an actor or an actress who wasn't the lead in the film, but their role played a major part in the success of the particular movie.

Taking that analogy to the garden, I have an award for Best Supporting Role for holding up the vines of the Heirloom tomatoes I plant.  They happen to be all indeterminate varieties, as opposed to the determinate (or bush type).  The success of the garden depends on the support mechanism for the vines and I've tried them all. Here are my nominees for Best Supporting Role for Holding up Heirloom Tomatoes:

First we have The Stake:  In support of the tomato plants this guy is top notch.  He excels it holding up a bush tomato with little effort.  It is pretty cheap - about $1.99 per stake. His weaknesses include rotting.  At the end of the season when I go to pull it up, the stake breaks in the ground as it has rotted over the course of the season.  But the primary limitation is that it is not effective in holding up the indeterminate vines that grow and grow and grow.

The next nominee is The Cage:  This nominee is great for bush tomatoes/peppers as well.  A little more expensive at about double the cost of a stake - $3.89 each, at least he doesn't rot and you can use him again and again as a supporting actor.  He doesn't get 'type-cast' as you can use him for tomatoes, peppers, egg plant, etc.  But he's not effective in holding up the long, long, indeterminate vines either.

Nominee #3 is The Cattle Panel:  Now we're getting somewhere.  A cattle panel mounted between two T-posts will support indeterminate vines.  As they grow taller and taller, you just tie the vines to the panel with pieces of torn up t-shirt or cloth. You can use it year after year.  The only downside is cost.  A 16 foot panel will cost you roughly $35 and throw in the T-post supports and you are looking at $45 bucks for just a 16 foot section! Ouch.

All those are pretty good.  BUT...The winner of the award for Best Supporting Role in holding up Heirloom Indeterminate Tomatoes is... (drum roll as I open the envelope)...  The Florida Weave Method of Tomato Staking! 

The Florida Weave Method uses 3 T posts per 30 foot row, so it is only a $15 investment and you can use them year after year in the garden or in the pasture.  I've used this method for several years and I like it the best.  Here's how it works.  Use a 'T-post banger' or a sledge hammer to drive a T post at either end of your tomato row. I usually drive them until the "foot" of the T-post is even with ground level.  If I have a wooden stake lying around, I might drive that in the middle for extra support.

T-posts driven on either end with a wooden stake (optional) in the middle.

Next is your most important step, your supporting mechanism is the 'guide wires' that are attached to each T-post and hold up the plants.  I use poly baling twine as it is free to me.  When I purchase my round bales, I cut the twine off, pull out from the bale and wrap around a stick for use later.  You can use baling twine for most anything, almost as integral as duct tape for use around the homestead.

I count 3 notches up from the ground and tie a length of baling twine securely to the T-post.  Then I stretch out the twine and WEAVE the twine in serpentine fashion down the row, running it on the right side of the first plant and on the left side of the second plant, and so on and so forth until you get to the other T-post. Circle the T-post several times with the twine to hold it taut and then repeat the steps back to the first T-post, only this time running the twine on the opposite side of the plant from the first go-round.

Oh, Oh, Dream Weaver - I believe you can get me through the tomato season...

You repeat this process as the tomatoes grow.  I add another strand of baling twine for every 3 notches of T-post as the plants grow.  You can see below how the strands of twine pulled tight and weaved around the plants provide support to the growing vines.

A good support structure

Here is another angle.  One of the things that I try to do when weaving is that I use the branches of the tomato as part of the process.  You can see that I've run the twine just beneath one of the branches.  The twine lends support to the plant, holding it up from the tomato plant's "arm pits."

I got ya!

Sometimes your plants will grow at different spurts where some are tall enough to be supported by "the weave" and some won't.  Some plants grow at their own pace.  No problem.  Just watch them and as they grow tall enough, open the twine up and pull them in the middle of the supporting strands of twine.

Here are some of the same plants a few weeks later.  You can see that I've added a couple more runs of twine as the plants have grown.

Tomatoes 'a Growin'

Now here's a good place to mention that while you are weaving, it is a great time to inspect the plants for suckers and remove them.  I see a big one below.  Do you?  I almost let this one go too far.

Suckers on Tomato Plants

Maybe tomorrow we'll show how to identify and remove suckers off of your tomato plants.  Right now, though, we'd like to give a parting applause to The Florida Weave, winner of the Our Maker's Acres Best Supporting Role Award for 3 years running!

Putting the 2013 Tomato Crop Behind Us

For the Labor Day weekend, my goal is to get in the garden and get things ready for putting the Fall garden in.  It is so very dry.  Benjamin, Russ and I began to pull weeds out by hand.  The weeds are largely nut sedge and Bermuda grass.  We pulled bunches of it and threw it over the fence where the cows and chickens quickly gobbled it all down.

Looking southward

As I walk south, about the only green thing left in the garden that hasn't burned up in the hot drought we are in is peppers and basil.

Basil and some pepper plants

Walking even farther south we see a sad sight.  Here are the drooping remnants of the 2013 Tomato crop. The dry weather, coupled with stink bugs and worms, created a perfect storm, reducing yield and making the season disappointing.  We did blanch and freeze a pretty good amount of tomatoes as well as can some chopped tomatoes, but not the quantity that you would expect from the amount of plants we had in the ground.

Let's look at a positive that we can take out of the tomato crop:  I think the Florida weave method of trellising tomatoes is a success.  Throughout most of the growing season, it kept our indeterminate tomatoes from falling over and becoming a mess.  The only change I'd make is to get taller T-posts or extend the T-posts with some re-bar.

Russ and I began cutting the tomatoes down, rolling up twine and pulling up T-posts and stakes as we need this space when we start planting the Fall crops.

The Before shot: A sad sight indeed.

After we cleaned up the tomato rows, things look a lot nicer in the garden.

The after shot:  It looks a lot nicer!

We stacked the old tomato vines by the fence and I'll chop them up with a shovel and incorporate into the compost pile.  Of course the chickens and Nelly, the goat, came by and ate any of the leaves and greenery that was still on the tomato vines.

Tomato vines stacked by the fence

I read a quote somewhere that said something to the effect of "There's nothing as hopeful or optimistic as next year's garden."  I think that's true.  While the hot, dry, muggy, sultry summer drags on and the garden seems an unpleasant place almost entirely void of anything green, we can look expectantly to cooler weather, refreshing rains, and the green sprouts of our Fall Garden.

Next up: Planning our Fall garden, taking inventory of our seed bank of Fall crops, and making an order to fill in the gaps.  Stay tuned.

The Florida Weave

At first glance, the Florida Weave might sound like a trendy new hairdo, or a dance, or a resident of Florida who's had a little too much to drink.  Actually, it is none of the above.  It is a means of staking tomatoes that I've had some success with.  I'm always looking for good ideas and was searching the Internet last year and found this technique.  I'd like to share it since it really worked for me.

We grow heirloom tomatoes.  Indeterminate, open pollinated, heirloom tomatoes, to be precise.  The indeterminate term means that they aren't 'bush-type,' but are vining tomatoes and that presents a real problem.  I tried staking them one year, but the tomato plants get too tall and top heavy and fall over and then you have a mess.  I tried the tomato cages with the same level of failure.  The Florida weave works!  It is going to be a little hard to explain, so I'll show you pictures of getting it started and then show a picture that I cut and pasted off of the Internet.  There are also videos on Youtube that will demonstrate the process. 

All you need is baling twine, T-posts and some wooden stakes.  Drive a T-post into the ground on each end of your row.  Tie your baling twine onto the T-post about one foot off the ground and pull the twine toward the other T-post weaving the twine in and out on alternating sides of the tomato plant.  When you get to the other T-post, pull tight, circle the T-post several times to hold twine taut and proceed back to the original T-post, but this time, alternate the twine so that the plant has twine on either side of it.  Then tie it off onto the original T-post where you started.  The photo below demonstrates what I'm talking about.


Twine on either sides of the plant, providing support

Here's a close-up of the support that the twine provides.


"Hold me!"

Here is a shot where I've zoomed out to show the entire row.  You can see one of the T-posts at the far end.

One strand of the Florida weave completed on a row of Black Krim Heirloom tomatoes

A couple more things to add.  The Florida Weave process that I've demonstrated is just getting started.  There is only one strand of twine so far.  As the tomatoes grow, you'll want to provide additional strands to provide more support.  Just watch it closely and every 6-10 inches of growth, you'll want to add an additional strand.  I think I had about 6 strands last year. 

Another thing you'll want to do is between every other plant, drive a regular wooden stake between the weave to solidify the trellis and provide rock-solid support.  This is especially important as the plants begin to bear fruit and become heavy.  You'll need it.


The Florida Weave: winner of the best supporting role in the Tomato row

The illustration below comes from finegardening.com and shows a great depiction of what I've been trying to describe. 


I endorse this technique as it has finally enabled me to find a method to keep the rows that contain my tomato plants from looking like an unorganized jungle.  Now if I could just find a good remedy for STINK BUGS!!!