June 27, 2001
Stillwater Gazette
Betsy Halden

Training your tomatoes

Fresh tomatoes are a joy of our Minnesota summers. There are several advantages to training tomato plants to a stake or to growing them in wire cages. Training tomatoes conserves valuable garden space for gardeners with small plots. Cultivating and harvesting trained tomatoes are easier if you don’t want to lose one succulent fruit. Tomato blight problems are less severe because of better air circulation around trained plants. Also, trained tomato plants often produce better quality fruit than those allowed to sprawl on the ground. Training methods vary, but two of the most common methods are staking and growing tomatoes in wire cages.

Single Stake
One way to train tomato plants is to stake them. Drive a single 8 -footlong stake about 2 feet into the ground approximate 3 to 4 inches from each plant. The roots of the tomato plants may be injured if the stake are put in later in the season. Tie the plant to the stake with strips of old nylon hose or cloth about every 12 inches up the stem. Tie the material in a loose figure 8, with the stake in one loop and the stem in the other. When training the plant to single stem, pinch out the sideshoots or suckers that form in the axil of the leaf and stem. Staking tomato plants to a single stem should produce an earlier crop. However, the fruit of staked plants are more susceptible to sunscald and blossom end rot as the removal of sucker growth reduces the leaf canopy. Total yield may be lower than with other training methods. If the lowest sucker is allowed to develop into a second stem, the additional foliage should reduce the chance of sunscald. Staking is not recommended for the shorter growing, determinate tomato varieties Yields will be drastically reduced.

Wire Cage
Wire cages are easy to use. I use wire cages around patio tomatoes grown in containers. Tomatoes trained to grow within a wire cage require less attention. You can construct a tomato cage from concrete reinforcing wire or similar material. Manufactured cages are also available at garden centers. Glamos Wire Products in Hugo is a local manufacturer of wire cages.

When constructing a wire cage, the mesh must be large enough to enable you to pick the fruit. A wire cage 20 to 24 inches in diameter and 4 to 5 feet tall is excellent. Remove the horizontal wire at the bottom of the cage and stick the vertical wires or ”feet” into the soil. For greater stability, drive 1 or 2 stakes into the ground next to the cage. Then fasten the cage to the stakes.

Plants grown in wire cages don’t need to be pruned or tied to the cage. As the plant grows, simply place wayward stems back within the wire cage. The yield from tomatoes grown in wire cages should be larger than from plants grown with other growing methods. There should also be fewer fruit problems.

If you would like to learn more about growing tomatoes in the Valley or in our region Tomatoes trained to grow within a wire cage require less attention. , consult the University of Minnesota Extension Service website http://www.extension.umn.edu and enter tomatoes in the search box.. There are a number of good references on topics from “Growing tomatoes in Northern Minnesota” to “Freezing tomatoes and tomato products.”

Betsy Halden is a Master Gardener with the University of Minnesota Extension Service. University of Minnesota Extension Service materials were consulted in the preparation of this column. You can reach Betsy Halden at eahalden@comcast.net