How to stake a tomato plant?
Why should you stake?
Tomato plants sprawling on the ground are more prone to diseases; fruits touching the soil often start to rot. When tomatoes develop, stalks can snap under all that weight. To get healthier plants producing more fruits you want to provide some kind of support . Stakes, cages or trellis do the job. I recommend staking.
Why? It allows you to plant tomatoes closer to each other than you could if you used cages. And cages are often too small and poorly made and they break - how inconvenient! You can easily access staked plants to perform any procedures. Collecting fruits is simple when they are just under your nose, not hiding in the cage. Finally, stakes take much less space in the shed when stored for winter. Now, I have nothing against trellises, but they aren't the right support for determinate tomatoes.
How to stake a tomato?
Choose a sturdy stakes, 6-8 feet long. Wooden or metal ones will do. Set them up just after planting seedlings. If you did it later, you might injure the roots. Push 1-2 feet of the stake into the ground, 3'' from the base of the tomato. Make sure it's stable. As plant can't attach itself to the stake, you must tie it. You can use cotton strips as they don't cut into the stem. First, knot the strip to the stake so that it doesn't slip down. Then, loosely attach the seedling. As the plant grows, add a new strips every 15'' or so.
How to care for staked tomatoes
For indeterminate variety, remove all suckers (growing tips between leaf and main stem) but lowest two. You don't want more than 3 vines on the plant. When tomato reaches the top of the stake, prune the top, so that all the energy and nutrients feed the developing fruits. For determinate variety, remove enough suckers for the plant to stay close to the stake. It should not get bushy.
That's all there is to know about staking tomatoes. Now you are ready to start. Get your Gardener's Easy Plant Staking System 