Mis-planted tomato - help!

I don't know what I was thinking, but I planted one tomato in the middle of my square rather than on the back where the vertical supports are!! Now it has grown up so much and I have no idea how to support it. I have spent a lot of money already on garden supplied this year, so really don't want to have to buy more materials if I can possibly come up with another solution. Any ideas??

Can you stake it? Then if it gets too tall for the stake, maybe tie a string to the stake and attach it to your trellis? Just a thought.

If it is less than a foot tall you could try transplanting it. If it is already too big and you have an indeterminate tomato, it will probably grow quite tall, you will have to stake it. If you have an orange box store nearby I suggest go buy one piece of long (12') strapping, it's wicked cheap, much cheaper than buying stakes. I bought some a few weeks back and I think it was 2.50ish. you can cut it to 6' or 7 foot and push it right into the Mel's mix. There may be something usable in the culled rack too.Let us know how you resolve this conundrum. Good luck!

I did the same thing. Planted tomatoes in the center of the squares but mine was compounded because on one side my trellis was outside the blocks used to make my bed.

Here is what I did. I got some of these stakes(they are easy to push in without disturbing the roots and cheap) in various lengths:

http://www.homedepot.com/Outdoors-Garden-Center-Landscape-Supplies-Stakes-Ties/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbx6i/R-100571675/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

I pushed then in next each plant (tomatoes & cucs), tilted the top to my trellis and hooked the trellis thru the top loop. Then I tied the plants to the stake as they grew. Below is a picture from mid may & you can see the stakes on the right side but now most of the plants are to the top of the trellis and I have removed the stakes as they are not needed. The stakes have been reused for my peppers.

Tree branches work just like stakes if you really don't want to spend more money. Anything you can jam into the ground will likely support the plant. That and any string you have on hand to tie the plant.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:Tree branches work just like stakes if you really don't want to spend more money. Anything you can jam into the ground will likely support the plant. That and any string you have on hand to tie the plant.

That's exactly what I had in mind as well. I just trimmed a whole bunch of suckers from the base of one of our trees - they are going to be trimmed up and used as support stakes and trellises in my yard!

GG

I had to do that last year when my tomatoes grew so big, the whole tree branch thing, propping up tomatoes, the wind knocking it down, it was a PIA. The tree branch remedy works pretty well in a row garden with lots of space, but in my SFG it was terribly cumbersome.

Woodstream TMC60 Ultomato Tomato Cage. I bought 4 last year for tomatoes, and I bought 10 more this year. I think they were about $7 at Home Depot(I didn't see them at Lowes, or any of the smaller stores). The 2 things I like about these are: you can cage your tomato after the fact(I bought small metal cages and the tomatoes just laughed at them. Now I know what they mean by indeterminate), and you can connect them any way you like. For example, the back row of 1 box is tomatoes. I can take 4 packs of these and make them into squares and interlock them, thereby having 2 stakes left over.