cattle panel collapsed

My neighbor sent me this picture Thurs evening.



There's a crumpled cattle panel under there somewhere, but the tomato vines didn't break.

Kay

Wow, that's a jungle in there! Thank goodness the maters are fine, I wonder how they are going to get it back up?

I should get back home Mon and will tackle it then. A freak wind brought it down. Not much else surviving my 2 months away.

Oh bummer, that's your's and not the neighbor's, I misunderstood! Anyways, welcome back (almost)!

wow...so sorry to hear it fell down....i hope you still get some tom's from it!

a few of our tom plants were so heavy they broke off their stems

hugs
rose

Tomatoes 1, Cattle Panel 0

Looks like a lesson learned. And since you shared this with us a lesson for us as well. Thanks!

Feel your pain - Hope your cattle panal/tomato rescue goes well.

oh man, what a bummer! did the panel break or tip over? Those things are so strong! wow!

Bummer! hope you can get it back up. I've had two vines get
heavy enough that they broke there strings but the survived
the fall and got re-hung and are still producing.

Your success with your tomatoes was too much that it was too heavy for the cattle panel! I'm sorry about the collapse. I want cattle panels but now I'm hesitant. What are some suggestions to reinforce the cattle panels?

@southern gardener wrote:oh man, what a bummer! did the panel break or tip over? Those things are so strong! wow!

I was wondering the same thing. How did your rescue go?

Amazing. Hope you get the problem resolved without losing toms. I had to hold my trellis up with a rope tied to a post to keep it from falling. Didn't realize that tomatoes can be that heavy.

camera charger is broken so no pictures of the vines on the ground, but here what happened. I put the panel between a tabletop bed on one side and a stack of cinderblocks 2 high on the other with the buckets between the cinderblocks. This picture was taken on 7/7 the day before I left for Kenya


These pictures were taken on 9/14 when I stopped by the house for 2 days before going to my son's house



There are no fence posts securing the bucket side and I didn't fasten the panel to the tabletop, just wedged it in.
A storm came through and caught the vines from the tabletop side and the heavy vines acted like a sail and pulled the tabletop side up and flipped it over. The cattle panel is bent where it hit the cinderblocks, but is still usable. Problem is, all the vines and the heavy panel on top are more than I can lift and the vines are all intertwined in the panel so I can't get them out even one at a time.

I did pick a huge ripe great white beefstake from the mess last night and one slice completely covered a slice of bread. There are a lot of tomatos out there I think if I can just lift the panel off the vines.

What kills me is how healthy the vines are in spite of the summer heat.

I'll try to get the 9/14 garden pictures posted later to show what I came home to.

Kay

I forgot about my phone camera




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This should serve as a warning to all of us. Be sure to anchor all trellises to the ground and if possible secure them to the sides of the beds. Brackets can be used on the beds and rebar or T posts driven in to the ground to anchor the ends.

I'll have to be extra careful as my tabletops sit in the middle of my septic leach field and I don't want to pound a stake through one of the lines.

Kay

Well, the neighbors and I managed to lift the cattle panel off the ground and curve it back into place - sorta. It is secured to a tabletop with truck tiedowns. Used another tiedown to thread through the mass of tangled vines and lift them off the ground. Only broke a few limbs. This will have to do for the rest of the year. The buckets tilted at a 40 degree angle when we put the panel back upright and I can see tomato roots that grew through the drain holes. I'm putting some grass clippings over the exposed roots to help keep them from drying out. Hopefully this will prolong the life of the vines until frost and allow all the lovely green tomatos to ripen.

Kay

Glad to hear you got it covered, I hope all those green maters get ripened for you!

The cattle panel back in place. vines covered in green tomatos

some nice big pink brandywines from the reattached cattle panel picked today. plus some from the other vines.

and a volunteer blooming its little heart out and forming teeny maters. Don't know what kind but figger it came from a spoiled tomato next bed over sometime while I was gone.


Good thing I've still got over a month til my average first frost.

Kay