Tomatoes 1' apart?

titans01 3/16/2010, 6:03 pm

I am planning on planting several tomato plants on the north side of my boxes. I'm also planning on building netting trellis like it shows in the book out of conduit and 7" netting material. First are the plants way overcrowded being a foot apart? Also will the nylon trellis netting hold these up ok? I'm planning on planting mainly heirloom varieties like Brandywine, Kellogg's Breakfast, Black Cherry, etc.

MidTNJasonF 3/16/2010, 8:23 pm

I am no expert by any stretch but they are not crowded when using the Square Foot method. They are trained vertically and all suckers are pruned to keep one strong central vertical stalk. I had great yield out of 6 plants one foot apart on the north side of my boxes last year. They were trained up a twine trellis I made with one 6 foot bamboo stake along the stalk of the plant for extra support. I had one German Queen that grew close to 12 feet tall and I had to support it above my trellis system. It produced dozens of softball sized large fruits. I had similar good luck with Beefmaster, Jet Star, and Roma plants but they only got to 6 or so feet tall.

boffer 3/16/2010, 8:48 pm

one foot is not a problem. This is the only pic I could find at the moment. The front box, back row has 5 early girls growing. The table behind it, on the right, you can barely make out-2 vining romas that ended up going 2.5 feet up, 2 feet horizontal, then I let them hang as they might. In the front of the front box is a lemon cucumber that I let grow down.

titans01 3/16/2010, 9:20 pm

Thanks for the great replies. One more thing, do you put your trellis on the outside of the box or do you put it so it runs down the middle of your squares?

MidTNJasonF 3/16/2010, 9:31 pm

Mine run down the center of the back row of squares.

boffer 3/16/2010, 9:45 pm

mine are screwed to the outside of the box

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Tomatoes 1' apart?

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