In the right conditions, a few cm of water in the bottom, as in the container being immersed will not harm them at all.
See some chillis i forgot in the corner of my tiny greenhouse, they had a tray under them that would get filled when i watered other stuff in there, but because the greenhouse is really teeny tiny the plants were left alone and adapted as they best could.
Note, there are six of them in the container on the left (a 200g cup of cottage cheese) and four in the one on the right. This pic was taken a few weeks ago, they were placed back in the same conditions, i should pull them out again and take pics, they are fruiting though one had two chillies on it already when this pic was taken.

Teyo, it is very nice to see your post, thank you. Your plants show your skill of gardening. They are so beautiful, even though you forgot them but they have grown very well. What do you feed them? Are you growing them in semi-hydroponics? Are they super hot chilies? I have used 1000g yogurt cups too but they are not growing like yours. They got root bound and getting flowers. I started use Florida Weave for my tomatoes and yesterday I broke 4 big main stems.

Caelian

Caelian, more blind luck than skill, trust me :D
They were fed whatever the rest of the plants in that greenhouse got, generally a water soluble fertilizer, mostly in a 19-6-20 or 15-5-30 formulation. They are not superhots, but piri-piri.
If you can call a shallow tray filled with water, algae and other sorts of muck semi hydroponics, then yes i guess it is :D
One thing i am fairly certain of, this cannot be done when any kind of soil or peat is included... It would start to rot and bad bacteria would develop. One has to use a medium closer to hydro, in this case i used my usual expanded clay and pine bark. These peppers were in germinated in the same cup.

About florida weave, how did you manage to break the stems??? Did they fall over and you tried to lift them up to the rope? I was also tying up new rope levels on my tomatoes today. Quite a few of them had fallen over the lower rope levels because i ran out of synthetic rope last time and i used that natural fibre one that is crap. it streched in the sun and didn't hold. Now i got new rope an had to lift the plants with thick stems in the new threading, still they came out mostly in one piece. I am loving the system, so much easier to set up, even my neighbor came over today to see how it is done, she liked it very much though she is much more experienced than me in growing stuff.

Since you guys are talking about supporting tomato plants, I thought I'd share my new method. Probably too late to for you to incorporate it THIS year, but maybe it will give you ideas for future seasons.

1) Heavy Duty 54" tomato cage to start -- this is good for the 1st 4-5 feet of growth.

2) Then, I took 3 2x2 eight foot stakes and put them around each plant in a triangle and slight angle and about 8 -10 inches out from the top ring of the cages.

3) Next I cut small 1x2 strips of wood and screwed them horizontally about a foot up from the top ring. The plants grew some more and I did the horizontals again about another foot up.. And I'll do it one more time when the plants grow even higher. Note: it's hard to make out the 1st horizontals.

i like it. No elaborate trellis box or having to tie off every branch to a stake.

Kevin

Here is a link that might be useful:

@kevin - I'm trying to understand what you've built. So, you started off with round tomato cages, then built wooden triangle cages to take over where the round ones left off?

As I was reading the description, I was picturing a tee-pee type thing, but, that's not what it looks like in the pic.

I built two trellises out of cheap 8' 1x2 Then joined them at the top for stability. It's a bit of a pain, but, space is a premium right now and if I can get them packed together but vertical, it is the best use of my space.

You can see it in the background of this pic. I also hung a Lemon Drop in a hanging basket from the cross bar of the trellis. :-)

tsheets: What you got there will work in a pinch. And with limited space(as it appears you have in this instance) would be about all you can do. But you probably have to train the branches through, correct?

My way, there's VERY little training if any at all. As soon as the branches are above the top ring of the cage by about a foot, the stakes are driven in at an ever so slight angle outward(like a cage is shaped). I imagine one could use 4, but I find that 3 is only necessary. Then, 1x2 strips are attached horizontally. Another foot of growth, another set of horizontals, and so on until I reach the top at least. Basically, building it as more growth comes. Picture an inverted teepee with the top cut off at the soil and not nearly as slanted.

I'll try to get more pics. I have another plant that isn't nearly as bushy and tall(damn gophers) and shows it better.

Kevin

Caelian: I don't think it's a matter of SURVIVING in WET soil. It's more of an instance of THRIVING. Most veggies, in the case of peppers(well documented), prefer MOIST(not wet), well draining soil. If one KILLS a pepper plant from watering(except as a seedling-- very easy to do), then that person might want to take up a different hobby.

JMO

Kevin

I gotcha, Kevin. And yes, it takes a fair amount of tying and training.

As far as surviving in wet soil, I have no idea how long, too many variables. But, I don't think it's really the wet as much as it is lack of oxygen. They drown from lack of oxygen. Then there's root rot, which I believe happens in an anaerobic environment (again, lack of oxygen).

Woohoman, that would be easy to pull off for a few tomatoes. However, i have about 80 of them in the ground, am not limited by space but i am with money. Cages and stuff costs way more than three stakes per 4 plants and some twine... Last year i even let some tomatoes sprawl on the ground and i didn't see them complain.

Teyo: 60 Plants??? Do you sell your produce? If so, well, there you go! ;)

No, but seriously. Yes... 80 plants, to me, would be daunting enough just to HARVEST. I shouldn't say that though -- I have about 50 different veggies going right now... but only 5 tomatoes. Tying off 80 plants would probably prevent me from gardening, though....lol

I'm always watching the penny too. I HAVE to. But, it really isn't as costly as you might suspect. The cages you can use year after year. I still use the ones that I got 8 years ago when I first started gardening. The stakes you can use year after year with a couple here and there that need replacing due to rot and/or pounding with a sledge. But, I find use for those by cutting them down and using for the horizontals or staking something shorter or ripping them and making a trellis. Screws are expensive but a little goes a long way.

The elaborate square heavy heavy duty cages-- yes, they're outrageously priced, but 5-6 bucks for the heavy round ones at Home Depot.

Most of us are limited by space though, I think? And if the way you're doing it now works for you, then I say, keep doing it. Just think though -- if you go vertical with stakes, cages, trellises, etc., you can plant even more plants, right? Sprawling has got to take up an incredible amount of space, no?

Also, I wouldn't suggest this for DETERMINATE varieties where plants normally don't reach 10-12 feet high.

:)

Kevin

you have to understand, tomato cages are not used where i live (croatia), you can't buy them, and making them would cost loads.
and honestly, i don't see the point, except for tomatoes grown in containers (which is very very rare here). there are a myriad of simpler solutions, people here sometimes emulate the greenhouse system of tying, by putting in the ground two concrete poles on the opposite sides of the tomato row (we use them in vineyards to attach wire too) and string the wire between them at about 2 m high. then attach a single lead for each plant to that wire and the ground beside the plant. then as the tomato grows just wrap it around the lead, it ends up supporting itself no matter how big or heavy it gets.

the thing is, i plant more of them so if a couple die, or get diseased i just don't care. also, i plant a lot of varieties and am not OCD about taking care of them. as i said, some just sprawl around, and i'm happy even if i pick a bit less fruit from them than if i was fussing over every detail and stressing out ( i have chillies for that lol ). i was just explaining this to my mother the other day, she was freaked out by some of the sprawling ones touching the ground : "oooomg why are they down there, you know they'll get diseased! and you didn't prune them, birds will fall from the sky when they fly over your tomatoes!
no they won't, over the years i've realized tomatoes are much stronger than we give them credit for, leaving them the hell alone to do their thing is the best fertilizer in the world (as a member on another pepper forum said when i posted the above chilli pictures haha).

to get back to tying them up, there is also this tunnel system used here occasionally, which may or may not have netting put over the top of that center line, again relatively simple and effective.

about selling produce, i don't sell, would you believe? i cook a LOT of paste and sauces, and interestingly how ever much i make i always run out before the next season's harvest. relatives and friends have gotten used to the "tasty paste" and snag it all away haha.
the thing is, here most people are still growing oxhearts (if they are growing anything at all, the "grow your own food" movement hasn't really caught on yet, especially among my generation - under 30), and simple red cherries were considered exotic not that long ago. so when i cook or give away a rainbow of colors from my 30ish varieties it makes quite a bang.

about space, i have what would translate to 3.7 acres of land around my house, most of it just empty with some fruit trees and stuff. but planting all that in tomatoes would be insane of course, so i think of it as unlimited space but limited gardener time and energy :D

anyhow, to sum this way longer than needed post up, i think one has to decide where their priorities are, and cross reference that with available nerve and happiness amounts. in the middle is what you do to your plants :)

Teyo, I tried expanded clay but I like cat litter more. I use cat litter for mulch the roots expanded to the cat litter the roots like them. I consider this cat litter is one of the best container soil ingredients I have found here.

Nothing wrong with Florida Weave, my application was wrong. I made a knot for every stem :-). Next day I Found one of them were broken then I tried to untie the knots and re-thread that I broke three more :-). It is very useful and stable now. Next year I can do better. We have a windbreaker fence I used both side. I changed three times, first I did not give much attention and I was not very interested on tomatoes. When they are growing bigger I started to prepare for Florida Weave seriously, it was almost late. They are in the growing bags so I pulled all of them to make a straight line.

You made a good impression, that's great. Here in my apartment complex I am the only one growing a lot of chilies and stem cabbage no one grow anything else but they bought potted plants for their windowsill. I am so happy to see my chilli plants and cabbage, they are really big. The stem cabbage are really nice so I do not like to eat them, I do not believe they are growing so well. I am very glad to get the tips of Florida Weave and Cat litter. Now I do not use expanded clay some of the leftover I put on the base of the containers. I did some funny things, I put oyster shells after 15 m microwave sterilized on the container base too. Thanks for the nice demonstrative picture.

Kevin thank you for the picture of your new method. I agreed with your point of MOIST. Just I have been trying to get more details about wet soil. My self watering containers always a bit wet on the base of the containers. Some of the roots are on the water too.

Tsheets, very nice plants and tomato fence.

Thank you all for sharing.

Caelian

Caelian, it's not necessarily the water, per se, but rather the lack of oxygen that harms plants. There are two main types of root tissue, which we often refer to as air-roots and water-roots. If there is a water-reservoir, a plant is perfectly capable of differentiating its root-tissue to more effectively take air out of water, and this is the reason that hydroponics / semi-hydro works as well as it does.

And since we're also talking tomatoes, here's how I scaffold mine. I set my posts, then tie horizontal bamboo poles to the posts. As the tomatoes grow upward, I loosely tie them to the bamboo. Pic is from June 9...the tomatoes are much larger now.

Josh

Josh, that's what I am looking for :-) thank you.

The method you use in your tomato plants is also nice.

Thank you for sharing.
Caelian

Caelian, i do believe you that the roots expanded into cat litter. it really is better than expanded clay, because it absorbs water and then slowly gives it out, where expanded clay only keeps water in its bigger pores and on the surface. i'm not at all surprised you like it more.

about tomatoes, don't worry, they won't mind a bit of changing, and even if you broke some stems new will grow very soon. as i said, they are very very tough :)

maybe your neighbors start growing thing when they see how nice your plants are, it is contagious :D

Josh, very well said, and concise unlike my 2 km post :D
like your system, looks simple and effective!

Thanks, Teyo ;-)
This method creates a Wall of Tomatoes that is easy to harvest. I think my rows might be a bit too close this year, so it'll be a squeeze!

Josh

Teyo, I started replacing perlite by cat litter. Whenever I water the plant I saw the roots in the cat litter. The tomatoes are fine, some of them are getting flowers. I have learned that their stem are so fragile. Learning from the mistakes is also one of the best for me :-)

May be my neighbors would try to grow some :-).

Thank you all for sharing.

Caelian