Don't weave the plants, tie off sections of the main stem to the trellis material. You can use regular string or official garden twine. The stores sell a kind of velcro and twisty tie with wire or you can use strips of fabric or old nylons. the key is to tie the main stem somewhat loosely as you don't want the fiber to dissect the stem because of strain and growth. the plants grow from the top up so you don't need to move the ties every time it grows more.

I have mostly grown "caged" tomatoes in containers so this method of training the plant flat to one side is new to me. I can tell that one must pinch back all suckers and excess branch growth to contain the plant in the area.

Use a figure "8" tie pattern. Tie the trellis in one loop, and the tomato in the other. This allows a little more wiggle room. Be sure to tie LOOSELY.

Thats a nice looking garden. If you can adjust it, I would make sure that trellis is very taught or thing will have a hard time climbing. They will droop. Its too bad you were not able to get the nylon netting that has those big 5 or 6" openings so that you could weave the stem in and out. I dont think you will be able to weave in and out on yours because the openings are not big enough. I have used velcro on all my tomatoes for many years. They are cheap, and you can reuse them forever.

Snibb... I couldn't find the netting that I've seen in pictures, but I figured if these openings were too small I could clip out some of the mesh to make bigger squares.

Thanks

I think I read on here somewhere that someone was using black electrical tape? That sounded like a good option to me because of the way it would stretch as plant grew?

I'm guessing the only downside might be that the stickiness might potentially wear off...but probably unlikely.

Sammi,

Box looks nice.

I trellis. I use 6 inch square concrete mesh. The mesh is quite strong and ridged and the 6 inch holes allow me to reach through to get at tomatoes and branches. I mostly weave, and tie what I miss if it gets too big/stiff. I just tie loosely with nylon twine.

I find that tomato branches are quite flexible when they need to be watered and much more breakable when they are full of water, so if you weave, do it right before watering. If you miss one and it gets too big to weave just tie it and weave the next square.

There's a whole religion about pruning toms. Different sects, holidays, the whole bit. Some even come out with funny hats and robes and burn incense while pruning. You can prune for max lbs, max size, shape, space requirements. Lots of posting on different pruning methods too, so I won't espouse a specific method here. The tomato Gods are pretty good about making tomatoes produce no matter which way we decide to screw them up.

I'm a bit confused about what direction your sun is though. I'm looking at the shadow on the picture and it seems that you've got the trellis on the south-west side. If this is the case I'd strongly suggest moving it to the north so as not to shade other squares. I know that's a hassle, but it would be worth it.

Good luck whichever way you go and enjoy your tomatoes.

David

The other option would be to grow greens on the north side. They will appreciate the shade, as they bolt (go to seed) rapidly in the heat.

Oasis: I spent some time on the tomato forum, and quickly became very frightened of the growers with the funny hats going around burning incense. One of them admitted that 'for some of us, growing tomatoes is more than a hobby'. I can read between the lines, and see that what he meant is that there is a DSM-IV description pertaining the the obsessive tomato grower's disorder.

Our goal was to put the trellis on the north side of the plot. We stood around staring at the just-past-noon sun, burning spots into our retinas, trying to figure out which side to put it on. Maybe I should dig out the compass.

Sammi - OMG, that's some funny stuff. We like humor in this forum!

EG

Another good "tie" for tomatoes is old nylons / knee highs. They are nice and flexible and don't dig into stalk.

With this setup you have no choice but to tie off. I use twine and twist up - this allows you to take toms down to protect against fall frost.

Dan