How about using lattice painted white to match the fence top. Fits with the theme and 1 4'x8' lattice panel, staked X4 would do the trick to tie the plants to if planted on both sides of the panel.

Dave

Yeah, Dave, that is a good idea. Would I have to worry about disease if I had all the plants tied to one panel?

Not unless you over-plant or don't do any pruning. An 8' long panel would let you put 4 plants on each side of it with some pruning. Just stake it so that it sits 1-2' off the ground so you have 5-6' of height.

Dave

I like Dave's idear, too. Here's another.

I found this on a Mother Earth News Article. I think its a really neat idea. It folds up like a stepladder and stores away during the off season.

I like those ladders! A curved trellis might be in keeping with the style of your home, or if you want to be really low budget, I like a tall stake of bamboo driven into the ground, with the plant tied on. You could buy a pair of green tights and cut them up to use for ties (so they blend in). You could try stalking the farm and garden and free sections of craigslist, and see if anything exciting pops up.

All in the eye of the beholder.
Simple, cheap and long lasting.
My trellis.

dcarch
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dcarch,
With a little effort, we could turn your post into a haiku:

In beholder's eye -
inexpensive, simple and
lasts long - my trellis.

Some days I communicate via email with a programmer at work exclusively in haiku. Yeah, work can get boring.

I think five to six foot re-bar supports would look nice. Shape the would be hoops on traditional tomato supports into squares and keep them all the same size. You could leave them the natural rust color or paint them a color to pop out or blend in. Re-bar is strong and relatively cheap. Not to mention it will last a century! This is what I am doing this year and am not disappointed.

I like your trellis - I'm going to make one for the few plants that are by the house.

I think I'm still stuck on the pergola idea, just need to scale it down (I think 6x6 supports is excessive)....

kterlep

Though I don't know if it would work for the ambience of your home, a cattle panel arch shown in the link below is another possibility.

Cattle panel is 16 feet long and a little more than four feet tall. It is extremely sturdy stuff, so making an arch of it would probably require two people to hold it in place while securing it to stakes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cattle Panel Arch

If you want something that looks pleasing than you might want to try the Tomato Ring.Check out YouTube and inter Tomato Ring, you will see a beautiful garden using the Tomato Ring on Tomatoes, peppers and also eggplant.

Here is a link that might be useful: www.veggiecage.com

Here's what we did... did not cost very much to build, easy to do.

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You could try the Spiral Stand, I like it because when the tomato plants are mature, you can barely see the stand. It is also sturdy and supports the plants very effectively.
I love it!

Here is a link that might be useful: www.spiralstand.com

Daniele, funny that the only posts I can find from you on GW are about the spiral. ;)

I see you've been hitting Cottage, Potager, and now 3 threads here.

From everything I've read the spirals are too lightweight to offer good support and you have to prune the majority of the plant.

Here is a link that might be useful: tomato staking techniques evaluation

Plus they are pretty expensive at $28 each plus shipping.

$28, plus shipping, I'll pass! Looks very flimsy, too short, and the spike is too shallow to stay anchored in the ground.

I was wondering if that was the case, natal.

Wonder if Daniele is paying GW for all the advertising she's doing? I've seen a similar post on Texas and Midwest gardening.

westcoastj that is a very pretty trellis - I like how you can hang your flower baskets on the top. I use 5 foot tall round cages of wire concrete mesh - not too pretty until August when they are covered by the toms, but they are really strong!

This is not particularly cheap, but it has worked well for me in finding a pretty way to keep tomatoes off the ground. I pound about a 3 foot piece of rebar about 1 foot into the ground. Then, I fit a 1/2 inch copper pipe over it. The rebar was free to me, but the copper pipe cost $13 each. I use this as a stake to tie my plants to. I may buy some copper finials on ebay to put on top of the pipe.

We actually ended up building a wider pergola than the one westcoastj did, and suspend ropes from the crossbars. We tie the tomatoes to the ropes (it's a modified Florida weave that works for us, a "stake that cannot fall over")...but ours looks very similar in style.

Thanks for posting that!

Sky Hook