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Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard

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of gardening simple, fun and always
rewarding. Now Here are your hosts,

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Jim and Mary Competti. Hello and
welcome everybody to the Simple Garden Life Podcast.

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I am your host, Jim Competti, along with my co host Mary

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Competti. And Mary, you're pretty
excited today to talk about tomatoes. Absolutely,

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garden teams close. It is close, and today's subject is really one

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of what are our favorites? It
is and I think some of it's because

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it was accidental how we kind of
hampered across this. But we always get

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people asking us every year about what's
the best way to support tomato plants?

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You know, what's the perfect solution. Well, today we're going to talk

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about it, and it really is
easy and it covers all the things we

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talk about. You know, there's
just little doubt how important it is to

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support your tomato plants in the correct
way. And our question of the week,

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which we'll get to later, is
just about this, like why do

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you have to? And I love
that that we've added that. I love

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that the question came in. But
for us, tomato cage is the very

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first time we ever painted our garden. I guess we got to kind of

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tell the funny story. So Mary
and I did what we always tell people

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not to do now, which is
don't plant everything under the sun. Absolutely,

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our garden gets way too big.
Yeah, And so in the early

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years, we were excited about tomato
growing because we love them and we wanted

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to make lots of salsa and pasta
and eat them in a salad. So

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we planted I think around forty eight
tomato plants. Way too many. Yeah,

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I mean, it's just like we
were not feeding the entire city,

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but we planted them. So we
planted them on day one. And we

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don't do this anymore because now we
put our tomato supports in right away.

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But we planted them and then quickly
realized, wow, we're going to have

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to steak these, and that's when
we started looking around at stores. Right

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and then we got sticker shock.
Oh, sticker shock, because you could

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buy some tomato cages back then,
that's fourteen years ago, ten twelve dollars

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apiece. They were flimsy. You
could buy some other ones for twenty dollars

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apiece. It didn't take a rocket
science to figure out that fifty times ten

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was five hundred dollars. I might
as well just buy my tomatoes, yeah,

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at the local grocer, or wait
till the farmer's market. So nonetheless,

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we came up with a very simple
solution. We'll get to that in

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a second, but I want to
kind of go back. That's kind of

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really what started mary our trekdown how
to build your own tomato supports, and

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we tried to cover some of the
things that are always a problem for a

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lot of people, mainly the strength, the cost, the durability, how

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long are they going to last?
I mean, let's face it. You

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know, we'll talk about this too. You get into tomato cages, you

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what are you lucky to get out
of them? You know, a couple

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of years, right? They you
know, a lot of times they'll break

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within the first year, bend.
They're a nightmare at a store over the

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winter for the next garden season.
Oh, I love that you say that.

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I mean, we used to have
stacks when we had them in the

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old days of sideways and left and
right, and as you said, they're

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just not very strong. And then, you know, here's my problem with

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tomato cages. And we talk about
this all the time. The regular round

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cages that you talk about. The
very first thing that happens if you're growing

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your tomatoes in the right way is
when they start to grow, what happens

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to the cage. It grows right
out of the ground with the tomato,

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and or it grows half out of
the ground. In the first storm,

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you get it topples over. And
then you mentioned the storage issue with them,

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and my biggest beef with tomato cages
is that they're so hard to prune

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your tomato plants. You can't find
the fruit and if you do find the

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fruit, you're trying to maneuver your
hand between the wires to picket. They're

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just not very user friendly. No, they're not. And they are still

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expensive. And you said it best. They don't last very long. And

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you know, we talk about tomato
steaks. That's another option, and it's

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one my dad used to use.
You know, he would go out with

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those big steaks and you're just talking
about like a single steak, just a

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single steak, and you know,
you put it in the ground and you

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tie it off. But I'd like, you know, to talk to people.

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I wish my dad was still around
so I could ask them. The

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question how did you tie those to
the steak, because it never worked.

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The year we tried it, we
were putting screws in the side and tying

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to the screws right right, and
you know, you try to grow your

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plant upright, your tomato plant upright. You know, we all know about

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the pantyhose and the t shirts to
time off on. But when you tie

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them to a single steak, it
doesn't give room for the plant to breathe,

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to get the sunlight, to get
the air, to get the fruits

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to ripen. And you can't tie
every branch that you need to, so

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they end up coming back down.
And then the other support problem is they

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too you know, if you're using
wood steaks, they're going to break under

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the weight, and you can't use
treated lumber because you don't want those treated

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lumber. So what happens is after
one year, our first solution was,

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you know, we use some pencil
point surveyor steaks, so at least going

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and wetach something to it. They
were great at first, they were great,

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but you know, no matter how
much you try, they end up

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you know, rotting off, and
or I'd break it when I'd try to

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drive it in and then last but
not least. There are all other kind

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of options we talk about this.
There's oh tomato towers and people take make

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the square cages that go way up
just on. You go online right now

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and you can find a million solutions. Oh yeah, but the problem is

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they're just so expensive. I mean
you're talking some of these are now twenty

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dollars. You don't know if they're
going to last. And again you get

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right back to where we were,
which was, wow, why are we

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you know, why are we not
just buying our tomatoes? I mean,

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everybody loves to grow to their tomatoes, but you don't want to spend four

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or five hundred dollars trying to support
your tomatoes. No, not at all.

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So okay, so why do you
need to support tomatoes? So that

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leads to our question of the week, which is which is really good?

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And I love this? I think
it's what Cindy Dumont Mary, Yes from

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Gainesville, Georgia. Yeah, Cindy
asks, I have plenty of garden space.

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Why do I need to steak tomatoes? Can I just let them sprawl

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out on the ground like I do
with my cucumbers? You know, it's

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a really great question, and we
get that a lot. You just have

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a neighbor that did that. Yeah, we did. And here's the problem.

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The difference. There's a couple of
differences with tomatoes, and even with

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cucumbers. Sometimes we like to trell
us our cucumbers for the very same reason.

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With cucumbers, and you can put
straw down, you can lay the

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the fruit lays on top. It's
a little bit easier picking quickly early in

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the season. Tomatoes do not do
that. Tomatoes take a very long time

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to ripen. And while they're laying
on that ground, even if you mulch

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them, they are so easy to
bruise. They're so easy to spot.

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But more importantly, you have tomato
b like to worry about, which is

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a soil born disease, and it's
laying right on the soil. It also

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makes them wonderful for raccoons and other
animals to come in and have a treat.

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All different types of pests. Can
you know they can climb right upon

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all the soil, They can get
your tomato plants, they can ruin your

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tomato plants, And all that time
that you could have spent staking your tomato

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plants is now going to be ruined
because your tomatoes are no longer good.

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Yeah, and then let's go to
the other aspect we talk about. You

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know, the physical reasons why you
should steak them, but there's also a

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lot of reasons for health for your
tomatoes themselves, not just because of the

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blight. So tomatoes need air and
oxygen, and the plants need air to

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ripen, to create more flowers,
to do all those things. When they're

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laying on the ground and smash together, they get more moisture trapped. All

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kinds of issues happen there. But
you also don't get any type of airflow

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that helps pollination. So if you
let your tomatoes sprawl just by nature,

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you're gonna have a lot less fruit
because you're gonna have a lot less pollination.

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Well, another point to that too
is once you have your tomato plants

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on the ground, the actual stem
of the plant continues to create roots.

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So as it's on the ground,
you're creating more roots it can, and

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that takes away from the actual plant
and fruit production. Yeah. So,

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I mean, great question, But
you want to stake them, and it's

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very easy, and that's what we're
going to talk about. So what is

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this perfect solution. Well, there
is some good news. We talked about

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this. It's a DIY solution to
support your tomatoes. And it's not just

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affordable, but as we found,
they're really easy to make, really incredibly

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strong, and they're so durable.
Oh yeah, and this is something that

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for us has developed. When we
did our first ones, we used woodsteaks

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and then we changed it. So
we're super excited to tell you about this,

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and you're gonna find out that.
The other thing is these last forever.

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I mean, we've had ours five
six, seven years, going to

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make it ten years easy and probably
fifteen because they're just super durable. And

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Mary's favorite thing of all is we're
going to talk about how you put them

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up and how you take them down, and how easy they are to store.

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If you've ever stabbed yourself when you
went into your shed or your garage

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and there with tomato cages that are
sticking out, you will not have that

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problem. So we'll be right back
after this and we're going to tell you

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how to build your very own incredible
tomato supports. And we are back and

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it's time to talk about building your
own DIY. Okay, we are back

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and we're talking about how to build
your own tomato supports on the on the

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cheap, as we like to say
it. But as always we want to

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remind our listeners that you can always
reach out to us at the farm at

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ow garden dot com with your questions
concerns about hey, how do I do

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this or how do that or topics
for future podcasts. We get a lot

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of them in and we always love
getting them, and again you can just

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reach us there. You can also
follow along on simple Garden on Facebook.

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We put our updates there and we
also have all kinds of great advice there,

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and you can check out our YouTube
channel at Old World Garden Farms where

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we have all kinds of quick shorts
about how to do everything from printing your

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tomatoes to building razorow gardens and everything
else. So all right, Mary,

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let's get to the point of how
to build your own steaks. And I

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guess we kind of have to say
that for revealing everything that we've used these

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really for about fourteen years variations.
Yeah, it's been an evolving process for

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us, and you know, we
looked at over the years of what works,

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what could we do better? And
I think we've come up to the

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great solution. Yeah. I mean, so the last five years now we've

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been using this solution, and I
don't think I can't never say we'll never

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improve one, because maybe some new
thing will come out that we can do

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with it. But for right now, this has just been phenomenal for us.

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So when we first started building our
own supports, we like to call

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them steak of cages, and it
really was kind of interesting go back to

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that era when we had forty eight
plants in the ground and realized we were

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going to spend a fortune. We
went out and bought five foot roll fencing

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I think it was three foot road
fencing, and then we bought some just

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common steaks, yes, survey or
stakes a pencil point, yeah, and

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Mary cut eighteen inch sections from this
road fencing and then we would use some

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you nails or staples to stap them
to the wood and they made look almost

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look like a small radar. It
did look like a radar in our garden,

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but they were fantastic. We pounded
them in the ground. You could

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tie the tomatoes off to the open
face of the of the fencing and it

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was a little curve because of the
role and I still remember how it looked,

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but really really worked well. The
issue, and Mary alluded to this

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earlier, was after a year or
two, especially storing, it was a

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little bit easier because they went together, but there was still a lot of

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space. But after a year or
two, there's wood steaks just didn't work

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right. By the time we'd pull
them out of the ground to close our

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garden for the year, a few
of them would break off at the pencil

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point, and you know, so
we just had to kind of kind of

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figure out a better solution. Yeah, and then the other problem was we

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used the road fencing, but it
was lightweight, and after about three or

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four years, you know, it
would have its own issue and sometimes even

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in a couple of years we start
to bend and Yeah, again, incredible

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because it allows you to tie the
plants off quickly and easily. Mary talked

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about the cages and reaching through.
That's not an issue with these years straightforward,

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But we kept evolving and so what
we've come to now, which like

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I said, it's it's really probably
the easiest way to make them and super

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super strong. There is a little
bit of cost up front, but it's

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a cost when you we'll go through
the cost of how we build these,

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and we can build these for anywhere
from ten to fifteen dollars each, comparable

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very much to anything by the market, except when you factor in that they

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can last for ten years, and
they're way better, right, I mean,

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the economical benefit of making these goes
a long way, especially if you're

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going to garden for more than one
year. Exactly. I feel like we're

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becoming one of those reality shows where
we're not getting to the answer. So

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let's let's go. So let's talk
about how to make these supports and what's

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what's all in them? So we
make our supports now from two simple things.

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A six foot long metal te post
that you know is used for fences.

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Is that a better way to say
that, Mary, to talk about

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what it is? No? I
think you know. They come in different

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sizes, six foot, eight foot, I think those are They're called tea

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posts. They're metal. You just
drive them in the ground. Yeah,

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and you can. You can buy
these at any local farm store or even

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like your your local big box store
will carry them. But the key is

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to get the heavy duty. I'm
just gonna say buy the six footers,

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not the five or four footers.
Because time you drive them in the ground,

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they're just not tall enough. But
I like them because they're super strong,

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and you know, we'll get to
the cost, but it's not very

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much. I think these are you
know, I think we bought ours for

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like six fifty apiece. They're last
forever. I mean, they're going to

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last forever. They're heavy duty metal. You can pound them in, you

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don't worry about them breaking. And
then the second part of this we talked

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about we used to use rolled fencing. Well we found out that hey,

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let's make them a little stronger and
get cow or goat pans. We like

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livestock pans. Yeah, livestock pans. Okay, so they're all, oh

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good. If you get a great
deal on one, that's great. The

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reason we say goat panels are the
best and I like them is goat panels

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start at the bottom a little bit
smaller, and they go to the top

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as you're spacing of the panels.
And these are galvanized. I don't know

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how thick they are. They're pretty
pretty strong. They're thicker. These are

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not real. Yes, these are
strong panels that you can hold a goat

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in, so you know how strong
they are. Now what we do.

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They come in sixteen foot sections,
and you're like, well, I'm not

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growing sixteen feet of tomatoes. You
could put that sixteen foot section just down

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your row and tie off. But
what we like to do is we cut

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those sections into twelve to eighteen inches
wide and we use them I guess twelve

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inches for our smaller tomatoes, and
we use these for peppers. I mean,

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they're fantastic for pepper pants too,
right, we use it for both.

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And then we do eighteen inches wide. We just use a pair of

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bolt cutters. Metal cutters cut through
them at eighteen inches wide. For our

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larger airling tomatoes. The goat panels
come forty two inches high, which is

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perfect when you put them on.
You can find some other of the cawpanails

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that might be five foot high for
they're all going to work. But I

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really like that level and that thickness
of these panels. And then here's the

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beauty of this versus. I told
you when we bought the wood panels,

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we used to stay more you nail
them. So what do we do now?

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We go out in the spring before
planning day, maybe a day before

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00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:26,120
maybe the day of, and we
go right down the line where we're going

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to have our tomatoes planted. And
then what we do is use zip ties

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to tie them off. Right.
We actually used about three zip ties per

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post. We do one at the
bottom, one in the middle, one

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at the top to hold it all
together. Yeah. So you have this

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panel, you have your metal post
driven into the ground, which is very

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easy to do when it's by itself, there's nothing attached to it. As

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00:14:48,240 --> 00:14:50,080
soon as that metal post is driven
in and pe bus is how long you

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00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:54,279
drive twelve to eighteen inches. I
like them deep because that's why I like

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getting the six foot steaks. They
go in a little bit deeper and they're

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00:14:56,919 --> 00:14:58,279
going to stay really strong. Actually, at the bottom of each steak is

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00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:01,799
kind of a horizontal piece. Yep. You drive that through the ground to

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the soil. Yeah, it makes
it's very easy for us to do that.

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And then we just take these panels
that are forty two inches high or

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00:15:07,919 --> 00:15:11,039
whatever height the panel you buy,
but eighteen inches wide or twelve inches,

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and we square them right to the
middle, so the middle of the panel

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goes to the middle of the post, so you have a little bit on

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each side. We like it even
Yeah, we like it even and your

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plants will too. And you zip
tie the bottom, middle, and top.

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Then you plant your plant. And
if I can give one bit of

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advice, if there's one thing you
can do to help your tomato plants is

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please, no matter what you use, I don't even care if you use

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kid, get your tomato supports in
day one. Absolutely yeah. And because

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of two things. Number one is
your tomato plants when they're young need support.

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People think, oh, I'm gonna
let them grow for a while,

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Well guess what the first wind comes
along wipes it out or a big storm.

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You've got to support them from day
one. One. Tie off is

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perfect at the bottom. That's what
makes these so great because with with this

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00:15:54,919 --> 00:15:58,639
version of the t post and then
the panel, you rest the panel on

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00:15:58,679 --> 00:16:03,320
the ground, you zip tie it
then middle high, Well, that plant

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00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:06,559
is right down there low and you
can tie it off right away, especially

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00:16:06,559 --> 00:16:07,879
with springstorms coming. You know,
we've had a lot of storms lately,

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00:16:07,960 --> 00:16:11,399
and you know, if we had
tomato plants in the ground right now,

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00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:14,519
they would be toping over if they
didn't have that support. Absolutely, So

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00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:17,639
you know, once they go in
and now you're set, and as the

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00:16:17,639 --> 00:16:21,799
tomato plant grows, up. You
can just tie off to those little squares

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00:16:22,159 --> 00:16:26,519
so easy. We use either green
yarn. Yarns are a little secret.

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00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:30,440
You can buy what a thousand feet
for a couple of dollars and just the

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00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:33,159
stretch and it's nice and we tie
it off. But you can use tomato

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00:16:33,159 --> 00:16:36,360
supports or whatever, tomato tie offs, whatever. But now you have this

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00:16:36,399 --> 00:16:38,360
perfect support system that allows it to
grow high. Yeah, and I think

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00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:41,919
you know, we really need to
reiterate to put your tomato supports in before

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00:16:41,960 --> 00:16:45,120
your plants, because if your tomatoes
are in the ground and they have been

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00:16:45,159 --> 00:16:48,679
growing for a month before you decide
to put them up, you are disturbing

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00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:52,720
the soil. You're hitting their roots
when you're putting your tomato supports in.

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00:16:52,039 --> 00:16:55,879
That can damage your tomato plants and
then you're yield. Yeah, there's no

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00:16:55,960 --> 00:16:57,720
way to know where your roots have
grown underneath that soil. So you might

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00:16:57,720 --> 00:17:00,919
be thinking, oh, I'm behind
the plant. You might be driving right

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00:17:00,919 --> 00:17:03,640
through one of the major routes.
So that's a very good point to bring

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00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:07,240
up and why we do it.
So now let's cover some a few quick

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00:17:07,319 --> 00:17:11,720
questions about how they grow. So
it's great they grow up. You keep

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00:17:11,720 --> 00:17:14,839
tying them off. And people say, but I grow heirlooms and they grow

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00:17:15,279 --> 00:17:18,559
eighteen feet tall. Well, you
can get an eighteen foot tall panel if

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00:17:18,559 --> 00:17:21,440
you want. But listen, you
can prune your tomatoes at the top.

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00:17:21,440 --> 00:17:23,319
It actually helps them. They'll branch
out a little more when ours get to

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00:17:23,359 --> 00:17:26,000
seven or eight feet or six feet. We prune off that top. You're

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00:17:26,039 --> 00:17:30,319
not going to harm them. So
that's another answer. But the real beauty,

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00:17:30,799 --> 00:17:34,039
beyond the incredible support and the way
that they hold the tomatoes and the

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00:17:34,119 --> 00:17:37,240
vines up, really for me is
at the end of the season. Mary,

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00:17:37,359 --> 00:17:40,279
it comes at the end of the
season when you go to take them

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00:17:40,319 --> 00:17:44,119
off because you just zip those zip
tie or you just cut the zip ties.

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00:17:44,319 --> 00:17:45,440
And now how do you store them? Right? You know, we

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00:17:45,599 --> 00:17:48,480
cut the zip ties off, we
clean off the things, clean off the

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00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:53,000
panels, we disinfect them. All
you have to do then is actually stack

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00:17:53,039 --> 00:17:56,240
the panels together and then stack the
posts. Yep, that's right. So

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00:17:56,519 --> 00:18:00,319
let's do one final thing before we
end here. Let's talk about the final

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00:18:00,359 --> 00:18:03,039
cost for us. So I'm telling
you right now we've had five plus years

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00:18:03,079 --> 00:18:07,160
of this system employed and we still
are using the same things every year over

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00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:10,880
and over again. So you've got
to factor that in. If you're buying

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00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:14,000
five dollars tomato supports for I don't
even know where you'd find those, but

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00:18:14,039 --> 00:18:17,680
you're replacing them every year. After
three years, you've spent fifteen dollars and

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00:18:17,880 --> 00:18:21,039
you're not getting very good support.
So for us, the t posts,

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00:18:21,079 --> 00:18:23,920
as I said, usually six fifty
to seven dollars at your local farm store.

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00:18:25,079 --> 00:18:26,799
You can find them heavy duty,
right, get the heavy duty ones,

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00:18:26,920 --> 00:18:30,799
yep. Avoid using those cheap three
to five dollars posts because they're going

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00:18:30,839 --> 00:18:34,240
to bend in half. We actually
had a storm, I don't know three

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00:18:34,359 --> 00:18:37,480
or four years ago, and we
had a couple of other plans and we

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00:18:37,519 --> 00:18:40,680
had those in there holding the fence. Those just snapped in half. I'll

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00:18:40,680 --> 00:18:44,200
never forget that. So when you
factor in the cost, you know it's

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00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:47,000
not bad to pay that. Then
the goat panels, as we said,

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00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:51,519
about sixteen foot long sections forty two
inches high. You can use boltcutters to

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00:18:51,559 --> 00:18:53,640
cut them down. For a large
tomatoes, we said eighteen in the small

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00:18:53,680 --> 00:18:57,559
twelve panels are right around forty eight
to fifty dollars each. And where can

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00:18:57,559 --> 00:19:00,759
you find those goat pans? Same
thing your local farm store, big box

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00:19:00,759 --> 00:19:04,960
store. Farm stores usually tend to
be a little bit more reasonable with cost.

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00:19:06,319 --> 00:19:07,480
But here's the thing. You say, well, fifty yeah, but

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00:19:07,519 --> 00:19:11,839
you you know, you're making anywhere
from on a sixteen foot panel, If

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00:19:11,839 --> 00:19:15,440
you're making twelves, you can make
thirteen or fourteen up to you know ten.

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00:19:15,839 --> 00:19:19,359
Well, it comes out to you
know, seven to eight nine dollars

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00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:22,440
a piece for those panels, and
you put them with that seven dollars,

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00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:26,640
you're talking anywhere from twelve to fifteen
dollars to make a tomato steak that's going

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00:19:26,680 --> 00:19:30,119
to last you ten years. That's
way less expensive than mini options. Oh

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00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:33,559
yeah, and let's just go over
the fact that they also hold your tomatoes

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00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:37,279
up way better. They're easy to
work with, easy to put away.

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00:19:37,519 --> 00:19:41,000
We love them. I mean,
all I can tell you is we've been

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00:19:41,079 --> 00:19:42,200
using them. When people come to
the farm and they come to the test

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00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:45,319
gardens here at all our garden,
they're like, what are those? How

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00:19:45,359 --> 00:19:49,440
do you make them? If you
go to simplegardenlife dot com, we have

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00:19:49,519 --> 00:19:55,319
a complete article about this, including
a video from our farm, from our

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00:19:55,359 --> 00:19:59,480
garden how we make them. Go
to simplegardenlife dot com. Up in the

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00:19:59,519 --> 00:20:03,559
search bar. Just search tomato steak
or best way to support it'll come up.

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00:20:03,599 --> 00:20:06,480
You'll see it right there, and
it's a really good article. It'll

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00:20:06,519 --> 00:20:07,960
take you through it step by step, right and if you have any questions,

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00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:11,920
you can always email us at the
farm at odwgarden dot com. That's

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00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:15,599
right, So I think that does
it. You know what, We've got

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00:20:15,839 --> 00:20:18,880
a few weeks to go before we're
ever going to be putting our tomato plants

348
00:20:18,880 --> 00:20:22,599
in, but I can't wait.
I can't wait either, and hopefully that

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00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:26,400
you guys try out this dioy system
this year and love it as much as

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00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:29,480
we do. So Mary, I
think it's that time. Remember whenever you

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00:20:29,519 --> 00:20:32,440
do, find the fun and gardening
and grow something beautiful. So long,

352
00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:34,799
everyone, happy gardening. We hope
you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the

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00:20:34,799 --> 00:20:40,119
Simple Garden podcast on iTunes, Apple
Podcasts, Spotify, or most of your

354
00:20:40,119 --> 00:20:44,200
favorite podcast apps. You can also
head over to simplegardenlife dot com where you

355
00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:47,720
can listen and read all of the
show notes to every episode, and if

356
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:51,240
you have any questions, any ideas
for show topics, or if you want

357
00:20:51,240 --> 00:20:56,000
to share your favorite garden tip,
email us at the farm at owgarden dot

358
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:57,160
com until next time, Thanks everyone,