Floppy tomato plant?

Question

I know I should have caged or staked my tomato plant earlier, but it's now all grown and sprawling. It has several small tomatoes and is growing on top of my bush bean plants. I am basically using the bean plants as support to keep the tomatoes off the ground. The bean plants have served me well but are near the end of their productive time anyhow.

Anything you'd recommend at this point, or am I better off continuing to use the bean plants as a shelf that keeps the tomatoes off the ground? I'm hoping not to injure the tomato plant or ruin the tomatoes.

Thanks for any comments.

Answer 1

There is not much you can do at this point. Moving the plant around could easily damage the plant. It is best to leave it alone. However, next year, instead of staking your tomatoes, get a 6 foot tall trellis and as your plants grow, gently wind the top through the holes in the trellis. When it reaches the top, you can gently train it to grow downward or just cut off the top and let the rest of the plant nurish the tomatos on it.

A simple trellis could be made using 2-3 7 foot metal fence poles and large hole fencing wired to the poles. The holes in the fencing should be 4-6 inches big. Set the poles 4 feet apart from each other and you can plant one tomato per foot along the fencing. We used 7 foot rebar with a 2 foot "T" fence post for strength.

This keeps the tomatoes off the ground and you have an attractive green fence, and easy access to the tomatoes. We tried this method this year and it worked beautifully. We were very pleased with it and plan to expand and try it with some cucumber and melon plants as well. We also liked it because it didn't take up a lot of room in our garden.

Answer 2

One year I had the same thing happen, but found success by using a discarded branch from a tree. The branch's support was offset by the weight of the plant. This solution was free, and it gave my gangly tomato plant multiple support areas with the offshoots of the branch for its various directions of growth. I used twist-stems to adhere the two together. Talk about a tall tomato plant in the end -- it reached all the way to the gutter on my detached garage!

Answer 3

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