8 DIY Tomato Trellis Ideas to Provide Support and Style in Your Garden (2024)

FAQs

How do you make a sturdy tomato trellis? ›

Try PVC Pipes for Support

Another sturdy method combines metal stakes with simple PVC pipes. Place stakes at the ends and middle of your patch and top them with PVC pipe. This creates an overhead support beam which you can run your twine from. Then, clip tomatoes to the twine as they grow for continued support.

Build a traditional trellis shape, lash a ladder together, or get creative with a teepee form. Just be sure to dig the ends well into the ground or secure to an existing structure – a wall of tomato plants turns into a sail in windy weather.

Tomato Stakes: Wooden or metal stakes are a classic alternative to cages. To use them, simply insert a sturdy stake into the ground near each tomato plant. As the plant grows, gently tie its branches to the stake using soft ties or twine. This provides vertical support, keeping the plant upright.

1) Stake them

Use whatever stakes you have on hand – wooden stakes, bamboo, metal – just be sure that they're at least 4 feet high. This isn't the easiest method because you need to keep tieing the plant up over the course of the season, but it works and is cheap.

Metal or wood offer great trellis support, and I especially like wood because then I can do a DIY tomato trellis. Metal choices can be metal T posts, a frame structures, and the classic tomato cage. Wood is great to support tomatoes and I love how it looks in the garden bed.

A 3- to 4-foot-tall staking system works well for determinate varieties. Indeterminate tomato varieties continue to grow, flower, and set fruit until they are killed by frost in fall. A 5- to 7-foot-tall staking system is best for indeterminate types.

Bamboo poles or 1-inch-square (or wider) stakes are used, spacing plants about 24 inches apart. Stakes are placed about 3 inches from the plants. Sisal twine or strips of cloth are used to secure the vines to the stakes.

If you want to grow indeterminate tomatoes in containers, it is best to grow them near a trellis or fence that you can train them up, or use very large pots that will allow large cages. Determinate varieties that I have grown and found to be sturdy enough to not require staking include: Bush Champion (hybrid)

This can be a cage, stake, or trellis and is best put in place at planting to avoid. damaging the roots later on. An example of a support suitable for buckets is these Tomato Cage Plant Support Cages available at Walmart. Place the bucket in a sunny spot that gets at least 6-8 hours of direct sunlight each day.

You'll find that regular household objects make great garden stakes. Try using the keys of an old keyboard, or the lid to a container or can. Chalkboard spray is also a good tool that can turn any object into a useful garden label.

How do you keep tall tomato plants upright? ›

The Stake and Weave System

This system utilizes wooden stakes four to eight feet long by approximately 1 inch square, and twine woven around the stakes to train plants to a more upright growth habit, keeping foliage and fruit off the ground to prevent diseases.

Drill 4 equally spaced 5/16" holes in the "out-sides" bottom edge of the bucket. Re-purpose any bucket lid, to serve as your saucer underneath the bucket. If you use a tomato cage, Velcro or tie at least 2 stakes to the cage to give it strength to stay up-right. Soon our plants are going to produce yummy tomatoes.”

She said cutting the wire at the base of the cylinder will create prongs that can extend into the ground when placed around the tomato plant. “This will provide some security for the cage. For additional support, drive a T-post into the ground next to the cage and tie the cage to it,” she said.

The tops of the posts should be 5 or 6 feet high. Staple or tie concrete reinforcement wire or wire fencing with 6-inch openings to the posts. You can leave a space of about a foot from the bottom of the wire to the ground; it should be high enough that your tiller can clear underneath.

Stakes allow for easier pruning

Tie the stem loosely to the stake with strips of soft cloth or nylon. Loop the material entirely around the stake before tying it around the stem. This will cinch the tie and hold it in place as the plant gets heavier.

Concrete reinforcing wire is thick and strong – after all, that's why it makes great tomato cages! The best way to cut it is to use heavy duty wire cutters (like the ones pictured below) that will cut through the thick wire like butter. Heavy duty wire cutters are a must-have when cutting concrete reinforcing wire.