This year I decided to try a couple of garden experiments. Has anyone tried either of these?
I bought a tomato spiral, and I’m using that for one of my tomato plants instead of my usual cages. I have my doubts about it, but I figured if it was a disaster, I could always use the spiral stake for flowers instead. It will mean a lot of pruning compared to my “throw a cage around it and forget it” method, but I thought it would be fun to try. I’m not sure that it will hold up in the wind, though, especially once the tomato plant starts growing.
We also made a self contained gardening system. I saw an E@rthbox at my local garden center, but it was nearly $70, and didn’t appear to even include the soil (they’re much cheaper online, but the shipping is pretty high). This one ended up costing us about $16 to make, plus the cost of the planting mix, fertilizer and seeds. I figured I should try growing something in it that I wouldn’t ordinarily grow in the garden, so I’m trying corn. It seems really bizarre that you can grow corn in such a small container, but people do (scroll down for some photos).
I also considered melons, but that would probably be better if I set up some sort of trellis for it. But if the corn doesn’t work out, I might try melons or squash next year.
Cabled Sheep lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she enjoys knitting, cooking, and munching veggies out of the garden. She never tires of Utah's glorious landscape.
Hmm. That just doesn’t look like it’s going to stand up to tomatoes…
Very creative. We’ll be watching!
Fun.
Nothing fancy over this way – I’m just hoping that for once we get enough hot weather for a bumper tomato crop!
Do you weave the tomato plant around the wire?
I’m looking forward to seeing how all this plays out.
It will stand up. They are strong and you can push them very deep in the soil. It sounds like you already know that you will need to prune your tomato to a central leader to use the stake effectively. Maybe you will end up liking that; maybe not. But the twirly stake thing works all right.
Also, are you going to plant …. like, a lot of corn? Or do you have neighbors close by who grow corn? Because corn is wind-pollinated and usually produces best when it’s in or near a large-ish clump. Or I guess you could pollinate manually.
So, to sum up. I think you should go with both “new” things and good luck with them. Just make sure you cover pruning and pollination and you’re gold.