It began with the Florida weave.
I was intrigued by the Florida weave style of tomato staking. A Florida weave uses stakes a few feet apart, and you basically weave a gentle rope in front and behind the plant and stakes, then reverse in the opposite direction, to trap the plant between the rope. Some people use twine. I prefer a softer rope, 550 paracord, as it is insanely strong yet softer, so it won’t cut into any stems, which allows a tighter weave.
My set up was 6 ft bamboo stakes every three feet, with two or three tomato plants between each stake. The tomato set up was along the perimeter of the south half my garden, which is kidney shaped. Last year was the best tomato season I have ever had. I only lost one tomato plant in my main garden, a German Pink. The plants grew to the point I could secure them in the rope, about 4 ft tall, and then I let them grow up and over the perimeter fencing. Real talk…the rope was so ugly. I used white. It looked terrible.
But it gave me a tomato cave. I spent so many minutes just chilling in my tomato cave. Every tomato was a different variety, as such I was surrounded with all the colors nature provides. The plants were 5-6 feet tall on three sides. It was a touch cooler in there. I was unseen in there. My tomatoes stayed pruned as I found it joyful to sit and prune and talk to the fruits and snack on the cherry maters and listen to XM/Sirius through my headphones. And yeah, nobody could find me and it was fun. My tomato fort.
It was Joy.
A good visual demonstration of just the Florida weave is at https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2201532/florida-weave-questions
The End