Staking is important to reduce fruit rots, sunscald and foliar diseases. Don't wait to stake and trellis your tomatoes until they are large! It is much easier start when they are a foot tall and you can sucker as you go along.
If left unattended, suckers will eventually grow into branches that produce leaves and fruit, resulting in a bushy plant.
Some advantages of staking are improved fruit quality and yield, ease of harvest, less disease, improved spray coverage, larger fruit, and fewer damaged fruit or fruit with imperfections.
Most tomatoes, whether bush or vining, benefit from staking to keep the main stem upright. With any luck, they'll be covered with heavy fruit, and you'll be glad you took precautions to avoid broken stems and broken hearts.
Cages tend to be a little shorter than stakes, meaning they are better for determinate varieties of tomatoes that won't grow past six feet high. Generally speaking, caging is better for eggplants, peppers, or plants that won't grow as tall as tomatoes. Cages need less work but take up a fair amount of space.
Examples of Tomatoes that don't need staking include Patio and Tiny Tim.
A single stake is a simple, low-cost method for keeping plants upright in small spaces. The best method for how to stake tomatoes this way is to use a 5-foot-tall sturdy wood or metal stake for determinate tomatoes and an 8-foot-tall stake for indeterminate tomatoes.
Place the stake 3-4 inches from the base of the plant on the side away from the first bloom cluster to keep from trapping the fruit between the plant and the stake. You will want to use sturdy wooden or metal stakes 6 to 7 feet long for indeterminate varieties and 4 feet for determinate varieties.
Instead of allowing plants to spread out across the ground, which can lead to a lot of mess, staking allows them to grow vertically. This frees up valuable ground space and allows you to plant more in a small area. This technique is especially useful in small gardens or urban gardens where space is limited.
Disadvantages: Requires continuous twining throughout the season to capture growth. Twine stretches with the weight of the tomato plant, causing sagging. Tends to allow tomato plant to sprawl.
If tomatoes are not pruned early enough in their growth, they will grow tall with lots of leaves and flowers at the top, but no growth on the lower stems.
Why You Should Prune Tomato Plants. Pruning indeterminate tomato plants helps direct the plant's energy towards producing fruit rather than producing more foliage. Removing suckers and yellowed leaves also encourages larger fruit, better airflow, fewer diseases, and for container-grown tomatoes, better size.
A better choice is to stake your tomatoes. There are stakes available as long as 10 feet. They come in different materials like wood, bamboo, plastic and metal.
Yellow leaves and brown spots on tomato plants are most commonly caused by early tomato blight. Once found, early blight can be managed by regularly removing affected foliage from your garden.
Repurposed garden stakes
Items like saplings, branches, bamboo, old pipes, recycled pool cues, and broken brooms can all be "upcycled" into garden stakes for your lawn. Some gardeners prefer to add a touch of weather-resistant paint to these items to give them a more finished look.
As tomato plants grow and spread, they require a support system, such as stakes, a cage, or a trellis. Decide which method you will use before you set out your plants, then place that support when you plant.
If you haven't got a lot of space, try a determinate or semi-determinate variety like Roma or Tatura Dwarf. These produce small bushes that need minimal staking and have 'determinate' growth, meaning that after a while they stop getting bigger, phew! They are also referred to as 'bush' tomatoes.
Vining tomatoes don't have a stem that is stout enough to support the entire plant. These tomatoes often get top heavy, even without having fruit on them. If they aren't supported they can fall over, breaking the stem.
Tomato 'Lucky Cross'
'Lucky Cross' is a "flavor king" among the large, yellow-red bicolors, says LeHoullier.
Begin tying your tomato plant to the stake after it reaches a height of 10 to 12 inches. Garden twine, strips of fabric, or even pieces of pantyhose are excellent materials to use as ties for your stake. Stake your tomato plant about every 8 inches or so, up the entire length of the main trunk.