Grow The Biggest Tomatoes: Supporting Tomato Plants & Planting For Maximum Growth
Do you want to grow as many tomatoes as possible and as quickly as you can? If you started your plants as early as I did and the overnight temperatures are higher than 10C or 50F, then it’s time to get them in the ground.
In this article and the video below, I’ll explain how to build a structure for supporting tomato plants, when and how you should plant out your tomatoes to maximise growth and how to water them to make sure you get as many tomatoes as possible.
*Some links in this article are affiliate links. Commission may be earned on purchases made through them. Click here for more information about how I use affiliate links.
Building Structures For Supporting Tomato Plants
The easiest way of making a support structure is to build a wigwam by inserting bamboo poles into the ground to form a triangular base and tying the tops together with twine. This kind of structure is great for shorter determinate or bush tomatoes or growing in containers.
The best support structure for growing vining, indeterminate/cordon tomato varieties is an A-frame with cross braces due to its strength and stability and, if built using 3 metre (10 ft) bamboo poles, is going to be one of the tallest and cheapest options too, making it perfect for home-growers.
To build an A-frame structure, I use 3m/10ft bamboo poles which I cut down to 2.7m in length as this is as high as I can reach standing on a chair. This is important as, by the end of the year, your plants will easily outgrow the structure and it’s very difficult to harvest tomatoes or train the top of the plant to grow downwards if the top of the structure is beyond your reach.
And get thick poles* like these! I had an absolute nightmare last year with small poles bending and snapping while taller, thicker poles don’t seem to suffer from these problems.
Tomato plants grow best when spaced 45 to 60cm apart and can get quite heavy, so it’s best to place your vertical poles two or three tomato plants apart – that’s 120 to 140cm or roughly 4 or 5ft. This gap between poles is conveniently just narrow enough to add a cross brace for extra rigidity.
Mark in the soil where all of your plants and poles should go before doing anything. You’ll thank me later…
You’ll need to push the thick end of the pole into the ground at a slight angle so that the poles meet in the middle – I tend to go about 10-20° away from vertical. You can also keep one pole perfectly upright and tilt the other one further over if you want your plants to lean and the tomatoes to hang away from the foliage and ripen in the sun.
You can use a mallet or make use of your own body weight to get the poles deep into the soil.
Do the same on the other side so that the pair cross over at the very top and repeat this pattern every four to six feet along the bed, And when you’ve got your poles in place, tie them together at the top with something strong like a cable tie or a zip tie*.
Then place some poles horizontally on top of those crosses and secure them using more cable ties. At this point you’ll have fully functional tomato supports but you can increase rigidity by adding a diagonal pole across the widest gap between the vertical poles and turning the square faces into triangles.
Yes, this cross-bracing is how they build bridges (and if your as nerdy as me, it means your structure now meets Maxwell’s Rigidity Criterion) and if you do this you should notice straight away that you can’t bend or twist the poles anymore.
Tying-In Your Plants
As your tomato plants grow, you’ll need to give them something to climb up. While the plants by the vertical poles could be tied to the bamboo, the plants in between will need something extra.
To support your plants you can get some thick twine and tie it to the horizontal pole across the top of the structure. At the bottom end, you can knot the string and create a loop and place the plant directly on top to create tension and the plant roots will anchor it in place. Then you can tie your plants to the twine by either winding the stem around the string or using tomato clips*.
Make sure that your twine is strong, in 2022 I had problems with my string breaking which meant I had to keep running outside on windy days with more twine to try and save the plants.
But in 2023, I tried using bungee cords after watching Lucy Hutchings on Gardeners’ World and they worked brilliantly – they didn’t break and they held the full weight of tomatoes without damaging the stems. You need to cut them to length and add some hooks* so they attach easily to the bamboo, and you might also want to add another horizontal row of bamboo poles along the base of the A-frame structure so the bungees have something to hook on to – but, like Lucy, I don’t think I could go back to anything else.
Planting Your Tomato Plants To Maximise Growth
When you plant your tomato plants, you’re going to want to do two things to maximise growth. The first is to bury the stem up to the first true leaf. The nodules up the side will turn into roots when exposed to wet soil which helps the plant grow quicker. Some people go further and bury as much of the stems as possible, even burying plants on their side, to encourage as many roots as possible to form. If you’ve got leggy tomato plants, then this is a great opportunity to fix the problem.
Another thing I’ve seen people do is place an egg under their tomato plants. Eggs act as slow release fertiliser, giving the plant access to a small reservoir of nutrients. Nitrogen which is found inside the proteins inside the egg enables faster plant growth while the calcium found in the shell means better fruiting. I happen to have a small flock of chickens that produce far more eggs than I could possibly eat, so this year I’m going to experiment and place eggs under my plants too. However, I’m gong to bury them deeply as it could smell a bit otherwise.
So to plant your tomato plants, dig a hole, optionally place an egg inside, break it a little to help it decompose, then place the loop of twine inside, then place the tomato plant on top and firm in with some compost, being sure to bury the stem either up to the first true leaf or beyond.
Remember to prune regularly and to give the roots a good watering every few days, otherwise you run the risk of getting blossom end rot – this can be for a few reasons but inconsistent watering is a common one. And to avoid other diseases like tomato blight, you should avoid getting the leaves wet when you water your plants.
If you want to try and stop this from happening and make watering effortless in the process, then you could bury a soaker hose in the ground which I explain how to do in a recent article.
Otherwise, as always, Happy Gardening!
You can watch the video version of this article here: https://youtu.be/LnyPrdVVlJw
