PDF Like most gardeners, I’ve learned a few tricks over the years that make gardening easier. For me, the best, like these, are nearly free and all are easy to make and use.
1. Tomato ties: Nothing you can buy in the store will work as well for tying tomatoes to their stakes as legs cut from discarded panty hose. Their neutral colors blend in. They stretch when the wind blows or the vines grow heavy. Their open weave allows air to get in and moisture to get out. They don’t support bacteria or bugs. They don’t chafe or cut the vine. They are recycled, and that means that they are both environmentally sound and free.
I especially like that last part.
Used panty hose are an ideal tie for tomatoes
2. When you run out of panty hose, you can substitute lengths of NM electrical cabling. Cut it into 12-18” lengths and loop around the tomato and its support post. It’s strong, it’s wide, it won’t support bugs and its reusable.
3. To mark a straight row, use 2×2 lumber roughly 8ft long. After the planting bed is prepared, mark the end points of where you want the first row. Now, lay the 2×2 on its edge in the dirt and align it with the marks. Press it firmly down into the soil and shove it along in a straight line toward the far stake.
4. Seed packets give one measurement for the distance between the plants in the rows and another for the distance between rows. That larger measurement is to allow standing between the rows to hoe them. Bad idea.
Get a three foot long piece of heavy metal strap from the hardware store. You’ll want the kind with holes punched in it. You will cut this into 3 equal-length pieces and then smooth the sharp edges. Get 3 bolts to fit those holes and 6 nuts and 6 flat washers to fit those bolts. Lightly run one nut all the way to the head of each bolt. Find the ‘in row’ spacing on the seed packet or plant tag and find two holes on one strap that come close to that number. Drop bolts through them. Attach the other two straps loosely to those bolts using one nut each. Now cross the open ends to complete the triangle, making every bolt the same distance apart.
Mark the first row with the stick. Then set two bolts of the gauge into the trough formed by the stick. The third bolt will mark the next row. Then shift sideways in the first row by one hole and repeat the process.
A few straps and a few minutes = one great spacing tool
This manner of marking puts plants the closest they can be and still have room to grow. As the plants come up, mulch them heavily. This, combined with the close spacing, will dramatically reduce the amount of weeding and greatly conserve water in the soil.
I use panty hose as ties all the time. They are a great way to tie up your plants (not just tomatoes). The only problem I have is that now I retired and not much need for pantyhose in the first place, so supply will depleat eventually.
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I have been able to secure a small supply by posting a request on the give-away site “Free-cycle”. I think that people think at first that I am some sort of pervert, but eventually someone will relent. After all, it’s not like I am asking that they continue to occupy the hosiery. (They are hard to knot with the legs still in them!)
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