My driveway is coming back to life soon - Driveway Farm 2012

[HJM]

Your staking system looks interesting! Thank you for sharing the photos. You probably have the most interesting driveway in your neighborhood!
HJM

[acanfield]

Cushman - not really, though when I do use the string between Ultomato crossbars, I am tying it to the uprights in the PVC base.  Once the tomatoes are taller than the Ultomato stakes, then I will resume just tying them into the uprights, like I did before the Ultomato or pea fences. 

[baileyj]

Acanfield,
I tried the ultmato system last year on 3 determinates and had horrible results.  I found it did not contain the branches at all. 
Are you saying you move the cross pieces as the plant gets taller to keep the branches contained ? 
From the photos it appears you use them as a trellis, not encircling the tomato,
 Is that correct 
Maybe that is what I did wrong, I encircled the plant and it outgrew the circle through the sides, it worked fine for the determinate tomatos height wise, but the side branches did not do well.
Hope my question makes sense....so I can try your way this year if I am understanding correctly.
Thanks,
Judi

[acanfield]

baileyj

I connected two Ultomatoes together to form a rectangle around the perimeter of the EB.  What I do is temporarily remove an appropriate crossbar for branches growing outside, hold them in, and put the arm back on.  Walmart actually sells extra arms in packs of 3.  They only sell them in stores, not online, and you need to check the Walmart web site to see if a particular store has them in stock.  I bought all of the extra arms that my Walmart had in January, and also bought six 6' stakes (Ultomato comes with 5' stakes) so I could get a slightly higher trellis.   There is another website that also sells them.  The other thing I will try when I run out of extra crossbars, is rope in the side branches with twine, surrounding the stakes, as necessary. 

So far I'm liking the Ultomato in this configuration a lot.  I think Gardendoc also used two of them as a rectangle, as I seem to recall.  Being able to get the extra stakes is also very cool.  I think the stakes are 3/8".  It would be great to find longer ones than 6' that were 3/8", but the ones I've seen are thicker.

Anita

[butterflygirl67]

The ultimato staking looks neat.  I may have to try that out next year.

[baileyj]

Anita,
Thanks so much for the explanation...I will try them again and see if I can find more side peices...
I was trying to use one set for each plant...I tried in 1 EB and a 5 Gal. planter...neither worked well but it makes sense if you make a rectangle out of 2 then they have more room and can be better supported...
Thanks,
Judi

[cushman350]

Those wild stems growing out outside of the trellis can be helped with just some garden twine.

[homesteph]

Wow, what a driveway!  I really like your PVC stake bases.  FWIW, I found Ultomato stake kits at Home Depot but I haven't put them to work yet.