How can you maximize your harvest from a small plot of land?
Let’s talk about vertical gardening techniques for tomatoes and cucumbers.
Tomatoes. For commercial cultivation, you need varieties that can withstand the weight of their fruit and ripen simultaneously. However, in home gardens and summer cottages, you can grow a whole collection of varieties, including vining types.
High-yielding, large-fruited, and vining grape trellis varieties need to be tied to a support, as the weight of the fruit can cause the plants to topple. This complicates care for the plants, as many fruits can end up on the ground, and if the harvest isn’t collected in time, the tomatoes will rot.
Experience shows that tying to a stake is ineffective. If you plant low-growing varieties, you risk losing 70-80 percent of your harvest. This is where a grape trellis comes in handy. First, plan your garden bed by determining the number of rows. At both ends, bury posts and stretch aluminum wire (about 5-7 rows high). Plant tomato seedlings along the trellis. As the plants grow, tie them to the wire.
The height of the trellis depends on the variety. For example, for “De Barao,” “Lemon Vines,” and “Amateur Pink,” the ideal height is 5-10 feet. Be careful when tying to avoid breaking or damaging the stems and fruit clusters. Any tying method is acceptable as long as it doesn’t harm the plants.
This creates a green vegetable wall that receives light from both sides (provided the trellis is stretched from north to south).
You can also create trellises with only a top row of wire. From this row, drop ropes with pre-tied loops that are pinned to the plants. Then, use special hooks to attach the stems and fruit clusters to the loops. In summer, when the tomatoes ripen, the trellises adorned with red fruit look stunning. Large-fruited tomatoes are best grown on trellises, while smaller varieties thrive on a three-sided pyramid.
To make a pyramid, secure wires as guy lines at the top of a pole that is 5-10 feet tall. Stretch them out and secure them with supports. Plant tomatoes at each support. Then, guide the plants up the wires. Pyramids should be spaced 4 feet apart, with 3 feet between rows.
Tomatoes are less demanding than other vegetable crops; however, they yield the best harvests in fertile soils that warm up well. Good yields can also be achieved in sandy and clayey soils by timely fertilization and loosening the rows.
Cucumbers. Unlike tomatoes, cucumbers have large leaves, and the vines that develop during the growing season don’t always grow in the desired directions; they often intertwine and shade themselves. This complicates care and harvesting. At the beginning of the ripening period, fruits should be harvested every 2-3 days, during peak production every day, and sometimes even more frequently. It’s easy to imagine how much time a gardener spends walking through the rows. This can damage the vines. No matter how carefully you tread, you might step on a plant. A damaged vine will die, which means a reduced yield for the entire bed.
To achieve a high yield in a small area, a grape trellis and a three-sided pyramid can be very helpful.
Cucumbers should be sown when the soil warms up to 54-55°F. For normal growth, a temperature of 77-81°F is necessary. The best temperature for fruiting is 89.6°F during the day and 68-72°F at night. Cucumbers are light-loving plants, so a trellis is quite suitable here. Seedlings allow for an early and abundant harvest. Cucumber seedlings, like tomatoes, are grown in peat and compost pots on windowsills or in plastic greenhouses. Before planting in the ground, they should be hardened off in a shaded area.
The abundance of the harvest depends not only on the plants’ exposure to light but also on their nutrition and the moisture content of the soil. Cucumbers are particularly demanding regarding soil fertility, structure, salinity, and are sensitive to high concentrations of soil solution and soil acidity.
The best cucumber varieties for our conditions are “Nizhinsky Local,” “Cucumbers,” and “Nizhinsky-12.”