Growing Food: The New Mexico Wrap

Many moons ago, when the gardening season was still a time for starry-eyed visions of big boxes of tomatoes and crisper drawers full of cucumbers*, someone in the comments recommended I try the Florida weave to support my tomatoes.

I had never heard of it, so I looked it up. There are, of course, many videos showing it. I watched this one. Which is actually from the LSU Ag. Center, so maybe that's a Louisiana weave?

Anyway.

I tried it this year. 

A. split some cedar posts for me and pounded them into the ground about three feet apart. For the twine, I used the innumerable pieces of baling twine that are always hanging around after we cut them off of hay bales. I had to tie them together, of course, but it pleased me to use something that is otherwise just a nuisance to be thrown away. It's not going to win any design awards, but I enjoy such re-use.

Tomato post with very aesthetic baling twine.

The video shows the man just going on alternate sides of each post as he goes down the row until he gets to the end. This is presumably the "weave" part. I tried that the first pass, but then realized there is absolutely no point in that when it works much better to wrap the twine around each post a couple of times, ending up on the alternate side from the previous post and then continuing. 

This makes for a much tighter length of twine, and the tighter the twine, the better it holds the tomato plants upright. I have no idea why the video I saw didn't show this. Maybe everyone does it like that? Dunno.

This is why I'm re-naming my method The New Mexico Wrap. Catchy, no?

Anyway.

As the plant grows, more courses of woven twine are added above the existing ones to support the plants. The plants themselves can just be gently pulled inside the twine to hold them up. No tying.

This very sickly tomato plant allows us to see the plant inside the twine. The other plants are thankfully so robust that the twine has pretty much disappeared inside the foliage.

This has not been a year of really exuberant growth for my tomato plants (or, well, anything), but the tomatoes I have left are actually fairly big now, and the twine is holding them up. So I will do this again next year.

A couple of things I learned for next year, however.

As previously mentioned, do not just weave the twine in and out. Wrap it around each post as they come before continuing.

Smaller posts are better. The smaller the diameter of the posts (within reason), the closer together the two lengths of twine, and the better they hold the plants upright. 

This old stick where one plant died is about the right diameter. You can see the wrapping here, too.

I thought it would be great to have bamboo posts like I had at Blackrock, but then I remembered how slippery those bamboo posts were. I think the twine would probably slide down on them. Small diameter rough wood, either large sticks or small split wood, is better.

More posts are better. No more than two plants between each post seems to work pretty well.

So! To whoever recommended the Florida version to me, thank you. And to anyone else who wants to try it, feel free to make your own modifications and name it after your own location. It's fun.