When it comes to supporting tomatoes, you have lots of options:

• Metal cones (too flimsy)
• Square cages (reliable, but expensive)
• String trellises (works if you stay on top of pruning)
• Cattle panels (sturdy, but unwieldy if you have to take them down every year)
• And my personal favorite: Florida weave trellises

A Florida weave is the type of trellis you want if you tend to grow multiple tomato plants in rows, and you like to grow indeterminate types with long, sprawling vines. (I've successfully used the weave with vines that grew over 9 feet long!)

And while "weaving" might suggest some elaborate or time-consuming method, it's actually quite the opposite—it goes up fast! It's also one of the cheapest ways to support tomato plants, and there's very little to store at the end of the season.

In fact, you just need a small corner in your shed or garage as all the materials take up less than a square foot of floor space.

Intrigued?

​Learn how I trellis my huge, heavy tomato plants using the Florida weave.​

I've been refining my technique (and materials) over the last 14 years, and finally found the perfect combo of stakes and twine for my trellises (which are all linked in my how-to post).

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P.S. A sturdy tomato trellis that's cheap, incredibly sturdy, goes up fast, and stores super easily? That's the Florida weave for ya—here's how to do it.​

P.P.S. Tomato crops change from year to year, but do you have a reliable way to track it all? With my Ultimate Garden Diary, you can record what kind of varieties were planted, how soon the seeds germinated, when the seedlings were transplanted, and dates of bloom times, first fruit, and first harvest.