How to grow tomatoes- Part 4

The next step in the tomato growing process is staking. The rationale behind this is, once the actual tomatoes start growing, they become quite heavy, and will eventually weigh down the whole plant, which is not so good.  So, you have to stake your tomato plant to provide some support.  And, as our tomatoes will obviously be succulent and bountiful, and thus very heavy, our plants definitely need the support.

So...here's how our version of staking goes:

1) Go outside and find some sticks, roughly 3-5 feet in height that are sturdy and relatively straight and no wider than an inch in diameter.  You'll need one stick per plant.

Now, in our situation, we realized that sticks are actually extremely difficult, borderline impossible to find in the city.  So, when we ventured up to Vermont to go hiking one weekend, we decided to stock up on sticks.  Before we began the hike, I collected some absolutely perfect looking sticks and left them in a neat little pile at the bottom of the mountain, so we could pick them up on our way home.  But, when we returned later that day, THEY WERE GONE.  So we learned a valuable lesson that day: no matter where you are, whether it's New York City or the mountains of Vermont, sticks are, and always will be, in very high demand.

2) If you fail at Step 1, as we did, you can always just go to a hardware store and buy some "sticks."  These usually come in the form of bamboo or plastic.  When we took a trip to our local hardware store, look what we found!!

3) Buy a pet pig.

Just kidding! But wouldn't that be nice? Sigh....

4) Place each stake next to each tomato plant.  The stakes should be pushed about 6 inches into the soil- enough so that they can stand alone.  Take some string and gently tie each stake to it's corresponding tomato plant. I tied each tomato/stake combo together in 2 places- near the bottom of the plant and near the middle-top of the plant. 
 
Below you can check out my staking skills!