Staking Tomato Plants-5 reasons not to

Although most tomato gardeners firmly believe in staking their tomato plants, as it often gives better crops, there are a few exceptions that you may want to consider. In this article I will share with you what I think are 5 plausible reasons to just leave your tomatoes to garden to grow naturally.

Some tomato varieties will do just fine without staking
One of the simplest and best reasons for not staking your tomato plants is that it is sometimes unnecessary. Certain varieties of tomato plants will do quite well without you having to support them. A more common example of this is when you are growing cherry tomatoes. These small sized tomatos will grow in abundance even if you don’t stake your plant.

If done incorrectly it can damage your tomato plant
If you are new to growing tomatoes outdoors, you will soon learn that many types of tomato plants have low resistance to damage. Although there are a few hardy varieties, most of them will damage easily. Incorrectly staking your tomato plants may damage the stem, which will cause your plant to not produce tomatoes to its full potential.

It is very time consuming
If you are just into tomato gardening for the love of it, you will realize that it can take up quite a bit of your time. Once you have staked your tomato plants, you will constantly need to maintain them. You will need to keep checking that the stakes are firm in the ground, and that the tomato steams are growing around the stakes.

Can be expensive if you purchase stakes
Many seasoned tomato gardeners recommend making your own stakes. It’s much cheaper than purchasing them and they are just as effective. The down side however, is that you need to treat the stakes first to prevent rotting. This can be quite costly if you don’t know how to it properly. If you simply decide to buy pre-prepared stakes, you will have to fork out some extra cash.

It’s a lot of long and hard work
Staking your tomato plants can take up to an entire day if you have many plants. Let’s face it, with modern lifestyles; one doesn’t really have that much of time to spend on their tomato gardens. Even if you have just a few tomato plants, the process can be quite tedious. Unless you have some help to do it, staking tomato plants will probably tire you out long before you’re complete.