A Mother’s Day Surprise Kickstarts My Tomato Trials with Container and a Quick DIY Trellis
Hello, fellow growers! 🌱 I’m over the moon to start my Tomato Trials: Exploring Adaptive Trellis Setups for Sustainable Gardens on my Zone 7 Kentucky homestead.
🍅The journey began with a heartwarming surprise on Mother’s Day—my son crafted a Tomato container and tomato trellis for me, perfectly set at chair height in my kitchen herb and vegetable garden. This set up helps me tend to a Cherokee Purple tomato without bending, a true gift at 18 days post spinal-surgery.
Inspired by my adaptive needs, he built it with drainage in mind (a tip from Gardening with Leon) and a tall DIY tomato trellis for the indeterminate type Cherokee Purple Heritage Tomato in mind, sparking this series.
Join me as share my Kentucky Tomato Planting Journey!
Kentucky Tomato Trellis Setups: My Recovery Lifeline
🍅 That Mother’s Day container is my gardening lifeline! My son’s thoughtful design lets me care for the Heritage Tomato from my short folding seat. These tools make every move easier for someone with current mobility issues.
The great part is we did not have to purchase anything, we had all the parts for the tomato trellis and container garden on hand. The cattle panel was a left over length from our porch railing design! It was fairly easy to cut with and customize the size with bolt cutters – I’ll update with images soon! The tub was one I had on hand as well as the coir and tomato fertilizer. Sometimes saving, or hoarding as my husband calls it, pays off!
🍅 Following Gardening with Leon’s advice for container tomatoes, I mixed a slow-release vegetable fertilizer like Osmocote into the potting soil coconut coir mix at planting time, ensuring steady nutrients without frequent upkeep—perfect for my recovery pace. I Can’t Wait to see how this grows. Next update will be planting!
🍅 After the planting of the tomato with beneficial plants, comes the in-ground tomato trellises for my Romas and extra Cherokee Purples. The design for the tomato arch cattle panel is hoped to reduce strain as I heal. This vertical gardening approach saves space and keeps plants healthy with less effort, a win for beginners, gardeners with injuries, and new homesteaders alike.
Sustainable Goals for My Tomato Trials
🍅 Sustainability drives this series! The Cherokee Purple in my container will pair with basil (see the companion planting series), while the in-ground Romas will join marigolds for natural pest control.
🍅 I’m aiming for a sustainable garden with companion planting and intercropping to boost biodiversity—perfect for my homestead and chicken-safe plants. I may earn from affiliate links like as my blog grows, and I’ll keep you posted—thanks for supporting me! Check my free Kentucky Growing Calendar.
Sustainable gardening means creating a self-sufficient garden that works with nature, using techniques like companion planting and intercropping to improve soil health and reduce reliance on chemicals. Homesteading Family’s food forest guide explains it as designing ecosystems with diverse plants—like my basil and tomatoes—while No-Dig-VegetableGarden highlights intercropping for biodiversity, both key to my trials (see resources at bottom of page)
What’s Next in the Tomato Trials?
🍅 Follow along as I Plant that heritage tomato to grow up the trellis and ad companions. Next my son helps build the in-ground tomato trellises and experiment with adaptive setups.
I’ll share the Blooms (successes) and Pecks (lessons) of growing Cherokee Purple and Roma sustainably. Which tomato variety are you excited about? Share below—let’s learn together! 🌱🐔
Cite or Resources
I’ve drawn inspiration and knowledge from these amazing resources:
- Gardening with Leon https://www.youtube.com/@gardeningwithleon2816
- Homesteading Family, “Designing a Food Forest” (https://homesteadingfamily.com/designing-a-food-forest/)
- No-Dig-VegetableGarden, “Intercropping and Polyculture” (https://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/intercropping-polyculture.html)
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One response to “Tomato Trials 1: Starting with a Simple Tomato Trellis”
[…] Welcome back to the Tomato Trials series, where I’m growing vibrant, sustainable gardens one step at a time! Gardening’s been my recovery haven, turning my Zone 7 homestead into a place of growth—literally and figuratively. In Part 1, I shared my Mother’s Day container garden with a straight trellis for tomatoes (check it out here). […]