What’s at Stake?

If Hamlet had been a gardener, his question would have been “to stake or not to stake?” As with so many gardening questions, there’s no one right answer. Your decision will vary according to the variety you grow, summer wind and rainfall, available time, material and other considerations. If you expand the question to include the issue of trellises, cages, poles or tomato tables, it gets even more interesting. Stakes are useful for many purposes in the garden. Not to mention being handy for vampire elimination.

What Plants to Stake

Plants generally divide into four groups: true vines, ramblers, floppers and uprights. Typical uprights in the vegetable garden are nice little soldiers that stand at attention — asparagus and artichokes come to mind. Ramblers are the summer squashes; they aren’t really viney, but they do tend to expand and creep a bit. Melons, squash, cucumbers and pole beans are vines. Floppers, to my mind, are things like tomatoes. They don’t have the tendrils common to squash and beans, so they can’t really climb. However, they’re too heavy to just grow straight up like asparagus. Floppy plants often behave better with a stake or three in many instances.

When a Stake is Optional

For some things, staking is optional. You don’t have to stake tomatoes. They will happily sprawl over the garden, sending up vertical shoots that will blossom and bear fruit. Disadvantages: they take up more space that way and it’s more difficult to weed unstaked tomatoes. They may also tend to pull up at the roots in the process of flopping. It’s definitely less work, however. Staked tomatoes are easier to weed and the fruit is less likely to get eaten by ground-dwelling insects. It’s also easier to succession plant between staked tomatoes. For indeterminate tomatoes, plan on stakes that are at least six feet above the ground. Indeterminate can be loosely translated as “will just keep growing…” You don’t have to stake peppers and eggplants, either, but I find they do better. They are likely to fall over once they start to fruit if we have a lot of wind and rain or if a dragging hose whacks them at the base.

Staked Tomatoes

Some folks will tell you staked tomatoes (or whatever) are more productive. I think it depends. An unstaked tomato sort of rambles across the ground, sending up vertical shoots along its length. These blossom and bear fruit. Since the verticals are relatively short, they can often handle the weight of the tomatoes as they ripen, which keeps them off the ground. Unstaked tomatoes tend to shade out weeds and their leaf canopy also helps trap moisture in the soil. It’s easier to pinch out suckers on staked plants, however, which keeps the plant focused on fruiting instead of making leaves. It’s also easier to weed around staked plants. If you’re an intensive gardener who wants to cram a lot of other crops in your space, staked plants make it easier to cram and succession plant.

Pole Beans, Peas and Others

Unless you want to harvest them on your knees in the middle of a jungle, plan to stake or trellis your pole beans and peas. Some vigorous varieties will grow 10 feet or more. Although these both come in bush varieties, I prefer pole beans and peas because they’re much more productive. I also think they taste better. Cucumbers can be staked, although I think they do better either sprawling or grown on a trellis. You might also try the old-fashioned flat version of a trellis known as a tomato table. A tomato table is four upright stakes with a horizontal rectangle of open latticework attached to the uprights. This allows plants to crawl up the legs and sprawl over the top, while their fruits hang down through the holes in the lattice. Easy to keep clean and easy to pick. So, make your choice and do what works best for you. See Part II for more on this topic.