Just like any other situation where the hands have become contaminated, handwashing is necessary in order to avoid illness. The Center for Disease Control has said that proper handwashing is the best way to get rid of microbes. The most thorough way to accomplish this is to have an automatic, sensor-operated soap dispenser available. This eliminates touching the soap dispenser with dirty hands. So after gardening always clean your hands and stay healthy.

Growing tomatoes is such a popular summertime activity that it could possibly be considered the American pastime, perhaps second only to baseball. Every spring, millions of home gardeners find at least some small space in their yard or garden, or even a spot on their deck or patio, for growing a tomato plant or two. In this article, we are going to explore the idea of growing tomatoes on trellises, and how this unique alternative to staking or caging can lead to bigger and better harvests.

The question of whether gardeners should provide support for tomato plants is one that has been hotly debated in the gardening world. Some purists believe that tomato plants should be left to sprawl on the ground naturally. While it is true that allowing plants to lie on the ground will usually lead to bigger plants, it doesn’t typically mean that you’ll get a larger harvest. This is because tomato plants in contact with the ground run a much higher risk of blight and other diseases, as well as pest infestations. Furthermore, when fruit is touching the ground it tends to rot easily and will often become infested with bugs before the gardener has a chance to harvest. Heavily mulching the ground with wood mulch or straw can help provide some protective barrier, but tomato plants left to sprawl will still experience a much higher rate of fruit rot and blight.

Most typically, gardeners use tomato cages as a way of staking their plants. These small wire cages can be round or square, and are installed at the time of planting, providing support for the growing stems and heavy fruit as the plant gets bigger. The primary problem with cages is that the plants often outgrow them by mid to late summer, leaving gardeners with overgrown foliage that droops down to the ground. Another issue may be that the cages begin falling or blowing over because they aren’t sturdy enough to support the weight of a fully grown plant and all its fruit.

One interesting alternative to cages is the tomato trellis. Trellises can provide excellent support for a large plant, because they allow it to continually grow up rather than out. If the trellis is well supported at both the top and bottom (for example, if you can attach the top to the side of your house, garage, or shed), it will easily hold the full weight of a tomato plant at summer’s end.

Tomato trellises also afford gardeners the ability to grow more plants in a smaller space. Typically, one tomato plant would require a plot of ground about three to four foot square, so as to leave enough room to walk around and harvest the fruit all summer long. With a trellis, each plant may only require a one to two foot square area, meaning you can double, or possibly even triple, the number of plants you grow in one small area.

Last but not least, because a tomato trellis keeps the stems and foliage at a higher reach, maintaining the plants and harvesting the fruit is much easier on the gardener because less stooping and bending is required. Trellises are an excellent solution for older gardener afflicted by arthritis or disabled persons constrained to a wheelchair.

So if you count yourself among the many gardeners who enjoy raising homegrown tomatoes in the summer months, consider trellises this year as an alternative to cages. You may find that it leads to an easier gardening experience and a bigger harvest of tomatoes than you’ve ever had in the past!

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1. grouping together of the same kinds of fruit;
2. proportions of the areas to be devoted to soft and tree fruits;
3. rootstocks for the tree fruits;
4. shapes and types of tree and methods of pruning.

By grouping together the same kinds of fruit, spraying is made easier. It is also an advantage to keep together those fruits which have the same manurial requirements. For instance, apples, gooseberries and red currants need plenty of potash, whilst pears, plums and black currants require more nitrogen.

The question of the proportion of soft fruits to tree fruits is largely one of personal taste, but with a very small garden it might be best to grow mainly soft fruits with a single row of apples or pears on dwarfing rootstocks. When possible wall or fence space should also be used.

Large free-growing trees are unsuitable for most small gardens. With cordons, dwarf pyramids and other trained forms of trees which require a restrictive type of pruning, it is possible to grow many more trees in a given area and so obtain a wider variety to spread the season than could be grown if bush trees were planted.

The purchase of good healthy stock is one of the secrets of success. In soft fruits vigour may be considerably reduced through infection with virus diseases and the Ministry of Agriculture has a scheme for inspecting and granting certificates to stocks of disease-free black currants, strawberries and raspberries. Where possible always buy this Certified Stock.

Virus diseases also affect the growth and crop of tree fruits, but in recent years, nurseries have been able to obtain virus-tested cultivars and rootstocks as ‘mother’ trees which can be used for propagation. Trees of many cultivars of apple, plum, pear and cherry from these healthy sources are now available from some nurserymen.