Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What techniques do you guys use for supporting plants in your grow beds?
I'm particularly interested in tomatoes, bell peppers, and egg plants. I've seen a few pics around here but I was wondering what's the easiest way to support them?
Can I just put sticks into the bed or should I have a trellis/ fence or even a tomato cage?

If you have gravel, bamboo works ok. Hydroton will not hold it in place well enough. All my plants are supported up to overhead wires.

I have heard of companion planting- sunflowers with pole beans for instance but I don't know if anyone has tried to grow sunflowers in their AP systems. Worth a try.

I'd be interested in these suggestions.. I have peas on the go and will need something soon

I grew a sunflower in Flood and drain last year. It grew really well. I put it in the "random" section of the growbed behind the corn and forgot what seed it was until it started growing the head. Lol.

Lessons.
1. Yes, it will grow.
2. Label your "random" section of the GB.

Well, there you go- sunflower plants- instant trellis for your climbing plants, although toms might get too heavy but who knows; would certainly work for peas and pole beans, maybe cucumbers, squash? When the season is over, everything can be ripped out and ready for the next crop.

i have used wire bed frames with success in my dirt gardens..

scored a large sheet of reo from a concreting job which i plan to use as an arch over a growbed...

corn and beans are on old companion planting favorite..

Thats a great idea... next door is building and has off cuts everywhere

I tied my tomatoes to overhead support then the beans grew up the tomatoes, up the strings, up the lemongrass,up the ginger...lol

and then the yams and passionfruit grew up everything

I have cattle panel arches over much of my system and I can tie strings down to hold up the plants that can't reach the panels directly. Reo wire would work too. I like the cattle panels as the squares are far enough apart that I can stick my arm through and the wires are small enough for vines to grab onto.

If the reo wires or cattle panels are not an option, some posts with string/rope tied between to string the vines up to should work.

Or if the media is heavy enough and the climbing plants small enough, sticks or stakes jammed into the bed might do at least temporarily.

I planned ahead for tomatoes last year because I was frustrated with the crappy tomato cages and corkscrew support stakes I tried before. Made a trellis out of wire mesh and tied the tomatoes to it with the red straps from kitchen garbage bags. A good support system will let you grow more plants in a smaller footprint bed; mine was only 90 gallons.

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Are there any concerns about using metal tomato cages and the fish getting poisoned by zinc?

I have some metal mesh supporting some of mine but am going to swap to that plastic orange safety barrier that you can grab from any building site heheheh

and i use the blue tomato string cheap and works well.... Just dont run over a strand with the mower, it sucks up the roll pretty quick and it takes hrs to cut it off.... I should have used the OXY

I would avoid putting the galvanized wire into contact with the fish tank water or buried in the grow beds but just some occasional rain dripping off of galvanized wire into a grow bed doesn't worry me.

Yeah we have never had troubles with galv mesh over the fish tanks or over growbeds. Makes a great trelis for plants to grow up.