Looking for a better way to tie up tomatoes...what do you use?
Jonboy

I've been using the velcro tape roll stuff that I got at Home Depot, but they don't seem to have the 1/2" wide anymore.

I use 3 different types of things, to support the plants, on the trellises. One, is a plastic clip:

Another is a two sided velcro, as shown above, which I use more for small plants. Then, there is a plastic tape, which I use more for eggplant - thicker stalks, and I just hold the plants against the trellises, which is better for this, or tomatoes further away from the trellis. Here's a pic of some on a trellis from the year before:
Cherry tomatoes, 5-24, recovering fairly well from the cold snap. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Some of these tapes, however, are very stretchy, so they don't work as well.

Old nylon stockings cut in wide strips work pretty well. I used to have a pile of them from when I was working. Now that I'm retired I don't wear but about 2 pair a year so I'm always looking for alternatives too. Right now I'm using bits of yarn leftover from projects but I have to use 3 or 4 strands or it works more like a saw cutting into the stems. Same thing with jute or twine. One year my husband ordered me some green clippie thingies that were easy to use. They fell apart even easier. But it was the thought that counted!

I use strips of old sheet. I cut them into about 3/4"-1" strips. I make the strips long, tie up, and if there's enough length left, cut off the extra for another plant. The beauty of it is at the end of the year, I can just cut them off and they'll eventually biodegrade into the soil. No searching through tangled vines to get all the clips or velcro or plastic stuff back.

Foam ties. Cut to size; move up the plant as it grows.

For large branches that fell were push out of the cage from wind, I started using para-cord; cutting pieces and singeing the ends first. They all look like I can get multiple years from them.

Cable tie wraps because I go through untold thousands of them.

Cotton or jute twine because it is biodegradable. I don't want to deal with little pieces of plastic
in my garden.

Tomato clips. I have an overhead system with strings clipped to the bottom of the plant. Then I clip them as they grow upward.

I’m surprised no one gave an opinion on products specifically designed for tomatoes. In my place I can buy coils of plastic ribbon about 1/4” wide (Spears & Jackson, England) or bundles of cheaper ribbon of different lengths (China ?). Last year I bought a 3 foot long bundle and I cut the lengths I needed. I can use the same ribbon a second time.
I highly respect people who refuse to use plastic. I’ve become lazy with age, I’ve used raphia, a vegetal fiber, for a long time before turning to a plastic product.

Sisal twine.

I found a rubber covered wire designed for the garden. Comes in a 200' roll and you cut it to length with side cutters. I keep it from year to year. I just twist it around the wire cages when I am cleaning up tomatoes. It's not biodegradable but reusable for quite sometime if you take the time to untwist it. There are several different brands. Not all of it comes in a 200' roll... I just buy the largest size I can since I grow a lot of tomatoes in cages.

I have a variety of ropes that I've been using for years... unfortunately though, they have started to disintegrate and yes, it is plastic. It is scary to see the fine powder they give off when I untie at the end of season... I don't want to breathe that! I have foam ties too, which I thought were great until.. they also started to break down and what a fine powder mess they made. It's only in recent years that I ever heard of 'microplastics' in the environment... before that the big complaint was that plastics don't break down, so one might have been pleased to see well hello, they actually do!

So what I want to do is to switch to jute or sisal. This would also greatly simplify the end of year cleanup - just cut and compost, and no more labor of sanitizing ropes to re-use either. We use twine at the farm and although it seems coarse to me the plants don't seem to mind it or find it rough.

All the plastic or plastic covered products I thought were good and long lasting, turned out not to be. For sure I won't replace them with more junk. If it's going to be disposable, may as well keep it vegetable matter and recycle yearly.

I wonder if those who have composted twine would comment, does it break down at the same rate as the plants, or do you end up with half rotted twine in the pile?

In my experience, sisal is a very strong material and jute a weak one. Pull too hard on jute & you get two pieces of jute. I don't know how well each biodegrades, though.

Well I use cages, but any that need more than that I use the rolls of green velcro that they sell.

I string my tomato plants (greenhouse style) and bought massive rolls of quarter-inch thick sisal twine. It works really well and I could even save it and use it for a second season, if the mice didn't find it and use it for their nests in the shed over the winter. Now I'm having difficulty finding it again since my local HW store stopped carrying it so I don't know what I will do when my supply runs out.....

Linda

I'm trying - Rapiclip 839 16' Soft Wire Tie - Green - this year. There are 16 feet in the package, I cut it in 8 inch lengths. WalMart sells it for around $8 or more. I found some at the Dollar Tree store, so I bought 10 and should have enough to use for stuff instead of using rubber bands or twist ties.

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/79cee1 ... nBg=ffffff

If you click on the link, you can see the wire.

I use cut strips of old cotton knit material from worn out t-shirts, pjs, knee socks, etc. which has some give, doesn't fray, and doesn't cost anything.

Yup, [mention]kath[/mention] ...old T-shirts for me as well!!