The posts in the picture top out at about 5 1/2 feet. These plants are about 3 to 3 1/2 feet now and have many tomatoes on them. Had we not been eating the largest green tomatoes for some time I am sure there would have been ripe ones by now. The Big Beef have had the largest tomatoes. Park’s website lists the maturity at 73 days but it wouldn’t surprise if they had ripe tomatoes before the Siberias which are generally listed as 48 to 55 days to maturity.
These tomatoes were planted like I plant all my toms. I till the ground and at 18″ intervals I dig a hole and mix in a handfull of epsom salts and 10-10-10. I plant the tomatoes very deep, pinching off lower leaves and keep moist for the first couple of weeks. Water is usually not a problem early on but later I may use the soaker hose when necessary. I try to fertilize with a sprinkling of 10-10-10 every 2-3 weeks which I hoe in. Keeping them fertilized seems to help them outgrow the blight we get so often in this part of the country. When the toms get about a foot high 6′ T-Bar posts are driven in the ground between every two plants. I start tying them up by running twine in and out in a figure 8 style around the posts and plants. Later tyings at about 2′ and 4′ are done by wrapping the line up one side of the row around the first post, around the next two plants, around the post, 2 plants, etc until I reach the end where I go around the last post and come up the other side the same way. This is the way I saw the commercial growers tie their tomatoes in Southern Ky. It keeps the vines off the ground and makes picking and weeding relatively easy