Gadget Crazy

It doesn’t matter if it’s a kitchen gadget, a gardening gadget, a scrapbooking gadget, a house cleaning gadget, or really any sort of gadget — I love them all. So when I came across this little gadget to help figure out if I was watering my tomato plants too much or too little, I had to have it.

It was cheap enough, compared to some that I saw online for over $30 and the one they had at Home Depot for $24.99, so I snatched it up when I found it at Wal-Mart for around $6.

Don’t know if it will be a tomato-saver, but along with some new pertinent information about my tomato plants, I’m hopeful that tomato leaf curl will become yet another stepping stone along my gardening journey. Check out my post at Simply Grateful Gardener Tomato Leaf Curl Epiphany.

Some gadgets are bought and then get lost in a drawer or forgotten in a cupboard. This is one I think will be worth it’s weight in — let’s go with TOMATOES here — and for this I am, Simply Grateful.

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The Best Garden Gadget For Staking Tomatoes

Several weeks ago while at a garage sale I happened upon two bags of these garden clips.

At first I almost didn’t get them.  They were $1.00 per pack after all and at the time I was happy with the way I had been staking my tomato plants.  I did buy them though thinking I could use them to quickly hook cucumber vines to the A-frame if nothing else.

Well, after my fiasco with using the twist ties to stake my tomato plants (see my post  Staking Tomatoes – A Near Devastating Mistake) and then using torn up sheets, I remembered I had these this morning and decided to give them a shot. Even though I staked my tomatoes just a little over a week ago, they have already become unruly and several of them were starting to topple over from the weight of the unstaked stalks that have grown well above the strips of sheet holding the plants to the stakes.

Taking just a few with me to the tomato garden I found the plant that was in need of staking most and snapped a clip on it. OH MY GOSH!  That’s all it took.  Less than 5 seconds to grab on to the stalk, hold it against the stake, and attach the clip. No fighting with the stalk while I try tieing a flimsy piece of material around it and the stake, all the while doing my best not to allow the tomato plant to touch any of my bare skin because I get terrible hives from tomato plants. Nope, just straighten, hold, and clip.

What a great invention.  These are definitely a garden-gadget-must-have for me!  I found several types of these on Amazon and have ordered three packs of 20 with 2 different sizes in them. They cost $4.94 per pack with free shipping, so I guess the $1.00 per pack of 15 was a phenomenal price. I won’t hesitate to pick these up again if I run across them in a garage sale.

I’m thinking once my pepper plants take off, which I’m hoping will be any time now, I can use these clips to keep their stalks in line with the stakes too.

This plant needed two clips because the main stalk split into a V and I left both to grow. Looks like I’ll be needing another stake for this plant now.

Sometimes it’s just a little thing that can make life easier, and for this I am — Simply Grateful.