Alas
By overbuying from my son's high school, a ton of Roma's, I realized I had a problem with so many.
I reached into my memory bank of tricks and pulled out an idea I'd thought of for years, but never did.
Simply;
I planted all my 6" - 12" plants a handwidth apart, right/left - back and for-wards .. about a 2 ft. by 12 ft swath of garden space. (Like I said .. over bought)
I drove bamboo stakes (left over from another idea from the year before) every 16" or so around the perimeter of that swath, and down the middle also.
Got it?
a bunch o'mater's 2ftX12ft, bamboo rods (3/8"-1/2" wide about 3ft high) all through this "patch"
I then took left over deer fence, vinyl clad, 2"X3" mesh, 2'X12' and put it down over these bamboo rods and fastened them with garden tie wire about 16" from the ground.
I did another "bed" another 16" or 18" above THAT.
As the mater's grew, I trained them through the mesh and forgot about 'em.
As they continued to grow, I trained some of the branches through the second mesh "bed"
I harvested my mater's standing up, easily picked from fruit just layin' on a mesh bed whisperin' "I'm done, pick ME", so I did.
There was no problem from lack of light or anything and the ground, after the intitial one or two weedings pretty much stayed weed free.
I'm going to try this this year with my cukes on a larger, more substantial scale.
My grandfather used to put a Smelt under each tomato plant.
High density planting is not recommended because of the risk of disease rapidly wiping out your entire crop. If you want to risk it, it is your garden. Some of the newer hybrids are more disease tolerant.
I’m going to try that this year. It sounds like a terrific method.