Tomato cages

drkelly

drkelly

Dipstick who put two vehicles on jack stands
Joined
Mar 21, 2005
Location
Oak Ridge/Stokesdale, NC
Last year was the first time I had ever planted a garden. We had about a dozen tomato plants. I bought some of the cheap flimsy wire cages at Lowe's. Before long, the plants were growing out of the top of the cages. I then added some tall stakes and had to keep tying up the plants. Does any where local sell large heavy duty tomato cages? All they sell at Home Depot or Lowe's is the 3-4' tall flimsy ones, but my plants got 6-8' tall. I found some really HD large ones at this place: http://tomatocage.com/ , but they are fairly expensive plus the shipping cost. I was hoping to find something better local.
 
Lowe's should have bigger ones. I've bought the 5' ones from them before.

You can also just make them out of stakes and chicken wire. Two hoops of 36" chicken wire stacked vertically with some tie wraps.
 
I've planted a garden for the last 8 or so years. I'm done with the tomato cages. I've switched to 8' stakes to tie the plants to. I normally just get some 8' long 2x8 boars (or wider) and rip them with the circular saw. Its cheaper, works better, and lasts longer.

this year I'm going to try out a method that looks similar to how grape vines are tied up. we'll see
 
Ron, Cool post up some pics.. I did grape tomatos in 5gal pails and we got spoiled with the fresh tomatos and herbs... The pole idea sounds perfect... Actually I may plant them under the edge of my deck and tie them up there... Good idea...
 
rockcity said:
I've planted a garden for the last 8 or so years. I'm done with the tomato cages. I've switched to 8' stakes to tie the plants to. I normally just get some 8' long 2x8 boars (or wider) and rip them with the circular saw. Its cheaper, works better, and lasts longer.
this year I'm going to try out a method that looks similar to how grape vines are tied up. we'll see
Click to expand...

Why do you hate the cages? What kind of cages have you been using?

I hated having to tie the damn things up all the time.
 
I used concrete re-enforcing steel.
Thicker metal and bigger to work with, won't cut the stems with the weight of heavier heirlooms.

Comes in a 50' roll. Flatten it out cut it to length and wrap it into a cylinder for your cages.
you can get something similar galvenized like cattle fencing but hard to manipulate. (no rust)

For my cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes I have cut one long 12 foot sheet about 6 foot high and put 2x4's on both ends, staple-nailed the mesh to the 2x4's, cut made stakes out of the ends of the wood and took a sledge hammer and pounded them into the ground. Made a wall-o-green&red after a few weeks. I'd go outside all the time and weave my plants through the mesh as they grew.

Wow {edit] you found something similar to what I was talking about as I wrote all that. nice.
 
Forgot to mention, there's also the whole school of thought about not caging them... from what I've seen, they do just fine. They take up more room, and you have to make sure the fruit doesn't touch the ground, but the plants have thicker stems and are generally more durable. Nothing worse than having a big cage fall over in a thunderstorm and wipe out one or two large plants.
 
Last time I planted a garden I did it still different.
I bought cheapo landscaping timbers(4X4) and set them in the ground about 2 foot.
I put one on each end of a row, longer rows I put some in the middle. I ran wire between them at about 12" intervals. all the way to the top, when thy grew taller than the post and wire(6') I just let them run back down. I use panty hose as ties.
Cut the feet out of a old pair of hose, then just start cutting rings off. will be in a loop, so when finished run them on your hand and cut, take one of the strings and tie them all together. That makes it easy to pull one at a time out to tie up the plants.
end of the year, untwist th wire, roll it up to use again. pull the posts up and use again too.
 
catfishblues said:
If you want to split that roll 3 ways, let me know. I'd be in for 50'.
Click to expand...

OK, I'll let you know. They supposedly sell 50' rolls too. I'm going to go check it out either tomorrow during lunch or this w/e. 5' is not really high enough though based on the height of my plants last year. I might split it lengthways and add 2.5' to the 5' to get 7.5' high cages. I'd like to make at least 10 cages.
 
This is what I got: the fifty foot roll
should be fine.
You worried about being high enough?

well tell you what I did. Took some wire/cable snips and cut about 5 little 'legs' out from the bottom of the cage and bent them down straight so that they were the part that 'staked' the cage into the ground.
all said and done - still 5 foot and the 'legs' were about 6-8 inches in the ground. never had a problem with wind or knocking it over. It dont bend easy if you know what I mean.

lookin for a pic but dont have one on my work computer

also 50 foot may not be enough for ya.
I got 6 cages that are around 2 feet diameter and a long one for the cherry/grape tomatos thatis 11 foot long (I'm guessing because my garden is 12x24 foot
 
Had the same issue last year, also didn't put mine in an area of good sunlight. This year I'm blocking off a section of Chain link fence and growing mine on the fence. Great sunlight, plenty strong, and easily shopped from both sides. Oh and no cost, it's already installed.
 
I'm going with a trick I saw recently. I'm using 4x4 posts at the end of the rows and then connecting them with 3 steel wires. I'll tie the plants up as they grow. This has worked really well for my friends tomatos AND their cukes. I'll see if she has pics I can post.

J

-- Edit I mean, "Do what Chip said"... Same thing except they kept the 4x4's in the ground w/ concrete and removed the wires during the winter,
 
I went to Lowe's during lunch and looked at the wire re-mesh. They only sell it in the big 150' rolls for $120. It was rusty too. I decided to pass for now.
 
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