Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Need some heavy duty tomato cages

Need some advice on sturdy tomato cages. Ive used the stupid hoop things for years but the pants get big and pull them over and the wind blows them over. What are the best heavy duty cages to get? I grow about 16 plants per year fwiw.

Pound in three T-posts and spiral them with fence wire.

Go to your local hardware store and buy a roll of remesh with either 5x5 or 6x6 holes. Cut em to 5’ sheets and roll em and connect them with some hog rings.

Similar to this https://www.homedepot.com/p/5-ft-x-150-ft-Steel-Mesh-Roll-84271/302610826

Buy a roll of 6” concrete mesh and hog ring yourself some cages. It’ll be they last ones you ever buy.

We started doing this. It works great


https://www.gardenbetty.com/trellising-tomatoes-with-the-florida-weave/

i have some of these that were old when i got them 35 years ago.

This is what I do for tomato, and cucumbers, may be more than you want to do.

6' tpost with concrete wire or 4'ft fence with 3"-4" squares.

Drive tpost 6'-8' feet apart, stretch and attach fence 1'-2' off the ground, as the plants grow I weave them through the squares. Very sturdy.

Another trick I have used. Make your cages out of the above fence materials drive tpost or 5/8 rebar in the ground and attach the cages to the tpost/rebar. Very sturdy but uses a lot of fence.

Never found a commercial cage that worked well for tomatoes, they work ok for peppers and eggplant.

That’s a pretty child Robert. Her mother must be a very pretty woman.

I welded 3/8 rebar to the cone shaped cages, drive rebar in ground, can’t blow over. If you lived close, I’d make you some.

This^^^^

I have about 150 of them stacked. They take up a lot room in the off season.

This. Cut the bottom wire off so the remaining "spikes/ pins" can anchor into ground. If necessary one "T" post can give even greater stability.

We have the tomato cages that you buy from Home Depot and Walmart with the three legs on them you punch into the ground.

No matter what size you buy even the biggest... they are never tall enough.

EMT or electrical metal tubing... basically 1/2" metal conduit is cut off with a grinder three or four feet long and driven into the ground in a triangle pattern around the plants... three pieces. Sticks out of the ground 2 feet or 3 feet depending on the variety of the Tomato we are growing. The top of the three EMTs is level and even. Then I put the tomato cage legs inside of the conduit. Now my tomato cage is 5 to 7 feet tall at the top.

We have had cherry tomatoes that went 10 ft tall but I never bothered beyond seven.

If the cages are get overloaded and I start to worry about them I drive another piece of conduit 6 or 7 feet long beside them and wire tie it to the cage for stability.

And this too^^


After about 2 season, I have nip the ‘spikes’ off and move up a square. They rust and break off

Cage gets a little shorter every couple of years but, hey.

Zip tie or wire your current or heavy duty cages to T- posts driven into the ground

I had some Brandywines, the vines grew way out and flopped over. I had to deploy some brick mason scaffolding and tie all that menagerie as it did it’s thing. lol

My Romas stay in the cages, they are a ‘bush variety’ and dont all wild and crazy.


If you go the concrete mesh route, make your cages 3 foot diameter, that’s adequate for most varieties and allows reach in depth for picking

We use 52" x 16' hog panels for beans and cucumbers etc.

I buy 7 or 8 ft tall T posts and drive them in the ground. Three of them. Then with my grinder I cut a vertical 5/16" inch notch in the top of them... then I hang the pig panel in the notch. The notch is about 1 inch deep straight down.

Then I make an 18" outrigger (three of them) and angle the pig panel outward the 18 inches... the Outriggers are horizontal to the ground. The Outriggers are made of EMT. I put a notch in them as a dado cut for the pig panel and a notch at the back end for the T post.

Then I repeat on the other side. Hanging another hog panel in the same Notch at the top of the T post. I use three more Outriggers. Now my trellis is an A-frame in cross section.

Then to keep tension on the Outriggers I run a piece of wire and twist like a Spanish windlass.

The Outrigger on the side of the T post that does not contain the leg of the T just overlaps one of the nipples on the T post. With tension on The Wire drawn tight with the Spanish windlass the whole being it is fairly secure. I do a wrap at the top just to keep everything in the notch.

A full grown trellis can have a lot of wind load on it at times.

Some beans can only reach a few inches before they have to grab onto something so I keep the trellis fairly low for this variety. Other varieties will reach up a foot or 2.

I have pictures somewhere. I'll repost later if I ever find them.

Precisely, and stake them down well.

I use that square calf panel, 16ft x 4ft for my vertical cukes

Makes it easier for Cooper to make his own selection at the oeak of freshness

(Squash in tomato hoops, fore ground)

Cool. I have 6 cages made from concrete mesh and have a section of cattle panel set up 12 feet long and just plant along the panel, cucumbers and cantalopes.