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.

150 of them . . . ? ? ? ?
Heck we can just go to Slummie's for tomatoes.

It's the new way don'tcha know?

She’s a heck of a lot prettier than I am, that’s for certain

Clever and thanks for that. One of the things I do like about the circular cage type is that they are stackable when being stored. 18 of them stacked in 6 apiece only takes up a footprint of maybe 4' under the deck.

I miss my little girls, the teenagers, not so much.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Oh, tee posts are great, but a very economical alternative for this "light" application, is get 1/2" EMT conduit, comes in 10' lengths. You can cut them in half, or any length you want where you can use a long and a short. Hammer one end flat and drive it in. They work in many places!

I run 3 different cage gardens.

This is my main set for my Determinates.

Then a cherry sweet-100s and tommy toes on 3 cages beside my kitchen deck just for quick grabs.

Run a subordinate garden for my Indeterms, half as many for that section, (not planted in this pic)

Then my in-laws across the farm, I do some of theirs sets too.

But I also run crookneck squash in cages to keep them from going buck wild

That R2D2 on the porch? organic or miracle gro?

Hog panel. Cut if you need to and use baling wire to tie it into cages if you want.

It works..
I like making a grid of twine inside a chickenwire cage for six to eight plants
But two poles with a ladder works well too.
Possibly better where you need elevation for late season light..

That’s my grow house (if youre replying to my other pics)

2 MH. 1000W
1 sodium vapor 400W







Pulled out for hardening-off and wind tempering

2nd transplanting to bigger pots, won’t set out till May 5th or so

What I was gonna say but two posts are plenty

If you're buying a roll of wire anyway, get some
lightweight posts and put one post down at the
end of the row and roll out the wire on one side of
the row, skip over to the other side of the row about
18 inches, put down another post and roll out the
wire down the row of maters on the opposite side
back down to where you first started.
The maters will be inside of the 2 rows of wire that
has now become a long narrow cage, and you
didn't have to cut your expensive fence wire.
You can take it loose at the end of the season and
roll it back up and stow it away easily. No need to
cut up your fencing to make individual cages
( hopefully this was explained clearly)

This.

cattle panels, woven wire, whatever works. Enjoy the matters!

I used 6x6-10x10 WWM cages for about 20 years (moved and didn't bring them along 20 years ago). I made mine about 18" diameter (about 5' length before bending) x 48" (or 60") high and placed in groups of 4 so the top ring tangent points touched then wired or zip tied them together. The 6" x 6" spaces allowed me to easily reach thru to the far side for harvesting.

Put up a fence of 2x4 wire. Tie to wire. It makes pest control much easier. I put up a 6' by 100' a foot off the ground. Best thing I ever did for the garden.

^^^ same here, and it's galvanized

I use cattle panels, 4 plants per panel.

The reason I use individual circular cages is so I can move the cages each year and keep a substantial distance between each one. The blight can spread too easily in tight spacing.

I got blight bad for a couple years in a row with some Bradley pinks

I pulled all my cages one fall and while I was BBQ’ing about 15 butts, I slow-rolled all my cages through a scattered bed of hickory slab coals on the ground.

I switched up varieties also. Not sure if helped anything but I had a hunch those rusty cages might be holding virus too.

You should build some heavy duty tomato cages.

I have used these cages for years. I burn them every fall when i put them up. I’ve rolled them in a fire and also used a weed burner when I didn’t have so many. I think this is an important step in disease prevention, along with rotating areas of the garden in which they are grown.

That is bad ass. Hah Miracle Grow. I have been mixing a half cup each of Bone and Blood meals and a half cup of clean wood ash for 5-7 gallons of soil. 2 parts perlite to three parts peat moss. This year I will only have 6 tomato plants. We just make salsa and use em for salads so 6 good plants will do it .Some cucumber and squash plants for fill. Miracle grow works for sure. Lot easier to use on small plants.

I have seen setups like that in Florida. A small gator we were feeding Cheetos was still hungry after we ran out of cheetos and chased us through a commercial Tomato operation. 30 feet anyway.

I make my cages from concrete 6x6 wire. Just unhook em' when your done & hang em' flat on the side of barn!

Scott

Can you weld? I used 4 48" 3/8 rod for uprights. I welded 2 24" 1/4" rods on each side as crossbars (3 would have been better). I stick the legs in the ground about 4 to 6" and it goes nowhere.

A fairly easy and inexpensive to make support for tomato plants is 1" wood or metal stakes of desired length driven into the ground midways between each tomato plant and cross pieces of like material added about every foot or so "ladder style" attached to upright stakes via string, wire, zip ties, duct tape, etc., as plants grow taller.

I stake mine.

Years back before chit got higher than giraffe puzzy...

I bought several bundles of 1/2” emt/ conduit.

10’ long , cut in half.

Made a driver for em. Hammering will bend them.

Tie up each limb with bailing string. Biodegrable kind. It’s earf day. Or it’ll wrap up around bush hog when seasons over.

When they get taller than the stake and bend over, I’ll lop em off.

Let’s see some pics of this and your garden.

I got the ones from Gardeners and plan on double stacking them this year. Had to order 4 more this year to make it 8 plants.

It would be good if you can get the 4X4-5 foot wire, but I didn’t want to pay for the 150’ roll. Only needed about 12 feet.

Cages will be about 6-1/2 feet high doing it this way. I had 12 of these cages I got super cheap about 10 years ago so I had to buy 6 more this year to get the 4 I needed. Hard to believe they cost as much as they do now.

Cattle/bull panels work well.

It this what you are aiming for?

Mennonites a mile up the road have a 10acre vegetable operation and roadside stand. I’m starting to think I’d be better off stopping twice a week instead of growing. July 1st we can legally grow 4 dope plants so might forget about the row of Indian corn and sunflowers and make some $$

Wabi, that’s some tasty looking tomatoes. Some toast, Mayo and a slice of American cheese would be spot on with those.

Be mid July before our determinates come in







I still went back with cages this year.

(Last year’s pics)

I use calf panels for my speckled butter beans

Those Speckled Butter Beans look happy there.

I take it that's a hot wire with the insulators (?) you're using, seem short for keeping much of anything but a dog out.

How many hours a day do you run the grow lights?

Your starts look to be pretty stocky, much unlike the weak starts most often seen at the local stores for sale.



It suprises me to hear you need to cage your determinates.

My main production tomato is a Celebrity, I've never needed more than a stake for support. They have fat stalks and hearty stems that support themselves with a few ties here and there.
They grow to about 40 inches and start pumping out fruit.

I spent the last two weeks in between work acquiring the cedar $$$$...some milled from 6x6 50 year old cedar posts and the rest from the local lumber yard at $42.00 per 2x6x10 board . Filled the boxes with "Mels mix" ran the drip yesterday and tied it into it's own zone on a timer. I will start planting this week and use some ideas from this thread for making up cages.

I grow in houses for frost protection and precision moisture control.

Been a long winter, a vine ripened tomato would taste good about now.

are those insulators on your surround posts?
does the zapper keep the deer out?

Yes

Put foil tabs with peanut butter in them and fold them over the hot wire. Really teaches deer HARD not to come back around. When they stick their tongues and wet noses to the peanut butter tabs.


Still waiting on wayne shaw to post some pics. He is like elkslayer.

tag

I make these, a 20’ piece of 3/8 rebar, cut into four 5’ pieces, welded on to these cages. I made these 20 years ago, ain’t fooling with a garden this year. I probably have 30 of them.