Debate over Tomato Cages - Opinions?

[James282]

Hmmm, florida weave was sounding kind of complicated, but thanks for giving it to me straight I will look into this tomorrow, and if I ever get it to work, you can believe there will be pictures!

James

[rainbowgardener]

James, if you just read a little farther up in the thread you posted this in you would see my solution -- stacking. I take a second cage, put it upside down on top of first one, open end to open end, and twist tie them together. Works for me and its easy and reversible. The small cages are nice to have since they are a good size for peppers and some other plants....

[TZ -OH6]

Cone cages at any size are pretty useless for medium to full sized varieties. They fall over unless staked, and the spaces between the rings is too large. You always end up putting in a stake to hold them up and then the branches drape down and break.



To keep my plants from over growing CRW cages I count back two months from expected last frost date (the approx time it takes a beefsteak tomato to ripen) and start pinching off immature bud trusses and growing tips (down to new leaves three inches long). This corresponds to the time in the season (early August) when the plants are just about as high as my 5 ft cages. The pinched branches expand-lengthen about another foot as they mature, but that is contained by the cages pretty well. I also do not end up with plants full of immature green tomatoes when frost hits.

[James282]

James, if you just read a little farther up in the thread you posted this in you would see my solution -- stacking. I take a second cage, put it upside down on top of first one, open end to open end, and twist tie them together. Works for me and its easy and reversible. The small cages are nice to have since they are a good size for peppers and some other plants....

hey rg, I read your solution, but the cages I used are so flimsy that I am not optimistic that they will stay standing if stacked. When folks say use stakes to support the cages...do they mean tying to stakes to the cage themselves, or placing a stake along the main stem of the plant and tying the plant to it, or some combination of both?

Sorry for the super basic questions - I always grew my tomatoes along a fence before this and the fence supported them happily.

Thanks!

James

[Ole Dummy]

Just bought a roll of concrete wire today. I made 15 baskets and still have wire left. This is my first year using this method and think it is going to be better than any other way I have tried.