# Homemade Tomato Cages



## ctfortner (Nov 16, 2007)

For you gardeners out there, I thought I would share this.

I am tired of the puny store bought tomato cages that fall over, break, etc..

So I decided to build my own.

What I read and found to be the best for this is concrete reinforcing wire. You can find this at building supply stores (Lowes, Home Depot) or at lumber yards. Here they had it in 50 or 150-foot lengths. Buy the 5 foot tall size with 6-by-6-inch squares (so that you can reach your hand into the cage to pick the tomatoes).

Build your own tomato cage

1. Wearing work gloves, unroll the wire part way and have someone or something heavy to hold down the springy wire.

2. Measure off a 5-foot length. Cut it off from the rest of the roll using pliers or other tools. I cut mine down the edge of one end, so there was loose wires to use for wrapping around to hold the cage in place once together.

3. Stand up the 5 foot piece you have cut off on end. It will tend to curl together.

4. Use the wire to make a hook with a pair of pliers and bend it over and hook it to hold the cage together.








I will be using a couple of stakes per cage to secure it from blowing or falling over. I plan to use conduit pipes, bout 1/2 inch pipe cut into 5 foot lengths. Then I will weave it in and of out the squares and hammer it down in the ground about a foot.

First year making these, but I think they are going to work great. Also, these cages should last for many years, since the concrete wire is made for the outdoors.

End result is like this








I will take some pics of mine tonight, I made ten of them yesterday.


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## cassiem (Nov 16, 2007)

Thats a really neat idea, thanks for the info. May try some of these! I want to see some pics when your garden is in full swing and tomatoes are growing in it!


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## l2l (Jan 27, 2008)

Funny I just finished building my new garden and was wondering what to use for my tomatoe plants.

Thanks for the idea may just have to give this a try :thumbup1:


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## mrmossyoak (May 5, 2008)

*tomato cages ( Homemade )*

i just built me some last night i used goat panels they come in 16' lengths and are 48 " tall i cut them with a saws-all into 5'4" peices and rolled them over with some help from my nephew thank they lord he is a large man cause one man could not make these himself if you would like to see pictures of these cages that will last a lifetime please email me and photos will be sent.... [email protected] i am new to the board but love to camp, fish, garden etc....


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## antigua (Dec 17, 2007)

Hey that's great. I'll pass this on to my wife. She's been talking about planting the tomatoes that we have groing in the kitchen. She's been talking about going out to buy a few. Thanks for info.


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## ctfortner (Nov 16, 2007)

Welcome to the site mrmossyoak. Sounds great on the baskets. They are not easy to make, but will last for a long time. The concrete wire I used, I was able to do it by myself, but after making 10 of them in a day, my hands and arms were extremely sore the next day, well for several days :shocked:

I would like to see how yours look, you can actually post pics on here for us to see if you like. If your not sure how to post a pic, check out my signature for help on that, its easy.

I am going to take some pics of mine tonight, I have them out in the garden now.

I also built some pretty neat bamboo setups for beans to grow on. My dads place has a big patch of bamboo on it, so I went and cut about 30 or so of them and made several teepees for beans, and also made bamboo trellis/teepee that looks really neat out in the garden. Dont know how good it works yet, but it adds some character. This is a sample pic of what I built, but I will get pics of the real thing tonight and post them.










mrmossyoak said:


> i just built me some last night i used goat panels they come in 16' lengths and are 48 " tall i cut them with a saws-all into 5'4" peices and rolled them over with some help from my nephew thank they lord he is a large man cause one man could not make these himself if you would like to see pictures of these cages that will last a lifetime please email me and photos will be sent.... [email protected] i am new to the board but love to camp, fish, garden etc....


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## ctfortner (Nov 16, 2007)

*More Garden Pics*

Well, I have about everything done in the garden now. Here is some pics of my other garden contraptions, such as bean teepees and trellis made of bamboo.

Last night the youngin and I made an upside down tomato plant, I will get some pics and show that too, pretty neat.

This pic below is what I built for my pole beans to grow on. My parents have a ton of bamboo growing on their place, so I put some of it to use.










In the rows between plants, I used newspaper and then wheat straw as a mulch on top of that, to keep the weeds out. The black hose you see is a soaker hose, which I used from one end to the other which is much easier than using a sprinkler. I tie strapped it up a little on my bamboo, because I had recently planted the bean seeds, and didnt want the hose to keep them from growing, so I wanted it out of the way.










To the left of the bamboo trellis, is a piece of fence I put up for my peas to grow on. I put the fence down the middle of the row and then planted peas on each side of it.


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## ctfortner (Nov 16, 2007)

Here is also a closer pic on my homemade tomato cage using the concrete reinforcement wire. I wish I had built these years ago, they are very strong and should do well. I also used 4 of these on my cucumber plants.


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## mailfire99 (Nov 16, 2007)

Looks great, cant wait to see how that works when they start really growing


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## ctfortner (Nov 16, 2007)

*Upside Down Tomato Plant*

I decided to try something new for fun this past weekend, and upside down tomato plant. This was accomplished by drilling a 2 inch hole in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket and sticking the tomato through it, and then filling with miracle gro top soil. For fun, I also added a basil plant in the top of the bucket.

It was straight down when I planted it, but you can see how it has curled up toward the sun.


























Some updated pics of my garden so far, the beans and peas are coming in great.


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## byrnet (Jun 12, 2009)

So how did your garden do last year? The cages had to be nice to have. How did your upside down plants make out?
I tried the upside down method and seen no improvement from growing the normally.
Thanks
Tim


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## ctfortner (Nov 16, 2007)

Cages are great, I actually made 10 more of them this year, and 15 for my dad, he liked them so much. They worked very well and my tomato plants did great and kept the plants upright and no more tying. You can see some more pics in my album I took later on during the year. The baskets are around 5' tall and my tomato plants grew a good foot taller than them.

RV Forum - CamperCommunity.com - ctfortner's Album: My Garden 2008

I used them for cucumbers as well, since they are natural climbers also, they worked out real well in the cages and the cukes just hang off and are easy to pick.

Upside down plant was really just for fun for me and the youngin. It worked ok, but is a pain. Has to be watered everyday, dries out very quick. I went on vacation last year for a week, it was toast when we got back. I tried it again this year, and was watering it the other day and the handle broke and the bucket hit the ground, plant demolished. I am done with that.


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