You should not attempt to electrocute your plants! Tomato towers can be square, round, or triangular. This means support is provided equally throughout the structure, and the cage is sturdier. Tomato towers are my favorite type of cage. They cost more than the flimsy cone cages, but you can use them for years, so the price difference is soon made up for. Some people would say that buying a tomato cage from a garden center is a waste of money. After all, you can often make something even sturdier at home at a fraction of the price.
One popular way to make a tomato cage is to get a roll of metal fencing, snip it into smaller rectangular pieces with wire cutters, and roll it into tubes. You can then use cable ties to secure it. The great thing about this method is you can just cut the cable ties at the end of the growing season, and the fencing becomes flat again for easy storage. The height you choose will depend on the variety you are growing. Tomato cages are a brilliant way to offer support to your tomato plants as they grow, but only if you use them correctly.
You need to choose a good-quality cage that is the right size for your variety. Skip to primary navigation Skip to main content Skip to primary sidebar Skip to footer Facebook Pinterest. Circular tomato cages will have three or more. If you are worried about wind knocking down your cages and plants, opt for cages with more supports to drive into the ground. Tomato cages can be made of plastic, wood, or metal.
For example, indeterminate tomato plants that grow tall and produce lots of fruit may cause a plastic tomato cage to collapse. Wood tomato cages are probably rarer to find in stores, but you can make them yourself out of wood you have lying around at home.
If the wood is not pressure treated, it will rot after exposure to the weather, and you will need to buy or make more. However, you probably should not use pressure treated wood in your garden. Metal cages are the most durable and heavy duty, and are most likely to be able to support taller, heavier plants that produce more fruit. However, they will be less flexible than plastic cages, meaning they might not be a good choice for indoor plants grown in containers.
The height of your tomato cage depends on the plant you are growing in the cage. Some shorter varieties of pepper plants may only grow to 1 or 2 feet tall. In that case, a small 2-foot tall homemade cage can work well for them, especially if you are growing indoors in a container. Taller peppers and some determinate tomato varieties can grow to a height of 3 or 4 feet, so a tomato cage that is 4 feet tall would work well for these plants.
Indeterminate tomatoes and some cucumber varieties can easily grow to a height of 6 feet or taller. In those cases, a tomato cage that is 6 feet tall would be more appropriate. If you are growing indeterminate tomatoes that grow to heights of 8 feet or more, it may not be practical to support them with tomato cages.
In that case, it would be dangerous to try to harvest tomatoes high on the plant. Instead, you could use a lean-to trellis to support taller plants without having to risk climbing a ladder to harvest your fruit.
For more information, check out my article on how tall a trellis should be. You should transplant your seedlings into your garden before placing tomato cages. Otherwise, you may have difficulty digging the soil inside the cage and moving around to place the plant. After you bury your plant, drive the legs of your tomato cage into the ground so that the plant is centered inside the cage.
If necessary, you can use a rubber mallet or small hammer to hit the top of the cage and drive the legs down so that taps securely into place. To provide extra support, find some small 12 inches or 30 centimeters long stakes with hooks at one end. Then, use your hammer to drive them into the ground near the legs of the tomato cage. Place the stakes so that the hook will catch on one of the horizontal supports on the cage. This will help to keep the cage in the ground, and it will prevent it from falling over due to wind or the weight of your plant and its fruit.
Otherwise, let branches protrude through the openings, so the cage can be self-supporting. Store cages at the season's end for use the next year. Tomato cages can support other vegetables that may fall over, particularly tomatoes' nightshade relatives, peppers and eggplants.
Mary Simpson began her writing career in on a Dallas oil magazine. She holds a B. Home Guides Garden Gardening. By Mary Simpson. Related Articles. Plant Health Advantages As a cage holds the fruit off the ground, the tomatoes are less susceptible to rot or insect damage.
Secure the spiral cage by turning the screw into the steak. As your tomato plant or any vining plant grows, train them to remain inside the circular cage as they grow. This is especially true for a tomato. Their branches love to poke out. Of course this is no problem as you want the fruit to hang outside of the spiral arm for easy picking.
Just make sure as it reaches the next spiral arm, the branches use it as a support. Another alternative is a wire tomato cage and it works the same as the collapsible tree cage.
The disadvantage is that it doesn't collapse or expand. The advantage is that a wire cage is much sturdier. The picture to the left shows a wire cage inserted into the soil of a wooden barrel. As with the pictures above, there is no tomato plant and is used for demonstration purpose only. Before you use either the wire cage or spiral cage, plant your tomato seedling first. Notice that a tomato branch is resting on the wire cage for support.
As the tomato plant grows, carefully guide the branches through the opening of the tomato cage, and be sure to do this with each branch as the tomato plant grows. As the tomato plant grows, it is necessary to support the plants added height by weaving another figure eight part way up the plants stem.
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