These homemade tomato cages were an unbridled success, fully supporting the two plants (an Early Girl and a Polish Heirloom) with minimal training of the plants and effort on my part. Both tomato plants are spilling out the tops of the cages, 6 feet plus in height and have produced an average crop with almost no fertilizing or attention from me.
The cages do make it slightly more difficult to harvest the tomatoes because you have to reach in between the small squares of the re-mash grid, but that's really the only downside.
The lesson from the tomato caging this summer has been that I need to make a dozen or more re-mesh cages for all my tomatoes for next year. They worked so well that I want to stake all of my tomatoes (eating, heirloom, Roma/paste, and cherry tomatoes) with this method next year. Making new tomato cages will be a good fall/winter project for when the weather turns nasty and cold since I can work on this in the relative comfort of the garage.
3 comments:
I've been rockin' on with the stone house, so not much time to post, but after picking my forlorn (or are they lazy?) tomatoes who are all reclining on the ground with their stupid tomato cages tipped over, I can see that your method is Ideal. This will be a must-do project for next spring. You sure have a wonderful variety, too.
Thanks! I hesitate to accept your label of "ideal" only because I'm afraid of angering the gardening Gods. I'm going to go with "worked really well for me", in hopes of not alerting the universe that I'm getting too big for my britches.
And in the off season, you can do this with them :)
http://www.etsy.com/listing/80785196/tomato-cage-ghost-decorations
and
http://redthreaddiy.com/blog/2009/10/diy-halloween-lighted-ghosts-tutorial/
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