This DIY home-made tomato cage works and last for years. Learn how to make tomato cages by watching our DIY video on how to build tomato cages. The tomato cages sold in garden stores don’t work for me. The cages are too short and flimsy, and don’t hold up your tomato plants. stop buying the cheap tomato cages in the store and start making your own tomato cages here.
There are two main kinds of tomato plants: determinate and indeterminate.
Determinate plants are compact.
Indeterminate tomato plants are wild and all over the place.
I think the two words can be applied to plants and people’s personalities. Determinate people know where they are going in life, indeterminate people go all over the place. I think indeterminate plants produce more tomatoes, your opinion on that.
Tomato cages like these work for both kinds of tomatoes, but are especially good for indeterminate plants. The cages help contain their crazy nature of wanting to grow all over the place. The large squares of the kind of cage material use, concrete reinforcing wire, allow you to get your hands into the cage to harvest tomatoes. I’ve seen people build cages with other kinds of wire mesh, and you can’t get your hands inside the tomato cage to grab the fruit.
We have a number of how to grow tomatoes and how to cook tomato videos on our site here. I especially like our cherry tomato recipes, one of them is a raw cherry tomato pasta dish that is brilliantly simple.
Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe Video
Fresh Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe Video
Get Rid of Tomato Hornworms Video
john york
i was just wondering have you used compost tea before. If yes, would you do a video about it.
p.s.
Don’t forget to include the dogs in the video.
(by the way, do they have an agent?? They could be huge stars on Animal Planet.) LOL
Eric Gunnar Rochow
hi john, i do use compost tea and i’ll make a video about that. good idea. and we don’t have an agent, but we’d like one. thx, eric.
ZSAZSA BUCKS
YOU ARE TOO FUNNY BUT THANKS I HAVE BEEN HAVING SLEEPLESS NIGHTS THINKING OF HOW TO MAKE A TOMATO CAGE. THANKS
Rosalie Smith
I fed my tomato plants with lovely chicken manure tea this season, and the plants WAY OVERGREW the commercial tomato cages I’d been using for a few years. The plants got so tall and the fruits so heavy that the cages bent and fell over, entirely defeating the purpose of using the cages at all. And that was BEFORE the hurricane knocked over the cucumber teepee!
For next season I’ll be constructing the rebar cages, like yours, and maybe I’ll just use the old limp ones for herbs or something less vigorous. Meanwhile, I want to move some of the herbs indoors, but my cat wants to eat any houseplants I have within his reach.
I’ve planted grass for him, and he enjoys it, but still attacks the houseplants. I have an old aquarium, that I thought I might use for the herbs, mostly to keep the cat out of them.
Do you have any terrarium tips for me? I figure the tender herbs with shallow roots might work, like basil, oregano, thyme, sage and parsley. I’ll pot the rosemary on it’s own, since it’s a perennial, and the chives have survived several winters outdoors, so I’ll leave them to their own devices.
Do I feed a terrarium? Use a non-toxic pest control? Maybe leftover dishwater, or spray pests with salad oil? Any ideas?
Thanks again for the cage video. I’ll be on that project over the fall and winter.
Rosalie in central NH.
PS. I followed your lead on the mower tuneup. It was easy and the mower is like new. I even put on a mulching blade and now the grandkids (teenagers) want to mow down everything in the yard. Tall weeds and bushes on the edge of our dirt road are well controlled now. Gotta watch them though. They may get carried away and take out a shrub or two just for the fun of it! 🙂
Sara
My grandfather, and pretty much all the old farmer folks around this area, have been using this method for years! We still have my grandfather’s cages – so their like 30 yrs old + … so they DO last! They’re almost like an heirloom. Thanks for sharing the how-to for everyone. This is definitely the simplest, sturdiest way to do it – guess that’s why the old-timers used it. We, too, leave the bottom squares exposed to jam into the ground. I sometimes weave a small garden stake on one side and hammer into the ground for stability.
BTW – we use a fencing tool/pliers, the kind for cutting and bending wire fences (not to be confused with a sword 😉 to cut the mesh. Those were also an heirloom. http://www.gemplers.com/product/53100/Multi-purpose-Head-Fence-Pliers
Always a pleasure watching your videos!!