If You Want Something Done Right
(Garden • )
…you often must do it yourself. This is especially true when it comes to tomato cages.
In the event the reader knows not of what I speak, a proper tomato cage is a wire enclosure designed to contain indeterminate tomato varieties and encourage their continual upward growth. The cage allows for control of a bushy, multi-stemmed plant, keeps the fruit from rotting on the ground and provides some protection from birds. Oh, tomato stakers still exist – clinging to the false notion that a plant trained to a single stem can produce as much fruit as a multi-stemmer. Through years of trial and error, we cagers believe we know better.
However, a good caged tomato plant first needs a good cage. And therein lies the rub.
The big garden centers and nurseries, and even the farm/tractor supply stores, whose customers surely know better, all carry these short, flimsy metal wire impostors. They don’t work. Once stuck into the ground, most of them are no more than 3 feet tall and of narrow circumference. The wire is too thin, and half the time they bend backwards as you try to shove them into the ground.
“Indeterminate” tomato plants (which include the biggest and tastiest fruit) are bushy vines that grow continually until excess heat, excess cold or disease puts an end to them. A healthy indeterminate tomato plant can grow 8 feet tall and spread 4 feet wide, or more. Store-bought cages are useless in attempting to contain such vegetable monsters.
I remembered this fact again as I surveyed the sad, rusty, bent pile of store-bought cages stashed in the shed. Once I had good home-made cages, but they take up a lot of space and were left behind during a move somewhere back in time.
To rectify the situation, I went looking for what they call pig wire in Arkansas and cattle panels in Texas. I really coveted about 50 feet of 6-foot horse fencing, but the farm store wouldn’t sell me less than 100 feet and it was too expensive.
So I settled for 50 feet of 5-foot-tall wire fencing that had been cut up a little on the outside, which Home Depot was willing to sell for 20% off.
Not as tall as I’d like, but I can wire the crummy old store-bought cages to the tops of the ones I am in the process of manufacturing if the plants really start getting out of hand.
You need a pair of good wire cutters and maybe some work gloves unless you enjoy cutting up your hands as much as I seem to. I measure out about 20 inches and snip it in a way that leaves about an inch of wire sticking out at each horizontal junction on one end of the piece of fencing. Then I lay the thing on the ground, roll it into a cylinder and bend each piece of wire around the opposite site of the cage, pushing the end toward the inside so I won’t cut myself too often while picking tomatoes. I then stand the cage up and cut the horizontal piece of wire off of one end, leaving all the vertical pieces sticking out three inches or so.
That’s the end you stick into the ground around the tomato plant. The plant itself will help hold the cage in place once it grows into it, but you can use extra wire or properly shaped sticks to stake down the cages in a pinch.
Speaking of pinches, I still try to limit the number of main stems on each plant to four or five, pinching off the rest of the suckers as they show up. Some authoritative sources, however, suggest no pruning at all. This year I may conduct an experiment to test that postulation.
I’m planting later today – the latest I’ve put tomatoes in the ground here (thanks to a cool spring) in 10 years.
The lineup consists entirely of open-pollinated heirlooms. Three varieties are newcomers to me. But the other two, German Johnson and Belgium Giant, grew from seed saved from last year’s best plants. I’m hoping they’ll acclimate themselves to our harsh, hot, humid summers and the soil diseases that plague us as a result.
That’s it this morning for the garden report.
→ B.Dunn, Mar 30, 2010, 06 03 AM
