Tomato Cages

Tomato Cages - On a Budget! 

 By Robert Leavitt

You may observe that tomato cages are not particularly expensive but this is the shoe string budget blog so I decided to make some of these with the help of a neighbor who provided some livestock fencing that has been "laying around" for years on his property. 

Total Investment: $3.50 approximately (the gas it took to mow his yard for the trade).
I actually wound up with 13 cages so I think I got a good deal!

These are very easy to "make" yourself, if you really spend time on them you can get them to look really nice.  I however am not only limited by budget, I am limited by the amount of time I can devote to a specific project.  These are not fine works of art, however they will work for my needs.

Roll of livestock fencing

Materials:

Side Cutters or something to cut the wire with (a bolt cutter, tin snips, etc...).
Some fencing.
Plyers to bend and tie the metal with (or vice grips, or you can just use your hands, but you wont get tight wraps and it can be difficult).
Gloves (or do it like we do in the country and feel the burn for a few days).

First I counted off 8 squares.  The squares on your roll may be a different size.  Mine were 6" so I wound up with 48" of fence.  This will give me a circle with roughly a 14"-16" diameter.  You can make yours larger (or smaller) by counting out more squares or less.  The height of the fencing is 48".

I cut each piece from top to bottom so i wound up with a square that was 48"x48":  Following this guide to show you the location of the cuts.  I removed the bottom wire of the fencing, and as I cut top to bottom I made sure to leave wire after each cut so I can use it to wrap the cage back to itself:

Tomato cage cut locations for converting fencing into a a tomato cage.

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Wrapping the cage back onto itself.

Go from bottom to top and just wrap the wires around the opposite end of the fencing.  It's very easy to do, if you want them really tight, use your pliers to twist the metal around and wrap it tight by gripping the wire firmly with your plyers.

This is the cage (inverted) finished.  I did cut in between the vertical wires up one more rung as you can see in the photo to give me a little more "stake" for when I push the cage into the ground.

Finished tomato cage (upside down).

Lastly, you simply put the cage over your plant and your done!  You can put the cage in over seedlings and it's far easier. If your plant is already larger than your diameter of your cage, grab a friend to help by pulling the leaves up while you get the cage in.  Don't try to do it yourself because you may damage the plant.  

I don't tie my plant to the cage usually, however if you need some added support, snip of a piece of pantyhose and use it to tie.  This will allow the tie to stretch while the plant grows.

Once your cage is over, just push it into the ground.  It will take a bit of back and forth and lifting it up in spots, but get it down there.  It is normal for the cage to "bounce" a bit like a spring once it is down far enough into the ground.

Beefsteak tomatoes with a home made cage.

You can learn more about Robert Leavitt on his Google Plus page.