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Re: Tomato cage material?...

At 03:21 PM 3/13/97 -0500, you wrote:
>At 11:29 AM 3/13/97 -0600, Dennis L. Whitehead wrote:
>>Howdy hi,
>>
>>I just started eight varieties of tomato plants.  I want to build some
>>sturdy cages.  The local building materials store has 10 guage concrete
>>reinforcement wire on sale.  It's 6' wide, has 6" squares and comes in a 50'
>>roll.  It's not galvanized.
>>
>>My hope is that someone wiser and/or more experienced than I can tell me if
>>this would make good tomato cages?  My two initial concerns are longevity
>>due to rust and the "abrasive" action the oxidized wire might have on the
>>plants and fruit.  My plan is to make supports for the cages using steel
>>fence posts.
>>
>
>I've had the best luck using galvanized pipe that (I believe) Mel talks
>about in his book.
>
>I bought some 3/4" galvanized pipe at a recycle yard, cut it in 8 foot
>lenghts and paid to have it threaded at a hardware store.
>
>I attached three pieces of the pipe using threaded elbows to make a
>three-sided square and pushed the legs down into my square-foot plot over my
>tomato row.
>
>I tied a lateral string between the legs and then vertical lines from this
>lateral to the top cross-bar at each tomato plant.
>
>Now as the plants mature, it's imperative that you remove any "suckers" and
>tie the main stem to the vertical line (using panty hose, I recommend).
>
>The tomato vines will grow vertically (no muddy, rotten fruit) and picking
>and inspection will be a treat.  Also, if you mulch well, Mel (I believe)
>says that blossom-end rot will be controlled.
>
>The best part is that next fall you cut away the vines and strings, unscrew
>the connections and store your sturdy, rust-proof, rot-proof tomato trellis
>for next Spring -- using much less room that cages.
>
>Has anyone else tried this?
>
>W. T. Wilson
>Knoxville, TN
>
>
I've tried something similar. I used 1/2" electrical conduit with slip-on
connectors. Instead of strings i used 7" trellis netting. I figure the
netting saves me the trouble of tying up the vines. I refuse to work that
hard. :-)

I use the vertical frame only for indeterminates. For determinates i used
regular cages, but the biggest ones i could find are still too small if the
tomatoes are having a good year. With the cage mulch is essential for
keeping the fruit off the muddy ground. Note that bugs also love the mulch,
so at best the mulch is a stop-gap measure until you have the opportunity to
pick the fruit stem up off the ground and poke it through one of the
openings in the cage. (I still recommend a mulch.)

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