Modding Tomato Cages

I have a 3' x 3' Raised Bed that I am using to grow Cherry Tomatoes (2 Sweet Baby Girl, 1 Sugar Snack, and 1 Super Sweet 100).

The Cherry Tomato plants have been in the ground for 4 weeks now (see 3/14/09 blog entry).

Unlike the Cherry Tomato plants in my other Raised Beds (see 4/5/09 blog entry), I did not use Texas Tomato Cages to support the plants.

Instead, I used 54" Tomato Cages that I had bought from Home Depot a couple of years ago.

This particular raised bed is too small to put the Texas Tomato Cages in. Plus, the type of Cherry Tomato plants that I am growing here do not grow as tall or as vigorous as the Sun Gold and Sun Sugar Tomato plants that are growing in the other raised beds.

However, after only a month in the ground, the Cherry Tomato plants are already half way the height of the 54" Home Depot Tomato Cage.

I needed to extend the height of the Tomato Cages so that they will continue to support the Cherry Tomato plants for the rest of the season.

I have a lot of the Home Depot Tomato Cages left over from last year. I no longer use them because of the Texas Tomato Cages that I bought for the Cherry Tomato plants in the other Raised Beds.

I decided to invert another set of Home Depot Tomato Cages and place them on top of the ones already in the Raised Bed. This gave me a cheap and easy way to make my Tomato Cages taller.

I used 4" plastic cable ties to secure the two Home Depot Tomato Cages together (see picture to the right).

The combine height of the two Tomato Cages is over 8' tall. This is taller than the Texas Tomato Cages that I bought.

Of course, the Texas Tomato Cages are 2' in diameter and provide much better support.

I would not use this type of stacked Tomato Cage for Sun Gold or Sun Sugar Cherry Tomato plant. Last year, I used Home Depot Tomato Cages for Sun Gold and Sun Sugar and the plants toppled over (see this blog entry)

But at a fraction of the cost of the Texas Tomato Cages, I am quite happy with the how the finished product looks (see picture to the right).