Caging strategies for indeterminates after initial 54" cage

garyc1234 · July 19, 2016

I'm growing a bunch of indeterminate tomatoes in containers mostly using regular 54" cages that you purchase at Home Depot. (I have around 80 tomatoes at last count.) I realized from the beginning that the cage size would be too short for the indeterminates, but I'm short on both time, and have a limited amount of money. With three young children, I can only spend one hour max each day, and 20 minutes of that one hour is spent watering the plants. I also can't afford to spend the $40+/cage to purchase Texas Tomato Cages, which look really nice, BTW. So, instead I purchased the 54" cages which were only ~$4 each at Home Depot.

Has anyone else who uses 54" cages determined a strategy on how to handle the extra growth for the tomatoes after they clear the top of the cage? I remember in one of Raybo's early Earthtainer designs, he would invert another cage and place it on top of the original one and fasten the two together to obtain additional height. Just wondering if anyone else had other strategies that they've used. Thanks!

July 19, 2016	#1
garyc1234 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2016 Location: Zone 10a (Alameda, CA) Posts: 67	Caging strategies for indeterminates after initial 54" cage I'm growing a bunch of indeterminate tomatoes in containers mostly using regular 54" cages that you purchase at Home Depot. (I have around 80 tomatoes at last count.) I realized from the beginning that the cage size would be too short for the indeterminates, but I'm short on both time, and have a limited amount of money. With three young children, I can only spend one hour max each day, and 20 minutes of that one hour is spent watering the plants. I also can't afford to spend the $40+/cage to purchase Texas Tomato Cages, which look really nice, BTW. So, instead I purchased the 54" cages which were only ~$4 each at Home Depot. Has anyone else who uses 54" cages determined a strategy on how to handle the extra growth for the tomatoes after they clear the top of the cage? I remember in one of Raybo's early Earthtainer designs, he would invert another cage and place it on top of the original one and fasten the two together to obtain additional height. Just wondering if anyone else had other strategies that they've used. Thanks!