raised bed - cages or trellis?

[RebelRidin]

Originally Posted by ChefJeff

thanks for all the replies and photos. i would love to try a trellis with the conduit frames but since i already have some ok store bought cages and plenty of CRW cages i guess i will do my best to stake them down.

my bed is on hard packed sand and driving a stake into that will be tough. i also have my underground water plumbing on the east side of the bed and my house is on the west side so lets hope i dont hit a pipe while hammering away.

Jeff,

Does your raised bed have a wooden frame? If so you can attach some short vertical "stakes" of thinwall to the box sides using conduit clamps. Then affix your cages to those verticals. It would anchor your cages but avoid having to drive stakes into that packed sand or worse.... your plumbing.

[Crandrew]

Originally Posted by RebelRidin

Jeff,

Does your raised bed have a wooden frame? If so you can attach some short vertical "stakes" of thinwall to the box sides using conduit clamps. Then affix your cages to those verticals. It would anchor your cages but avoid having to drive stakes into that packed sand or worse.... your plumbing.

+1 to this. Or set anchor points on the side of the bed and run line to tie off in-bed cages.

[gardenfrog]

I've got two that are wooden and the rest are recycled materials that feels like the material many of the new "park benches" are made of. If you don't want to put long stakes into the soil, there are inexpensive 4x4x4 kits that you can purchase that will fit nicely over a 4x4 bed (Those are all I grow in for now. I purchased two of them Saturday from Aldis for about $20.00 each. This will be my first time using these, but I decided that our Indiana weather, though warm today, may dip into freezing temps any day. I'll use these in the pivotal temperatures, but likely never early March or earlier. I'm sure that there are clamps you can get at Home Depot or Loews that you can attach to any raised bed that will accomodate stakes/poles or PVC that you could use while building your temporary bed wall. Another thought...you could create a simple pup-tent cover for your raised bed and secure them with very inexpensive landscape fabric stakes. I will be using the stakes for the first time this year and am optimistic that they'll serve me well when I place my fabric/weed-barrier down soon. I hope I answered your question and not shotgunned in too many directions. : )

[texasrockgarden]

Here are a few pics of my support systems.

[dice]

These clamp to the sides of the raised bed with conduit clamps:
http://www.growgardentomatoes.com/im...-trellis-4.jpg

You could use pieces clamped to the corners, run a horizontal pipe
across between them, and then tie your cages off to the horizontal
pieces with zip ties.

[z_willus_d]

I generally try a hybrid approach. I use 5' cages for the first half of the tomatoes, then above I have a conduit run with the trellis as folks show. You can get 10' conduit and cement them into a concrete cinder-block at the base. This gives you that additional 5' feet to which to attach the long running vines later in the season. I think it's the best of both worlds. The cages bear the brunt of the weight and support and the trellis takes on the residual 1 or 2 main branches per plant that I allow beyond the first 5'.
-naysen

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by celerystalksmidnite

Anybody ever tried tying their cages together? Usually, i don't have much problem with the CRW cages tipping until very late in the season, if at all. I wondered if they were secured together, say, in groups of four or five, if it would make them less likely to fall?

I use a wood support and tie the plant to it so that the cage is only supporting the outside branches. This also allows me to tie the longer branches to the wood support with torn up T-Shirt ties allowing for more airflow if needed.

[NorthTom]

texasrockgarden -

Are those buried metal barrels in your last pic? I have a bunch of food grade ones floating around my back 40 that I need to put to use.

[texasrockgarden]

Originally Posted by NorthTom

texasrockgarden -

Are those buried metal barrels in your last pic? I have a bunch of food grade ones floating around my back 40 that I need to put to use.

Not buried. I had 55 gal metal drums with rusted bottoms and good sidewalls. I cut them into thirds, painted and set on tilled soil. They are filled with a good bulk soil mix.

It was a chore to cut them, but maybe worth it in the long run. This is the third or fourth season using them.

[NorthTom]

Awesome, thanks.