Last year, I grew a lot of tomatoes. I wanted to make my own tomato sauce and salsa and tomato soup (which were all delicious, by the way, if I do say so myself), so I planted 10 tomato plants. The only problem was that I did not have 10 tomato cages. I didn’t want to spend the money on that many cages, so I just planted them, and let them kind of vine along the ground. It didn’t work well. The tomatoes that were touching the ground rotted fast and the ones that weren’t rotten were eaten away by roly polies. While I did salvage some of my harvest, it would have been nice not to have to deal with the problems.
This year, I am once again growing a lot of tomato plants, but I had to come up with a better solution. So, I took a cue from my Dad and made my own! It’s so much cheaper than buying bunch of cages, and they work just as well. Here’s how:
What you’ll need:
- Wire garden fencing
- Heavy-duty wire cutters
- Pliers
You’ll need some garden fencing. The kind of garden fence you get depends on you. Choose the height based on your preferences. A common height is 48 inches, which is a great height for a tomato cage. I got my fencing from my father-in-law, who had some left over, and it was a little tall (about 5 feet), so I had to trim it down. How much fencing you get is dependent on how many cages you want to make and how big a diameter you want for your cages. In my case, I used about 5 1/2 feet of fence per cage. FYI, 50 ft of 48-inch-high fence will run about $50 at your local hardware store; that’s about 9 cages at $5.55 per tomato cage. Big tomato cages will run anywhere from $8 to $12 per cage at your local garden center.
First, using wire cutters, cut the length of your cages from the roll (again, I used 5.5 feet per cage), making sure to leave one side with longer, unconnected ends.
Next, cut the bottom, horizontal strip of wire off, leaving the spoke-like ends that you will push into the ground to keep your cage stable. I had to cut my fence down because it was so tall, but if you bought fencing at just the right height, just cut off the very bottom wire edge (in the picture, I’ve flipped my cage upside-down, so I’m actually cutting off the top).
Next,using pliers, wrap the ends you left on one side when you cut the length of fence around the the other side, making the fence into a circle.
And that is literally all there is to it. Now, plant your tomatoes, push your new cages into the ground around it, and watch them grow!
The Crazy Hat Box 
I wait all year long for homegrown tomatoes…yum! There is nothing like them!