DIY Tomato Cage

Easy Tips for Successfully Supporting those Tomatoes

Tomatoes ripen best in full sun so it's important to keep them exposed to air and those solar rays.

In addition, to keep the ripening fruit from rotting, it's crucial to prevent them making contact with the soil.

The solution? A DIY tomato cage!

There are lots of easy ways to support the heavy lush plants and their harvest until it's ready for you to pick.

I've seen commercial greenhouses using strings put in place when the plants are quite small and the growing vines of indeterminate types are twined up the strings, making it easy to pick the fruit (the ones at the bottom ripen first) and then at the end of the season the drying vines are simply pulled off the bottom of the loose string.

You can also tie the string to some kind of weight to hold it in place in windy areas outdoors.

In my hay bale garden, I've utilized the stucco wire fence to support the vines.

Initially I thought the fence would have supported them, but it soon became obvious that the growth was too much and the plants were falling over.

So I used the end of the soaker hose that I cut off as it was too long.  I put each end into one of the holes in the fence and this holds the stem of the tomato plant against the fence.