One of the dilemmas many gardeners face is how to properly support their tomato plants. In the early spring, tomato plants are small and don’t need any support. But soon they will grow into huge plants that will flop over at the first hint of wind or a heavy rain. Those flimsy wire tomato cages are no match for the weight of a full grown tomato plant.
Flimsy Wire Tomato Cages
Over the years, I have tried different sizes and weights of these wire tomato cages – all of them have collapsed under the weight of my full grown tomato plants. I always found myself adding extra stakes around the pathetic wire tomato cages to keep the tomato plants from laying on the ground. What a pain! It was a constant battle through the summer.
Sturdy Tomato Cages In The Garden
Well no more of that nonsense. I have found the perfect solution to those flimsy wire tomato cages – check out these super sturdy tomato cages. These are by far the sturdiest tomato cages I’ve ever seen or used, and you will love them too!
Sturdy Tomato Cages Stained Orange
My favorite tomato varieties to grow are Super Sweet Cherry, Beefsteak, Cherokee Purple and Brandywine. I haven’t had a tomato plant yet that’s been too large for these sturdy tomato cages to support. Come wind, come rain, come hail (well…no hail please!), my tomato plants aren’t going anywhere.
Interested in building your own Sturdy Tomato Cages?
Click the “Buy Now” button to purchase your step by step instructions.
A Step-By-Step Guide to Building Sturdy Tomato Cages
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Last year and this year I have just used sticks from pruning as stakes. I put one tall (5-ish foot tall) stick in the ground per tomato plant before planting. I use jute twine to loosely tie the stem to the stake, and add more twine and stakes as it grows. It works pretty well, and the only time I lost any plants was in the 50 mile/hour wind storm a few weeks ago.
Your tomato cages
Wow, those are REALLY nice! We use a really large chicken wire, they seem to work great, even with the heavy storms we have here in georgia(not that we've had any yet this year lol, let alone rain 🙁 ) BUT we have 40 tomato plant's and building 40 of those would be very time consuming and idk how cost effective. Hope they work out for you!
Wow I really like those! They look very sturdy and they are nice looking! This year I am only using indeterminate tomatoes and I'm going to try and have them climb a trellis made with pvc pipes and nylon mesh. They look like soccer nets, but hopefully they'll work better than my cages did last year!
@Michael – I understand about not having the same amount of tomato plants every year. I have a small garden so I can't do more than 4 tomato plants. I guess if I ever want to do more, I'll have to build more cages! 🙂 Ha, not that I have anywhere to store them either. (They stay in the garden during the winter.)
@…and she lived… – Thanks! I hope your trellises work for you
These look great, and thanks for including the plans.
Hi theimperfectgardener! Thanks, I'm glad you like them. Have fun if you decide to try building them for yourself.
Amy
That is actually very attractive, I too might try to make a few. 🙂
Thanks nk – have fun! Now that the wood on mine has started to fade, I think I'm going to paint them this year. I haven't decided if I'm going to do one neutral color for all, or mix it up with some fun colors.
Amy
I've never found anything I like that's sturdy enough*–only problem is I have about 10 to 20 tomato plants–heh. I used the stakes and twine method with varying results. Maybe I'll try building a few of these cages and see how it goes!
*Actually there's one cage thing of my mom's I appropriated, but they're like $35 each if I were to buy them. Nope.
P.S. Not being a handyman, I can't tell what the dimensions or name of the wood is–1x1s?
Hi Monica – Yes, that's the problem with these cages…if you have a lot of tomatoes, it's going to be too hard to build all those cages. I did a few smaller varieties of tomatoes last year and planted them on the outside of the cages, then tied them up to the cages. It worked pretty well. I was going to try experimenting with different solutions next summer and see if I can find
Thanks! I was actually thinking of placing them offsset and then planting some tomatoes in between two cages, and tying them to either side. It might just work!! My brother-in-law has a workshop in his garage, so if I get the wood, it should be fairly easy for him to help me make them. Hey yo! Also, I swore (SWORE) I would grow no more than 10 tomatoes this year, so this might be doable.
I think that would work! I'm excited that you might try building these – let me know if you do. I was thinking you could modify them to be slightly smaller, then they wouldn't take up so much space. Good luck, I hope your BIL makes these for you.
Amy
Silly question..I don't see any screws into the frame..just into the dividers, do any go into the frame and how far does this go into the ground..:)
Hello, sorry I didn't add those details to this post. The screws that hold the vertical divider pieces in place are screwed into the horizontal frame. Hope that makes sense. As far as putting it in the ground, we dig a hole deep enough for the legs, try to get the frame as level as we can, and then fill the hole back in with dirt. After it's in place, I plant the tomatoes. It's a bit
do these rot after being in the ground a couple of seasons? My topsoil is very thin, and over a bed of almost pure medium size rock (about 2.5 in.) Maybe if I take some square tubs and remove the bottoms, then fill with good soil (mirace grow twice as big is good) then put the stakes on the outside of the tubs that might work. thanks!
No, so far they have lasted pretty well. I take them out of the ground after I pull the plants in the fall, so the cages are only in the ground for about 5 months max. Taking them out of the ground for the winter makes them last longer.
Thanks for your great blog. I too was searching for some tips to support my tomato plant. I was able to gather some information from your post. Hope i would succeed in growing my tomatoes.
Great, glad I could help!
I bought 6' wood stakes and have been meticulously tying my plants up them – it's a pain and not all that secure. These look much easier. I am wondering, though, some of my plants get very tall (8'). Do you ever have an issue with the plants toppling over the top?
The plants do grow over the top, and I'll just tie them to the cage. I don't let my tomato plants grow much taller than the cages though, I've never had one get near 8' tall (WOW, 8' tall?)! 🙂 I trim them, which helps them produce more tomatoes and makes for bushier plants. You could probably make your cages taller if you want taller plants. But I don't think 8'
Hi Amy 🙂 From the looks of the photo it looks like the lower horizontal frame is smaller than the middle which is smaller than the top one. Is this an optical illusion or are they graduating to a smaller frame as they are closer to the ground?
Hi Sylvia! Nope, it's just the angle of the photo. the squares are all the same size. 🙂
Amy
I didn't read all the comments, but I was wondering if it would work to make the end pointed in order to set the frames into the ground easier? In that way, it might be easier to plant the tomato plant first and then set the frame over the plant and put weight on the frame to push it into the ground.
I think it would depend on how hard your ground is. We have very soft, sandy soil and we have to dig down a bit and then pound ours in. We could probably just pound them in as they are now, but I would worry that the force might break or weaken the cages over time. (I rotate my crops, so I pull these out every fall and put them back in the spring.) I think even if we sharpened the legs to points,
I was inspired by pictures you posted of these cages a year or two ago, and had my husband build a large frame that stays in the ground. I was able to fit eight wire cages inside the large wood cage and planted eight tomatoes just this week.
I used firring strips and 1 x 1s and the frame is about 9 ft long x about 2 ft wide x about 4 ft above ground.
I love it! Thanks for the inspiration.
Wow, that sounds great! Glad to hear that I inspired you. Thanks for sharing your story. 🙂
Amy
Love the look of these and even when they’re bare, it’s a nice sculptural look. For storage, though, seems like you could make slightly graduated sizes that would still be appropriate for the plants and then out of season they could be stored one inside the other like nesting dolls. With three each of three sizes, you could store nine cages stored in the space of three. Not sure if that would be as aesthetically pleasing in the garden, though.
I just leave them out in the garden all winter, so storage isn’t an issue for me. But yes, I bet you could figure out how to make them stackable. That’s a great idea!
Amy
Did you use pressure-treated wood?
Yes we did.
Amy
Yep, we have so many cages and long stakes and tree limbs recycled and have tried so many thing sover the years but always end up with a tangled mess of tomato plants in our raised beds. I am so making these using leftover wood and fallen limbs. I use pantyhose rings (learned from Martha eons ago!) as ties. My 7 yr old gets a kick that her (shredded!) red plaid tights are now plant ties.
That’s a great tip to use old pantyhose as plant ties! Repurposing is awesome!
Amy
How have these supports held up season to season? Is this a once a season build or usable for multiple seasons?
Definitely useable for multiple seasons. We built them 5 years ago, and they are still going strong. The screws have loosened up a bit, but they are totally sturdy once they are in the ground (we move them around for crop rotation every year). The legs are starting to wear down a bit (in the area that’s underground), but it will take several years for them to rot through. We take them out in the fall, so they don’t spend the whole winter in the ground. They will definitely last several more years.
I am going to make an attempt to build some of these this week! Wish me luck!
Awesome Kara! Good luck!
I’ve just built 3 of these using pressure-treated wood, thanks for the idea! To make mine more sturdy, I glued them together using waterproof glue in addition to using screws. We’ll see how they perform once the tomato & tomatillo plants which are going to go inside them are big enough to plant outside…
Awesome, and you are welcome!
I’ve got some new Fir Green wood preserver on the way- I wonder how they would look with a green tint?
I use plenty of wood preserver too, applied by brush to the cut ends of wood. I dip the feet and soak them for a while to get good absorption.
What a great idea. I am growing cherry tomatoes and only have one plant more next year!Visiting from #HomeMattersParty hope to see you back!
Awesome! Thanks for stopping by!
Those look great. I gave up after years of failure, and started pinning them up to cattle panel. Next best thing. They grow up like trees