These tomato cages are made from concrete remesh, which can be purchased just about anywhere and once assembled, they make one of the world‘s most sturdy tomato cages for just a few bucks. I will show you step-by-step how to make it and it’s so easy.
47 Comments
Thankyou brother
Great idea thanks for sharing
Cut off wheel on an angle grinder (preferably) is vastly superior to bolt cutters.
These last forever. Wonderful. I also discovered trellis connecting buckles this year. They let me create trellises out of any stick like item, including branches – which look lovely in my cottage, polyculture garden. They blend right in. 😊
They are cheap and awesome, be up to date on your Tetnis shot. Livestock will break it easy. Rust asap. They will help you trellis, not fence in livestock. Livestock use a galvanized sheep panel vs concrete mesh.
Rusty as F!
chicken wire is $15 for 50 feet x 2 feet. Or $35 for 50' x 4'. You can loop it the same way. Works great for potted tomatoes.
Hey Luke . .I'm using four tomato cages just like this that my father in law built when my husband was about 5 years old…..dear hubby is now 58, so they do last a long time.i think I will use some of my plant money to purchase a few pieces of remesh .. and make some more in my Poppy's honor ❤
Haha I was thinking tetanus booster shot just as you were saying it!
needle nose pliers work best
Cattle panels work well too. You’re not bending them though 😂. We have predominantly south/southwest winds in our growing season. They are in a permanent location. They don’t budge even in high winds.
I just place the mesh straight across the plants with posts supporting the mesh, then tie the plants to the mesh as they grow providing more support.
We found a F ton of T posts on fb marketplace. We use this & the posts to make fencing. I will have to share this with my husband.
4×10 at Lowe’s costs $20 plus tax. 😮
Made many of these, work great. Grow on a fence now. Ive seen where they make triangles instead of circles leaving the third connection unattached. They then fold flat. God bless
Ha! Luke you must be a mind reader! Just tonight I was trying to figure out how to explain to my adult daughter how to build her own old school tomato cages. She messaged asking for advice about staking 4 tomato plants she was just gifted and she has already planted. I have many of these cages I could give her but I live 5 hours away! Thanks for your timely video!!
Rusty
I’m 71 years old and I haven’t seen cages like this in forever! So much better than the spindly stuff you buy now. Good of you to introduce these to young gardeners!
So where do you store these puppies when you're done? Eh?
If you don’t have the space to store round ones, you can cut cattle panels and use 3 sides, in a triangle form, zip tie them, and when finished, they can lay flat for less storage space.
Thank You!
Dad made these around 1978. I'm still using them. Some of the feet broke off due to being rusty but I use long 12 inch landscape staples to help hold them in the ground. I use those flimsy tomato cages in green for flowers that tend to fall over. Cheaper than the grid like circles.
use a 1/2 inch short tube (6-8 inches) to bend the ends, way easier
I have some of these that my dad made out of fencing over 30plus yrs ago. They do last a life time. My dad has been gone for over 10 years but his tomatoe cages live on. ❤ When Im gone they will go to my son. 🙂
We make these out of 50 foot rolls of remesh. Exact same thing. We got 9 out of the roll and ours were just a tiny bit bigger around, this is the best tomato cage ever. I have some that have to be10, maybe 15 years old! The rust ages and stops rubbing off on you in one season.
Make sure you stake those cages. When the plant gets big the wind will blow it over, plant and all. I'm 77 been there done that!
At our local Menards the 4×8 remesh panels are $6.99. A 5'x150' roll is $128.99. (less if you send in your 11% rebate receipts). A 150' roll will yield 36 cages, making them only $3.58 each. I had about 50 feet or so of 6" mesh woven wire field fencing left over and have been using that for making tomato cages. It's heavy duty, galvanized, and it was left over material from another project.
When we bought our property 9 years ago, I became the not so proud owner of 5 f those flimsy ones. I chucked them into a corner until last year when I had a great idea how to use them. I set them over some pepper plants upside down and secured them to the ground with those long staples they use for landscape fabric. I secured the upside down legs together into a tepee.. Voila! perfect size for peppers and easy for picking the peppers. Also the little tepees are easy to cover for shade. I used old king size pillowcases and just slipped them on when needed. Very handy.
We had two German shepherd who would try to dig under the fence and my boyfriend lined the ground along our fence line and it completely stopped them. What a relief!
I love how excited you are about these so much that I want to make some even though they won’t work in my situation 😆
Trying the Florida weave this year on mine
Is there a reason you used channel lock pliers?
Here concrete remesh 5×10 are $20 at lowes and home depot and i can tell you they are very thin gauge wire. So flimsy and rust through in one season. I'll be looking at cattle panel for about $30 here for this project to get longevity.😢
get a 16 foot cattle panel and its not going to rust
nice…I've done that! I also make tomato cages from the bamboo I grow,! It is hardy , 15 to 20 feet tall, two to three inch diameter every year a new crop and does well in northern Indiana , I literally grew my garden fence from my bamboo!!
Those are channel locks not pliers😂😂😂
Thanks luke..love it
Thank you for showing us. I did not buy any tomato cages at the big box stores because they were so flimsy. Will be enlisting my husband to help me do these
When I planted my tomatoes they were 1 1/2 feet tall.
I have so much wind 6 inch is not deep enough. My need to go in 10 or more inches.
Can you get mesh that isn’t rusty.
I've been teaching for years to use hog or cattle panels horizontally and it works like a charm and easy! Another great option
Many Kansas Master Gardeners in their state tomato trials use these…however, most of then will pound a fence post in and secure it to a fence post because they have had them blown over by the frequent high mph winds that blow across the prairie.
Hey Luke, if you wanna step it up, a notch look into field fencing, it comes in large rolls, is galvanized, and has a similar cost profile. The main thing that might turn off, a lot of people is the initial upfront cost, and the weight of the roll.
I made these over a decade ago and still using them.
There's an Apple Breeder with cool new varieties, he's known as SkillCult, he has some Red Fleshed varieties and lives out in the Northwest.
Thank You! Perfect timing, mine are two feet max right now so I should be able to wiggle them in😊 great weekend project.
Game changer TY
This year, Aldi had the flat stile folding type cages (these had a coated red finish with 1 year guarantee). You can add extra panels also, each panel was $7.99
Now I went to Burpees web site because I wanted more(was perfect for me traing my zucchini to grow upright) omg price sticker shock. Look it up.
Back in the day, Frank's Nursery and Crafts Sold these very reasonably.