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TIL buying cheap tomato cages was a $30 mistake I won't make again
I stood in the garden center last spring staring at the $2 flimsy wire cages versus the $8 heavy duty ones. I bought 15 of the cheap ones because I thought, you know, tomatoes aren't that heavy. By July my plants were flopping over and three cages collapsed during a storm (last Tuesday, it was windy here in Austin). I ended up racing to Home Depot for stakes and twine to salvage everything. Has anyone else found a good middle ground that doesn't break the bank?
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sethhernandez10d ago
Jumped onto the same train my first year gardening. Those cheap wire cages bent like paper clips the minute my Roma tomatoes got any size on them. Had to zip tie mine to fence posts just to keep them upright. Save yourself the headache next time and grab some concrete reinforcing wire mesh from the hardware store. Cut it into circles and it'll last you forever for like the same price as two nice cages.
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drew_bennett2410d ago
My whole first season I was Team Cheap Cage all the way, thought everyone else was just being dramatic. Then my San Marzanos turned my "cage" into a metal tumbleweed by August and I had to admit defeat. You and the other commenters finally convinced me to go roll with concrete mesh next spring, no more pretending those flimsy things will cut it.
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jamiew5310d ago
OH man, I feel this one SO hard. I did the EXACT same thing last year, thought I was being smart saving a few bucks. My little $2 cages looked like sad pretzels after one thunderstorm, and I had tomato vines crawling across the driveway like they were trying to escape. I ended up tying them to some old broom handles I found in the garage, which looked RIDICULOUS but actually worked okay. So yeah, no real middle ground advice here, just solidarity in being cheap and paying for it later.
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