Make your own tomato trellises and cages.

Plant cages and trellises are a major part of garden equipment because many crops are not only more productive, but more resistant to disease when grown on supports, even if it's as simple as a stake in the ground. One very important way is to keep your tomato plants off the ground. This will avoid diseases, protect your plants from animals, make it easier to harvest, and allow you to fertilize and monitor any problems. If you decide to build supports around tomato plants, do it when the vines are still small enough so that you won't have to bend and damage them. Be careful not to disturb the deep tomato roots when driving stakes. Keep them a foot or more away from the plant's center and use soft twine, plastic tape, or cloth to tie vines.

Although vertical gardening is the old kid on the block, many growers use a variety of options to train tomato growth. Vines can be made to grow up a trellis, a fence, or any vertical support. This space-saving technique offers cleaner and healthier trouble-free fruit.

One tried-and-true method is to use wooden stakes. This simple old-fashioned support system requires an eight-foot 2 x 2 with a "V" cut at the bottom end. Place the stake three inches away from a newly planted tomato plant, then use a hammer to drive the stake about one foot deep into the soil. Attach old strips of cloth or untreated twine, approximately every 10 inches up and along the stake by tying the strips tightly around the wood. As the tomato plant grows, loosely tie the stem to the stake. For best results, prune all but one or two main stems. Staked tomatoes usually produce fewer but larger tomatoes, since they are usually pruned to one or two main stems as they grow.

A ladder arrangement is another workable structure. Use an old ladder or simply nail a few cross boards to some 2 x 4s and use that instead. The ladder can be supported off the ground by concrete construction blocks placed on their ends. This will elevate the ladder 14-16 inches off the ground. That is equivalent to concrete blocks plus the height of 2 x 4s. The tomatoes can be planted under the ladder and trained to grow up through one of the holes. The vines can grow horizontally on top of the ladder which makes harvesting fruit much easier. It is also easy to get a hoe under the ladder to weed.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

One of the most popular structures, that doesn't require any pruning, is a wire tomato cage. When planted inside the cage, the produce is usually clean and of high quality because it is held within the confines of taut circular wire. The two basic types of tomato cages are the round type and those that fold flat but open up into a square. Both cages are installed by pushing the wire legs into the ground around a newly planted tomato. You can give the vines a helping hand by loosely tying the stalks to the cage with pieces of soft twine.

If you prefer to make your own circular cage, start by cutting a 6-1/2 foot length of wire and coil it to approximately 24 inches in diameter and 60 inches high. Cut off the bottom two levels of horizontal wire to create legs which you can push into the ground to hold the cage in place. To construct a cage made of concrete reinforcement wire using six-inch mesh, you will need a pair of bolt cutters and fence pliers. The conventional method is to cut a six-foot section of five-foot wide wire and bend it around to make a column that surrounds the plant. This can be anchored with a stake on both sides to secure the cage, protecting your plant from high winds. If you live in a part of the country that gets a lot of wind, you can try four six-foot dowels set into the ground and garden Velcro to tie the big plants up. A line of chicken wire with dowels and poles can be used next to the tomatoes. If in pots, use the dowels and Velcro.

To make a sturdy mesh cage, you will need a hammer, wire strips, a length of pipe and a heavy gauge 60-inch tall roll with six-inch square openings of wire mesh fencing. Be sure to use gloves and safety goggles as you measure off and cut a 78-inch length of fencing to end up with a 60" x 78" piece. Make the cuts at the ends of the square so you will have several extra inches of wire to use as a handle to close the cage.

Next, to create the cage, lay the fencing out on the ground and roll it up into a circle or column. Take a short, narrow piece of pipe and use it as a handle to loop each wire over and through the wire squares on the other side. The pipe gives you leverage to bend the heavy wire, and it protects your hands from any sharp points.

To anchor the cage into the ground, weave a wooden stake through the wires and hammer it into the ground. If you don't have a wooden stake, use a length of rebar, a PVC pipe or a metal tube.

Plant three or four tomato plants around the base of each cage. As the plants grow, you will need to tie them to the cage.

In the first dates after frost, you can drape plastic over the cage or trellises to encourage early plant growth. This works for several other crops as well. A five foot section will support peppers and eggplant and a four foot section will work a row of beans, keeping the pods up off the ground, preventing rotting issues.

If you are growing a bush variety, a small cage will be fine. But for larger tomatoes, sturdy homemade wire cages may be the better choice. They are easy to make and relatively inexpensive, and they're taller and more heavy duty than most readymade cages.

Another useful tomato support is a ladder trellis. You can either purchase a cedar trellis or make your own wood grids using 2 x 4 wood slats and leaning them together. Then lash or screw them together at the top for extra security. Garden twine can be looped up and down and across.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Another traditional do-it-yourself structure is a conical trellis that resembles a tepee. It can range from a simple, rough-and-ready trellis to a more elaborate and permanent garden structure.

A conical trellis can be constructed from old sticks or from thin bamboo stakes which will add an English garden look to your tomato bed. A simple tepee trellis can be made by staking four five-inch bamboo stakes into the ground to make a circle about two- to three-feet wide. Place the stakes at a slight angle and sink them a foot or so deep. After putting them together at the top, tie them off with garden twine. Short, busy tomato plants like the tepee. You can drive three 1" x 1" stakes a foot into the ground around the plant.

To make a larger tepee, cedar is an excellent choice because it is long lasting and has a rough surface that tomato vines can easily attach, cling to, and climb. Use three 1 x 2 cedar poles, each eight-feet long. Place the poles in a triangle shape, leaving approximately two feet between them. Be sure to sink each pole into the ground about four to six inches. Leave a section at the top of approximately five inches and lash the top ends of the bamboo together with twine to form a tepee shape. After planting the tomatoes under each of the three poles tie the plant at its blossom point and train each plant to one single stem. If cedar is unavailable, use strips of scrap lumber or large one-inch bamboo poles.

To make a tepee with PVC pipes, which are cheap, easy to work with and incredibly long lasting. Measure a rectangle on the ground, making it about 2' x 3'. Next, take the four pipes or length of lumber, each of which should be about eight feet long, and place them at the corners, setting them into the ground about 10 inches deep. As you set them into the ground, angle each toward the center. Pull the four poles together and overlap their ends to form a cone. Using heavy-duty twine, lash them together where they intersect.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

For small tomatoes, try growing them on a horizontal trellis made from PVC pipe. If you lack the tools to cut PVC pipe, any home improvement store will be accommodating.

Because of its strength and economical price, remesh works better than fencing. As with a circular cage made with concrete reinforcement, you will need a bolt cutter or fence pliers to cut it. Using five-foot wide remesh, bend 18 inches of each side at a 90-degree angle. Simply clamp the remesh between two boards on each side and bend, or hammer over an edge. Then cut the bottom wire off on both sides, leaving rows of six-inch stakes. Once driven into the ground, the trellis will be a one-foot high and two-feet wide. If you use three-foot rows, this gives you one foot between trellises. Center the trellis over the row of tomatoes. They will grow up through it, keeping the tomatoes off the ground.

For a wide trellis, make shorter lengths as "legs" and tie wider remesh or fencing across the top. Only bend 12 inches on each side and omit the cuts; this will increase the width to three feet. Use stakes to hold the trellis in place.

To control tomato vine growth, try using rebar and a cage. You can drive the rebar near the trunk of the plant and up through the middle of the cage. As the cage begins to tip, due to excessive weight of the plant, the rebar prevents the cage from falling over. One that takes the least room and expense is to take an eight-foot piece of rebar and drive it into the ground, planting the tomato next to it. As it grows up, use tie wires and lash to the rebar every foot.

An outrigger addition to an open fence makes a good support. Build a rectangular extension two feet wide from material complementary to the existing fence. Trim side stems until the main stem reaches the first support, and then tie the new stems as they grow.

A popular phonebooth-type structure can be built from redwood battens nailed to the tops of four 1" x 1" stakes. For a booth two feet square and three to six feet tall, drive the stakes a foot deep. As the tomatoes grow, wrap string around the outside to contain them.

There is always the upside down method of growing tomatoes, with the wide base down. Clip the leg wires intended to be stuck into the ground. Bend them into landscape staples. Use two per cage and you have created a stable cage that supports tomato plants in the most ferocious winds.

Some growers use a calf panel which can be purchased at a farm supply store. It's a 4' x 16' heavy duty galvanized wire panel, supported by two metal fence posts. Plant the tomatoes along the bottom of the panel and weave the stems up through the openings. The plants hold themselves up. Since the panels are built to contain frisky calves, it is a sturdy method to use for any plant that can grow on a trellis.

There is only one correct way to raise tomatoes. And that is whatever method works for you. Tomato cages, stakes, trellises, store-bought cages, "post and weave," tomato towers and homemade cages are wonderful inventions. Whatever the decision, at the end of the season, you will have enjoyed collecting this luscious fruit off your vines.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY S. TULLOCK