Steve Calvin wrote:

DigitalVinyl wrote:

A well designed cage works great, almost no maintenance, just poke the
growing tips back inside.

An example...
http://www.gardenerssupply.com/Shopp...&RecGroupNum=1
I found them slightly cheaper elsewhere, but you could build similar.

I let my tomatoes grow wild, no pruning. I end up with 6-7 foot tall 2
foot wide bushes. The ones by the porch steps I actually ran string
down to the cage and they grew up the string after filling the
cage--then I had to tie them. But if I have to tie a few vines that
are 9-10 feet in the air I'll struggle with that extra work.

The trick is large openings on the cage. I have big hands and getting
to any fruit has never been an issue. I see my landlord's staked
tomatoes. He pinches, ties them, they sag, they droop. Eventually he
just leaves them however they are. Never an issue with these
particualr cages.

And they are folding and re-usable. They were worth the investment.
I'm looking at buying another four this year to deal with my expanded
garden.

That's the kind that I have. I just finding tying easier. To each their
own I guess.

Do you pinch out a lot?
That's why I went with cages. First year I tried to stake and the
thing was growing so fast and flushing out, i really didn't like the
idea of pinching out so much. I'm sure people probalby get larger
tomatoes with pinching/staking

To me,I don't think you can stake/tie without managing the growth of
the plant regualrly and limitng it to the one or two vines per stake.
Also my stakes are only about 6 feet, too small for tomatoes. My
landlord pinches/stakes and I outproduce him, though he gets some
larger tomatoes.

I also used two of these cages at either end of a garden bed. In
between I ran bamboo and string for beans to climb up, which worked
well for me. SO their stability acted as supports for more than my
tomatoes.

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email)
Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound
3rd year gardener
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/royalf...=/2055&.src=ph