wrote in message
...
I am rather new at gardening and I put quite a few tomato plants in my
small garden and they are taking over the whole thing. Someone told
me I need metal tomato rings. Yeah, I know what they are. But 2
problems. First off, I think it may be too late to install them. But
maybe I can still move the plants (maybe). The other thing is those
rings are quite costly and I am on a very tight budget. This garden
is supposed to save money not cost a fortune. Can I make them out of
any sort of recyclable item? I have a scrap metal pile, any ideas?
Maybe just wooden sticks?????

Finally, for some reason, some sort of squash or pumpkin, or
watermellon is growing in the garden. I know it's one of those type
of plants. It is growing on it's own. However, I did toss some old
squash and things in there in spring. They had gone bad to eat, so I
just tossed them out there. I assume one of them is what I am seeing.
They are fortunately growing near the edge of the garden where I put
some lettuce which the rabbits ate, so I may as well let them grow and
they are getting flowers already. Whatever they are will be a
surprise. However they were growing into the tomatoes. I pulled them
off and got them going over onto the lawn now. Is there some sort of
thing I should put on them to climb? If yes, what?

Thanks

Mark

To paraphrase garden writer James Crockett, no self-respecting tomato plant
will be PROPERLY supported by any of the silly contraptions sold in stores &
catalogs. You have to build your own, but you only need to do it once.

With the help of several people, you MIGHT be able to lift the plants, slip
a properly designed cage over the plant and get it upright. But, you'll
probably damage the plant. On the other hand, the deer are decimating the
branches of my plants that stick out of the pages, and I'm still getting
loads of tomatoes. Apparently, the plants are very resilient. Just don't
damage the main stem. Or trunk, if your plants are monsters already.

Here are pictures of cages that (based on experience) will stand up to 60
mph winds:
http://s27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/ancientangler/

They're made from 5 foot high plastic coated fence wire, $50-ish per roll at
Home Despot. The stuff lasts forever, unless you lose your cages in your
divorce, in which case you have to buy more wire. After assembling them, cut
4-5 larger holes to reach into for weeding & harvesting. The holes tend to
get lost in the foliage, so mark them by tying some bright colored ribbon at
each spot. And, metal fence posts (about $4.00 each) work better than the
tubular posts shown in my pictures.

The beer in the picture is not mandatory, but recommended.