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Question by Em: Should I try to “cage” my tomatoes after they’ve already matured?
I’ve never grown tomato plants before so I didn’t really plan for when they got huge. Basically I planted a bunch together and then left them for a couple months. Now they are all really big and tangled together. All the green tomatoes are sitting in the ground and getting eaten by pests. I want to try untangling and lifting the plants with a cage but I’m worried if by doing so I might injure the plants. Should I try to cage them anyway?
Best answer:
Answer by James
Oops! The best thing to do now might be to get pieces of scrap wood (ie. broom handle or yard sticks) cut into approx. 2’0″-3’0″ lengths, cut notches in them, and using strips of sheets, cloth ribbon, or clothes line (nothing too thin or with sharp edges…don’t use string, twine, plastic, or metal wire) to gently tie around plant vines and suspend them from the wood stakes…so they’re 6″-18″ off the ground.
Don’t try to untangle the plant vines as this will more likely than not cause them to break or cause the tomatoes to fall off.
If you have squirrels, etc. putting chicken wire around them will help.
What do you think? Answer below!
no, it will break the branches of the tomato plant. what you can do is get a stick from the store and attatch it to the tomato plant.
Do not try and untangle the tomato plants. Just call it a beginners gardening mistake and learn from it. Plan for cages or stakes next year.
But, you should get your tomatoes out of direct contact with the soil. Tomatoes on the ground are an invitation to disease. You can CAREFULLY lift the tomato branches and slide some cardboard under the fruit. You might try to prop up your plants a bit with some scrap lumber and 5 gallon buckets from home depot or cheap trash cans from the 99 cent store. Put them upside down.
I grow tomatoes every year. I live in a warm climate so I prefer caging to staking tomatoes. As the plants grow I trim them up so that no branches are laying on the ground. I also start my plants early under Wall-o-waters. As soon as I take that frost protection off, the cages go around the plants. I mulch the tomato plants with straw, cardboard, or even dried up mesquite beans.
I use concrete reinforcing wire cages. They are the most economical. Some of mine are 30 years old. They are rusty but still work well.