John from http://www.growingyourgreens.com/ shares with you his favorite ways to grow tomatoes vertically using a tomato cage. In this video John will explai…
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Question by B-ri: When to plant tomatoes in Massachusetts and what type of soil?
I am planning on growing tomatoes this year but don’t know much about it. I wanted to know when is the best time to plant them. I won’t be growing from seed, just using the starter plants. Also, what should I do as far as soil goes? should i put in some type of store bought soil? do I need to fertilize? if so what should i use?. thank you in advance.
Best answer:
Answer by Marduk
I’m from CT and I put tomatoes in starting May 20. If you put a little lime in that helps or so my father told me. Don’t go crazy on fertilizer, companies that sell it laud its’ wonders but they make money off it. My friends neighbor used to fertilize heavily, great plants, no tomatoes. If a plant is happy it will not fruit. If you want to amend soil use compost. I grow in containers and get a good crop. Don’t go overboard and see what happens. You may want to send soil samples to agricultural extension service to see what amendments you will need. They are very good at telling you and it is free sans postage. Gardening is a life long endeavor some years you win others you lose but there is always next year.
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Maybe some camera company can send you an HD video camera to review! Keep up the good growing vibes!
I started a Better Boy plant with the larger cheep cage at the begging of this video. The plant quickly overgrew this. My quick solution was to buy an identical cage and attach it to the first upside down with around 8 zip ties. I zip tied the 3 stakes in a Tee Pee at the top and anchored the cage to the wall for support. This is working fine as the plant is growing nicely up the addition. Problem now is the plant is getting to the last ring and I’m going to have to wrap around the Tee Pee. lol
I have been putting this off for way too long. My tomatoes started leaning 3 days ago.(Which was a huge sign that I ingnored). We had a storm come through and my plants decided to lay down and chill out.(My babies!!! O_O Thanks for the quick tips. I’m off to the hardware store!!!
hey john how are you doing?….I’ve seen the add for the Texas cages and it wasn’t as good as your report on them….once again i am glad to be one of your subbers( is that a new word?) i enjoy your reports…thanks.
The rust on the wire remesh is not a problem for the first 10 years and the remesh is actually superior from a cost standpoint. However, the Texas Tomato cages are superior for storage after the season. The cages are no longer $130 with shipping. Today they are $200 for 6 cages shipping included. That’s far too much today. The remesh cages are really cheap when you make them from a 150 ft roll, but you can’t store them easily.
I am curious as to what my best option is. I have tomato’s that are in cages and they have overgrown the cage by a foot or two. What is the best way to extend my cages? Should i just put another cage upside down on top and reinforce with rebar?
Theres a design fault on your cage, how will you get to the tomatos, through little gaps? oh you do know about this limitation, thanks
the shipping does kill the price, but if you live in Texas you get to pay another 20.00 for tax. ): sorry that makes it way too expensive for my blood.
These cages are nice but BEWARE when ordering. You don’t get cages that can stack together unless you order the extensions which will add much more dollars. So read carefully when ordering because if you make a mistake they will not let you cancel unless you pay them another $50.00 for cancelling.
Those are nice tomato cages!
Those look great, but yeah, seem a bit expensive. I’d probably use one for multiple plants, such as plant tomatoes AROUND the cage and tie them to the outside of the cage. I’d try anyways!
You would be great as a guest on a talk show. You have a really spontaneous personality that garden fans would love.
Who that is a nice cage but I couldn’t justify that within my budget. I like using 6 or 7ft t-posts about 6-8 ft apart with nylon cord at 18-in intervals. Works a charm for me.
yep the shipping cost is killing the price ……great looking well thought out
i like the texas cages ! perfect
Hey John, ever thought of cutting out some of the wire from your cages to make the access. better. understandably the wire is thinner. but you can maybe cut out every 2nd one and alternate as you go upwards to allow for your structure to remain strong. also you could tie bamboo 6foot poles to the sides to reinforce.
just a suggestion.
What would you recommend then (honestly asking). I like the idea of using the sturdier (self-made) cages out of the concrete wire (wrong name?) but did not this year b/c of the price. What do you do/recommend on a smaller budget?
the trouble l had with wire cage was them getting to hot on hot days and marking the tomatos l only used them for one season and went back to cage,s made out of timber 2×1 be interested if anyone else had this prob with wire cages when it got to hot
can we have a texas cage in use video a plant to harvest type video
With your home built cages, do you use them for vine or bush varieties? or both? Do you have enough room to get your hand in them to harvest?
I have 18 tomato plants
So it has come to this, shilling for overpriced Texas tomato cages. And what do you get out of it? Sad.
so where is the follow-up video for these TX style cages?
I prefer to grow my own bamboo and use some of the stalks for tomato stakes and even made a few cages out of bamboo this year, they work really well and best of all they’re free and compostable. Also do some research, different types of bamboo grow well in different climates if you want to try this!
Wonderful idea, but too expensive.