The Best Tomato Cages I Have Ever Used
Do not waste your time with any other foldable tomato cage. If you are growing indeterminate tomatoes in ground, in containers, or in straw bale gardens, I have great cages to recommend to you. These are the best tomato cages that I have ever used. They make growing really easy.
What Makes These Tomato Cages the Best
The best tomato cages I have used, after years and years of hard abuse and personal testing, are definitely Texas Tomato Cages. I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not make a commission on any sale of this product. I just love the Texas Tomato Cages, plain and simple. Below are some great reasons why I love them.
Super Strong Tomato Support
My favorite thing about the cages is that they are super strong. Since 2010, when I first began using the cages regularly, I have grown hundreds of indeterminate tomato plants. They have grown heavy, over the height of the six-foot cages, and the metal of the cages has never broken or bent in the wind.
In the image to the right, you can see that we were hit by a monsoon early summer and it knocked all my large tomato container gardens over, but the tomato cages themselves survived with no problem. All I had to do was lift up the containers and set them right.
The Best Tomato Cages are Foldable
You read it right – these tomato cages are foldable. When you are done with the cages for the season, simply rinse them off, fold them up, and store them for the off season. It is easy to hang them in a garage, barn, or basement over the winter.
When it is spring again, you can put the cages up with the flick of a wrist and get your tomatoes growing with no problem.
Perfect Height Tomato Cage
Another reason these are the best tomato cages is that you are able to add on to the top of them. Start with a short cage when you initially plant your tomato starts, then top with extensions to reach six-foot or taller as the tomato plants grow.
These cage supports require far less tying and wrapping as the plants rest easily against the metal of the round support. Even heavy fully-ripe tomatoes rest easily within the cage.
Grow Other Vegetables
Choose from medium 20-inch in diameter or large 24-inch in diameter cages as they work well for tomatoes, but also for other vining plants of all types. The cages fit well in ground, on straw bales, or inside large containers equally well. If you have a small space, a few large containers can make a perfect corner tomato garden.
I even place the cages over my cactus and shrubs that need to be shaded in the hot Arizona summers, covering the cages with a shade cloth.
What Happened This Season with the Best Tomato Cages and The Great Tomato Experiment
This season I ran The Great Tomato Experiment, putting tomatoes in containers for the first time here in Arizona. It was a lovely experiment and I had great success most of the cool spring. I documented the experiment, sharing soil, containers, and fertilizer I used as well as a list of benefits to grow tomatoes in containers.
The problem? Very high temperatures here in Mesa, Arizona. In my former home location of central Illinois, I would have done fine, but planted the tomatoes too late for the area. It hit 115°F (46.1°C) in early June in Arizona, which put the tomatoes in crisis mode. All the tomatoes suffered with bottom end rot due to heat and watering issues. After June the plants began to brown.
Other vegetables including sweet potatoes and Malabar spinach did fantastic all summer in the heat, but those poor tomatoes took a serious dive. And that’s to be expected in extreme heat the first inexperienced time you grow tomatoes in Arizona.
What I Learned This Tomato Growing Season
I learned a lot from using the best tomato cages ever this season. First of all, Texas Tomato Cages can survive a monsoon. They stand up well in the heat and overall do well in large container gardens. The cages continue to be awesome after years and years of use. That makes them well worth the investment.
This challenging heat season was a reminder that one difficult growing year does not make a failed tomato gardener. Clearly I learned my lesson. Next season I plan on planting the tomatoes early so the extreme heat will be missed and my garden will be filled with all the ripe tomatoes. Happy tomato growing!