Farmall Cub

I thought I would share my homemade tomatoe cages I made this year, in the past I always tied up the tomatoe plants to the stakes, this year I went to home depot a bought a roll of concrete mesh (wire) it came in 5' x 150' roll. 6"x6" squares, which is great to get into the plants for picking. anyway I counted 10 squares and cut is off with bolt cutters, then I got a small nut driver and bent the ends to make hooks, then crimped the hook around the other end of the cage. and staked two sides. it makes the cage to be 2.5 ft.round 5 ft.tall, then I made smaller ones for peppers, eggplant. worked out really good.

Jack wrote:I thought I would share my homemade tomatoe cages I made this year, in the past I always tied up the tomatoe plants to the stakes, this year I went to home depot a bought a roll of concrete mesh (wire) it came in 5' x 100' roll. 6"x6" squares, which is great to get into the plants for picking. anyway I counted 10 squares and cut is off with bolt cutters, then I got a small nut driver and bent the ends to make hooks, then crimped the hook around the other end of the cage. and staked two sides. it makes the cage to be 2.5 ft.round 5 ft.tall, then I made smaller ones for peppers, eggplant. worked out really good.

I've been using the concrete wire for tomato cages, and for goat fencing too. I like the rust look. And 150 ft of it costs $107. Do the math. It's about 71 cents per foot, which is way less than people spend for much smaller fencing.

You may want to recount or remeasure. I made some well over 30 years ago and am still using them. I used 15 squares (7.5 feet) for each one and they are about 2.5 feet in diameter. I cut half way between the 2 cross wires then meshed them back on themselves so the cross wires at each end were tight together. I then twisted the loose ends along the wire. It was quite a lot of work, but they are durable. The other thing I did was to cut the last wire ring off one end. That leaves 6-inch prongs on that end. I then stab that end into the ground, no staking required. Extreme wind can blow them over, but it rarely happens.

Winfield Dave wrote:

In my raised bed garden, I try to keep a theme of rusty metal, so concrete wire is perfect.

Here's the goat's hay feeder, and a piece of fence. At the bottom I added rabbit wire, to protect the crops in the field.

Jim Becker wrote:You may want to recount or remeasure. I made some well over 30 years ago and am still using them. I used 15 squares (7.5 feet) for each one and they are about 2.5 feet in diameter. I cut half way between the 2 cross wires then meshed them back on themselves so the cross wires at each end were tight together. I then twisted the loose ends along the wire. It was quite a lot of work, but they are durable. The other thing I did was to cut the last wire ring off one end. That leaves 6-inch prongs on that end. I then stab that end into the ground, no staking required. Extreme wind can blow them over, but it rarely happens.

Jim I was wrong, I counted 10 squares which is 60"and measured about 19.5" around, my mistake sorry

Nice pics Guys...