These are the best homemade tomato cages I have made. They hold up every year, and are easy to put away, and they don’t break like those cheap tomato cages. Watch the video to see how to make tomato cages my way.
How to make the Best Homemade Tomato Cages
I use concrete reinforcing wire to make tomato cages. These come 9′ long, and we will cut them down. There are two gauges of wire avail for concrete mesh, buy the thinner kind if there is a choice.
Lay down the wire on the ground, and cut the mesh in to pieces as shown in the video. Be sure to wear eye and ear protection if you are using a power tool. You can also use bolt cutters to cut the wire.
I bend the end wires over the adjoining piece of wire mesh, you could also use wire or cable ties to connect them. If you use wire, you could dis-assemble the best homemade tomato cages for storage. Wear gloves when working with the mesh or wire, it saves your hands from cutting cut and being stained with rust from the metal.
To keep the cages upright, I weave a 1×2 stake through the mesh once or twice. Drive the stake in and the cage wont go anywhere. If you are using raised beds (video to build them here) screw the stake into the side of the bed, works great for stability.
An alternative is to buy a roll of concrete mesh. You can cut off a length of it and tie it together. My issue with this is that the roll of mesh isn’t very wide, so you get a short tomato cage, and most tomatoes do well in a tall cage, I think.
I find these cages work really well for cherry tomatoes. Those stalks grow all over the place and tend to get taller than most other tomatoes, and these cages are up to the challenge. I like taller plants because my dogs will eat the cherry tomatoes off the vine at their level, so tall plants are necessary!
Its best to bunch the paper pots together under grow lights, as the paper can wick away moisture from the seed staring soil, packing the pots close together cuts down on that evaporation. You can watch our how to 
Determinate plants are compact.
