How To Make A Sturdy DIY Tomato Cage (With Pictures) - Growfully

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Picking the right support for your tomatoes is one of the more personal decisions a gardener can make. Ask 10 gardeners how they prop up their tomatoes, and you’ll probably get 10 different answers! The possibilities seem almost endless.

Here at Growfully, we highly recommend testing out different tomato supports to figure out what works for you and your garden. Today, we’re going to show you what we use in our Growfully gardens. We’ve tried all the methods, and we’ve landed on loving tomato cages—but not the kind of cages you get at your local hardware store. Nope, we make our own big, sturdy tomato cages using concrete reinforcing wire (AKA: remesh). This makes for affordable cages that last for years and give all your indeterminate tomatoes the support they need!

Why Use a Tomato Cage

Tomato plants—especially indeterminate varieties—thrive with a little extra support. Their tall vines aren’t quite sturdy enough to hold the plant upright, and giving the plants a little extra help can lead to higher tomato yields, less tomato cracking, and fewer tomato diseases. Plus, it makes it easier to harvest and maintain your plants!

There are lots of ways to support your tomatoes—cages, trellises, stakes, twine, rebar, ladders, livestock paneling (AKA: cattle panels), t-posts, poles, Florida weaves, garden obelisks, pipes, fencing, zip ties, OH MY! Each of them have their uses, but we think tomato cages are the easiest way to give support to tomatoes, especially if you only have a few plants.

Tomato cages are the easiest of options for beginning gardeners—no need to prune or tie up your tomatoes as they grow—just make sure the leaves and stems grow through the holes in the tomato cage.

Many folks do prune their indeterminate tomato varieties to just one main stem, but when you use big tomato cages, you don’t have to! We stopped pruning tomatoes years ago with great results—we just let those big plants live their best lives, all while supported by their sturdy cages.

The BIG Problem with Store-Bought Tomato Cages

So if tomato cages are so wonderful, why should you make your own instead of just picking up the ones at garden centers? Well, those cages have one big problem—and that BIG problem is that they are entirely too SMALL!

Growfully Protip

Those small store-bought tomato cages do work well for many smaller determinate tomatoes.

The cone-shaped tomato cages sold at the hardware store and on Amazon are wonderful for supporting small plants like peppers or eggplants, but indeterminate tomatoes can grow to be 6-8 feet tall or even more! Meaning a healthy tomato plant will outgrow those small tomato cages in a matter of weeks.