Best tomato cages: Six picks from the pros

  

Nicholas Staddon: The director of the new plants team for grower Monrovia likes those traditional cone-shaped cages with three prongs to anchor in the ground. When tomatoes no longer need the support, he uses the cages for kiwi, raspberries, clematis, honeysuckles — all sorts of vines. You can turn vines into shrubs by letting them grow on these cages, he said. In his yard, they become resting spots for birds, particularly hummingbirds. The cages now come in all kinds of colors, as pictured here, but Staddon said he goes with the basic unfinished gray. (Photo credit: Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

Ivette Soler: “I make my own from rebar and concrete reinforcing mesh, but I do recommend these tomato ladders from Gardener’s Supply all the time.” said Soler, the L.A. garden blogger behind thegerminatrix.com.

The ladders (pictured at right and in detail at the top of the post), are modular, so each 32.5-inch-tall piece can be used individually or stacked.

They’re sturdy — made of steel that’s heavier than the cages you typically see in garden centers.

And they’re powder-coated with a weatherproof finish that’s colorful (available in red or green) and attractive while the plants are young.

Price: about $50 for a set of six.

(Photo credit: Gardener’s Supply Co.)

 

Yvonne Savio: The manager of the UC Cooperative Extension’s Common Ground Garden Program said her favorite design is a square cage that is connected at all corners but is still able to fold flat. Alas, the design appears to be no longer commercially available.

“The ones that are currently available have one open connection that doesn’t always keep shut,” she said.

So Savio makes do in various ways. For some plants she stacks square cages as double-deckers with a pole driven deep into the soil in one corner. For extra stability, she secures another pole horizontally between cages with recycled-plastic ties. (Photo credit: Yvonne Savio)

John Lyons: The garden consultant and instructor behind www.thewovengarden.com said he couldn’t find a tomato cage that he liked in stores, so he is designing and fabricating metal tuteurs, like the one at right, for his clients.

The design is meant to provide “an architectural element to the vegetable garden” as well as “hold the plant through the entire season without keeling over.”

Every year the L.A. at Home crew is amazed by the passion with which readers try to perfect the art of growing tomatoes. The zeal comes a close third behind that of dog lovers and cat lovers. (Sorry, felinophiles, but yes, you are second. But a close second). So let the tomato cage debate begin: Send us your homespun tomato-support solution to home@latimes.com. We’ll post some submissions in the weeks to come.

ALSO:

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How to prune tomatoes

— Craig Nakano

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