Tomato outgrowing cage

[CrazyConure]

I have a bigger tomato plant that outgrew the cage, so I ziptied another cage upside down to extend it. Only problem is that it gets so top heavy that the entire pot keeps falling down.

How do you stake indeterminate tomato plants?

 

[DirtMechanic]

View attachment 47937

I have a bigger tomato plant that outgrew the cage, so I ziptied another cage upside down to extend it. Only problem is that it gets so top heavy that the entire pot keeps falling down.

How do you stake indeterminate tomato plants?

I use cattle panel. It costs about 20 bucks for a 54"x16 foot piece. It has thicker zinc coated steel. Since the tomato likes cool feet, I thought "hey make a horizontal trellis" and it worked out well. You can cut cattle panel to 24" and bend it 90 degrees in the middle and make a tall, up to 16 foot, two piece square cage that is zip tied together that would help your plant. Get a ladder! If the stems do not bend over and pinch themselves off, it will grow up more vigorously. You can also spread it out horizontally, and if that is the case put the panel on the sun side with the pot on the shade side. You need to train it as low as possible though, the panel is only 54"wide so that becomes the height on a horizontal panel.

 

[Chuck]

Indeterminate plants can get unruly. You can do as @DirtMechanic says or you can do it the cheap easy way. Line your tomatoes up into a line. Then get two 5 gallon buckets (or more if needed). Get you a 2"x2"x6ft board for each bucket. Center the board in the bucket and fill with something heavy like playground sand. Then run gardening twine down both sides of the plants. The following pictures can explain if you look closely. Pretend the rebar is your board.

 

[roadrunner]

This guy had a similar problem, I'm going to give it a try later this year with some of my out-of-control tomatoes...