Making Tomato Cages

I busied myself building tomato cages for my tomatoes this weekend. I find the ones from the store kinda flimsy, plus I don't like the way they are all narrow at the bottom, so I employed them to grown my cucumbers on instead and then made my own tomato cages. See my new cages in action (notice the cheapie store bought ones in the background quickly being consumed by the cucumber plants):




To make tomato cages just acquire a big ol' roll of caging, then measure out the correct length to make the right diameter cage you would like (Diameter = Circumference/3.14). I made my cages about a foot and a half wide. Snip the wire off the roll with wire cutters, roll up, then bend the ends around to make hooks to secure the cage together. Then snip off some of the horizontal wire at the bottom to leave vertical wire posts(4-6 inches is good)to stick in the ground to hold the cage in place. Easy-peasy! And so much more durable than those cheesy ones they sell at the store!

Oh and I have been harvesting carrots lately. I got a free pack of St. Valerie carrot seeds from Baker Creek seeds and so I planted them to see how they would do. these were long carrots and wasn't sure how they would do in my soil - the shorter carrots tend to do better in heavier soil like I tend to have in my garden. The result:



They grew very nicely! And taste good too. I will plant these again.

And here are some coreopsis - they are looking super pretty right now: