Find a new home builder's dumpster to find anything which is useful, even unused sod, electric wire, buskets, etc

Go to home depot inside's big garbage can to find unused wood for free

This post was edited by JCTsai on Mon, Mar 17, 14 at 14:57

Instead of trying to stake individual plants, are you able to stake fence rows? You could put sturdy posts, with steel wire strung between them, like rungs on a ladder. Larger rolls may be less expensive per foot if available, but I buy small rolls about 20 feet long, coated with plastic, at the hardware store for just a few dollars. The posts could be rebar, wood, PVC, whatever you can find/afford. They don't have to be the same materials, use 1 of these, 1 of those...

Things like discarded metal-frame lawn chairs, trampoline frames, swingset, election sign frames, can all be things for toms to climb/lean on.

A can of spray paint can at least make everything the same color if that's a concern.

As purpleinopp says, I have also seen where someone set up tomato-staking with 2 poles (or more, depending on your total length) and several lines of string or rope through the area where the tomatoes are. The tomato main stems are then weaved in and out of these ropes.

For this weekend with the Home Depot Spring Black Friday sale, they are also having 10 tomato cages for $10.

An additional idea for individual tomatoes. Buy or get for free some bamboo poles. If you are getting them for free from someone's yard, you can probably find about any height you want and about 0.5-2" thick probably.

Put them around the tomato plant and tie the tops up together in a teepee formation. At that point, you also horizontally tie up twine or something to have horizontal lines to attach to the tomato if you don't want to attach just to the vertical parts (or using small thin bamboo sections, make that as your horizontal part)