Diane - the triangular ones out of CRW sheets are STILL what I would recommend. They're sturdy, last 4-EVER and as far as the zip-ties....why couldn't you use wire that would make a twist-tie thingy kinda like from bread wrappers only more sturdy? A bolt of that would last a long, long time and maybe it could follow you & the CRW home some pay-day? You wouldn't even have to remove them every year, just twist them on to the cage for use the next year!

Wish you were closer. I'm not going to use half the ones we made last year and I'd be happy to loan them to you. Don't suppose any carrier pigeons could carry them that far, huh?

Paula

P.S. - yeh...I know...I've lurked over the last several months and now, I can't shut-up.

Diane, If I were starting over I might try to make "L" shaped sections out of CRW and stack them together in the off season (where I could hide them). In growing season you could haul the to the garden and tie them together around your plants. I have never tried this but it would be the first on my list to explore. I use "T" post and re-bar, but with the cost of both being what it is would cause me to look at something else. Plus my method is too much work. If I evet get my garden fixed like I want it I may leave everything in place year round and just let it be an eye sore.

Larry

Diane, If we only grew a dozen we would have a lot of options, but when we want a forest of tomatoes, we have to look at the cost and practicality. Darn it.

P-mac,
"I'm not going to use half the ones we made last year." I recognize denial when I see it.

Seedmama - pppptttttthhhhh! =)

Bwahahahahaaaa!!! Oh, poor Paula. I'm afraid seedmama has nailed you.

*pause to get myself back under control from the snorty laughing*

Good idea on the wire ties. I'd thought of plain wire but it rusts and gets "snappy" quickly. Plastic-coated wire, though, sounds like the ticket. Thanks!

Carol, while I'm not as bad as Dawn and her evil minions (I shall not name further names but if you feel a twinge of paranoia and/or guilt upon reading this, you may have an issue), I doubt I could ever plant just a dozen. It would be easier then, you're right!

Okay, so one vote for triangle (Paula) and one for square (two "L"s from Larry). I'm thinking that detail may not be a terribly big deal, other than how much CRW it takes up.

See what happens to me in winter?? I go nuts with details and planning. I'm surrounded by seed stash spreadsheets and graph paper. I have so many notebooks, scribbled with ideas and notes and grand plans, I may have to shred my way out. Mulch!

Diane

Diane,

You "only" go nuts in winter with details and planning? I go nuts year round.

Luckily I have property that is not visable to anyone except the cows and the deer in the pasture next door, so I can just pile up my cages "out of sight" behind the barn. However, I have made cages of different diameters and can nest them inside one another which cuts down some on the amount of storage space required.

I like the suggestions you've received for the triangles and the Ls and think either would work.

Paula, stop talking like you're going to 'cut back'. We all know better because none of us can cut back and grow fewer plants either. It is easy to say "I'm cutting back and growing less" but actually doing it is almost impossible.

Dawn

Here's a link to the Master Gardener's website that gives you some ideas, and the advantages/disadvantages of each.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Cages Reviews

Thanks, Susan. I'd not seen that link yet.

Dawn, I think I save up 95% of my insanity for the winter. At this point, I'm very, very tempted to go count each and every one of my bean (and other) seeds. Ahem.

Diane

Diane, I think "Bean Counters" make a lot of money, you may want to do that in the off season, then buy all the cages you want.

AGAIN, Diane and seedmama are living parallel lives, just spending their winters counting beans. LOL

I came back to retract my statement about the bean counters. Of course, I don't count mine, but I gasped when I opened my seed box and looked at how many I have. What was I thinking? I told Al that if I just cooked the seed we could live off of it for several days. LOL I am going to plant a lot of bush beans this year so I can get some in the freezer before the Japanese Beetles hit. I normally depend on pole beans for my main crop, but last year I planted Kentucky Wonder Pole and the beetles loved them. The one row of bush beans I planted had produced and were ready to be pulled by the time the beetles hit.

And tomatoes....how can I choose?

My DH suggested I pick out 6 tomatoes, and plant 6 seeds of each. I suggested he find a unused neighbors plot to garden in. He thinks we had too many tomatoes last year. What does that mean? Is that even possible?

Carol,

Six? Only Six? You can't choose only six. That would be impossible.

You cannot have too many tomatoes. It just isn't possible. Well, that's assuming you can them, freeze them or dry them. Now, if all a person wanted was enough for fresh eating, then I think it would be possible to grow too many.

I was just looking in the freezer a day or two ago and counting how many bags of dehydrated tomatoes we have left. I am trying to ration them out carefully so we'll have tomaotoes to eat until the fresh crop begins producing in late spring.

We don't any any frozen tomatoes left in the freezer, and we only have salsa because I went on a canning rampage a week or two back and canned about 5 dozen jars of things we were out of because we gave away so many at Christmas.

I admit I did have too many tomatoes the year that I was trialing a lot of varieties and planted 400 plants, and even with 300 plants the following year I found I was giving away as many as I was keeping. For most people that preserve food, though, there's never enough and certainly not too many.

As long as there is any unplanted space available for garden plants, you don't have "too many". I like the idea of finding an unused neighbor's plot to garden in!

I'd rather convert a half-acre of land to a larger garden space than spend my summer mowing that area! Tim has no idea I'm eyeing a half-acre, fairly-level plot with the idea it would make a great Three Sisters garden. I'm going to wait until we get the greenhouse finished, and then I'll break the news to him that we need a larger area for corn, with an electric fence to keep the raccoons out. One headache/project at a time.....

Dawn

I think I will just skip the corn this year, and I didn't want to put potatoes in my main garden but I don't have another place ready for them, so I guess I will go for one more year in the garden. I'll just put them in another place so they aren't such an eyesore when they start turning brown and falling over.

Yes, Diane and I live parallel lives. Sometimes I wonder if we are the same person, don't you? She mentioned her graph paper in another thread. Let me just say I have almost as many sheets of graph paper as I have seeds. When I was stocking up on nickle packages this summer during school supply sales, the round-eyed kid at the cash register asked, "So. Are you like a math teacher or what?" I just left it alone. Same kid probably thinks seed racks should be put out in mid February.

Last winter a friend gave me a partial roll of field fencing. It is 4' tall with 6" vertical stays and horizontal rows starting at 4" and graduating up to 6" at the top. Lumber 2 at I-240 and Sooner has it priced at $120.00 for 330ft. It's heavy gauge galvanized wire and supposed to last 20-40 years. I believe it, it's tough.

I weave my cages down over a T-post leaving them 18" above ground for a cage that is actually 5.5ft. tall, tying them to the T-post a couple of times with baling wire.

330 ft. would make approx. 73 cages 18" in diameter for a cost of $1.80 ea. or 55 three sided collapsible cages with 24" sides for a cost of $2.40 each.

I need to replace about 20 cages but no way need 73, so if anybody in the OKC area would like to co-op on this let me know.

I've attached a link below that shows the fencing material.

Also I believe every gardener should have a roll of baling wire and one of those big basketball sized balls of heavy hemp garden twine.

Keith

Here is a link that might be useful: Hinge Joint Woven Wire Field Fence

I'm down to my last two pads of graph paper -- BUT, getting nervous about the dwindling stash, I downloaded a template so I can print out my own any time I wish.

The nice thing about this new place is that I have an accurate aerial view of the property with accompanying survey. I'm blowing up the back yard, overlaying the survey, gridding that out, and going from there. Hot dang, I'm in anal heaven! Wait. That didn't sound right but you know what I mean.

I actually used to tally all of my seeds... then I had two more kids. Since then, my spreadsheet only has four categories: small, moderate, large, and bulk. I had to invent my own 12-step program to get to this point and, as yet, I'm the only member. It's good, though, as the meetings are only held in my mind and there's not a whole lot of room for company.

I'll run the various cage ideas by Mr. Builder when he seems to be in a good mood. I had cages of both welded and hinged field fencing and neither were up to my standards. (My "standards" involve being able to have the snot beat out of them and couple of times each year.) After a couple of years with those, we switched to the CRW and never looked back.

Diane