I don't think it is possible to keep them within the cages unless the cages have a huge diameter. Mine send limbs sticking out through the cages every which way and I just let them. Sometimes, if I catch it early, I'll tuck a limb back in, but I usually let them go their own way and do their own thing. Just try stopping them! Early in the season, let's say late March through late April, I'll try to keep the small plants inside the cages if they are leaning one particular way and trying to grow more horizontally than vertically, but once they are big enough that they fill up the cage, I just let them spread out as they wish.

If you keep tucking the escaping foliage back into the cages, you end up with a big mess of overly crowded foliage with poor air flow that will be prone to get fungal diseases quite easily. In that case, eventually you have to prune out all the diseased foliage and I think it is easier to clear out that foliage early on before it becomes diseased, or to let the foliage spread outside the cages as it wishes so maybe you avoid having overcrowded cage centers to begin with.

You have my sympathy. I cannot imagine trying to do garden tasks while recovering from rotator cuff surgery.

I agree with your decision not to mess with the foliage while it is wet as nothing will spread diseases more quickly. I have some obviously diseased tomato plant foliage I'd like to be outside removing right now, but it has rained all morning and everything is very wet, so I'll wait for another, drier day...maybe Saturday or so.

I try to keep my plants fairly cleaned up and disease-free (as much as possible) in May and early June. Beginning about mid-June, I tend to just let it go. By then, the fruit are ripening and I get busier with food preservation and, honestly, by then I figure if the plants live another month, I'll be happy, and then I'll yank them out if they look crappy and replace them with new plants for fall tomatoes. I don't yank out all of them---because we have to have some fresh tomatoes, but I sure do yank out the ones that look really bad by that point. Because I put my first tomato plants in the ground in March, by mid June they've had a lot of moisture on their foliage (unfortunately) for a long time, so I don't expect them to look great, I just expect them be in good enough shape to ripen the fruit they have set by that point in time. Once that fruit ripens, if the plants look bad I am not going to baby them through July and August. I'd rather start with new, healthy plants for fall, especially in wet years.

This is really good to hear, its liberating :) I've been battling them, and trying to think of reasons for keeping up the battle :)

Well, lay down your pruners or scissors and liberate yourself and stop the battle. I'm trying to battle fewer things and relax more and go with the flow. I don't know how it is going to work out in the end, but I feel more relaxed and happier overall when I'm in the garden. I'm just trying to not sweat the small stuff, and most things in the garden really are small stuff compared to life's larger battles.

I put my three tomatoes in heavy cages. They are growing out under over and around. I am trying to ignore this however my OCD is about to get the best of me. They are showing no sign of disease and blooming and setting fruit so I will try to leave them alone. Lol

We've developed a tradition at our home about growing tomatoes. We too have constructed cages out of CRW (since it just so happens to be DH's business too!). During our random evening walks around the garden and particularly the tomatoe bed.....we tuck as best we can those random branches...telling them "no arms outside the cage!"...We laugh because it reminds us of telling the kids to keep their arms inside the car on those rare days you can ride around with the windows down. But really, who can resist that feeling of the air around your arms whether you're human or plant?! Some tomato arms grow too much too fast to risk breaking, so we leave them be or tie them closer with old panty-hose. I'm sure yours will thrive just fine being as loosely contained as you can keep them. Like Dorothy said - just not close to the ground.

Paula