Goodbye, Traditional Tomato Cages: This Budget-Friendly Alternative Helps Save Space

There are a lot of strong reasons to grow tomatoes. Not only are they healthy and packed with minerals and vitamins, but they are also a tremendously versatile food that you can eat raw or cook with in dozens of different ways. Plus, growing them yourself is better for the environment and your pocket than buying them at the store, not to mention that seeing those big red fruits grow is very satisfying. That said, tomatoes are surprisingly easy to grow, and there are lots of tomato growing tips to help beginners be successful. One key element in pulling it off is providing them with sufficient support. Tomato cages are popular, but there's a budget-friendly alternative that is effective, durable, and saves space: hog wire.

Using hog wire will depend on where you grow your tomatoes. If you have a small space and just a few pots, staking them with bamboo is probably better than caging. However, if you plant them directly in the ground, or you've been looking at features that make gardening easier and have decided on raised beds, hog wire could be the best way to go.

Initially, a roll of hog wire may cost more than buying, for example, an eight-pack of tomato cages. However, the standard length for hog wire ranges from 50 to 165 feet, so it offers great value. It's also tough and rust-resistant, whereas most tomato cages are criticized for being flimsy. Additionally, cages make it difficult to pick fruits growing up the middle, and because the foliage can get very dense, they can provide a breeding ground for diseases.

You can bend hog wire into all kinds of shapes, but long straight rows supported by a few posts maximize productivity and save space because you can plant the tomatoes close together while still allowing the airflow that keeps them healthy. Although loose ties will help when they start to grow, as soon as they reach the first horizontal wire, you can just weave the plants through. The strength of hog wire means they'll have all the support they need, even if you're determined to grow extra-large varieties.

It will take a little longer to set up your hog wire rows than dropping a few tomato cages onto a bed, but the material is designed for fencing, so it can be left in place year after year. As long as your plants are disease-free, just dig in well-aged manure or compost at the start of each new season and plant up as before.

Once the fruits have ripened, harvesting is easy. The juicy tomatoes should be at a nice height, so there's very little bending and no dense foliage to plunge through. You should have no difficulty in quite literally enjoying the fruits of your labor.