Tomato Cages

COMPOST PILES, you can use the side of them as trellises if its a built one(do this on the sunny side of the pile, tomatoes will shade the pile to help keep it moist and when the pile gets watered or rained on, the nutrients that get pulled out with the water, will feed your tomatoes so you don't have to fertilize, if you do this underneath a tree it will work even better, otherwise i would thing, tomatoes and pole beans and squash all around the compost pile)
bushes, you can let tomatoes grow up there and use the lower branches as trellises( and then at the end of the season just leave the dead vines there and they will mulch the bush fopr you, you wont have to go through the hassle of pulling em out), or if you do do an artificial trellis make sure it is able to be used for multiple purposes, for example: i have a trellis in my garden that is rather large, and kinda a curved structure, i am letting catalope, cucumber, pole beans and german queen tomatoes grow up it, it creates a support and helps to create an even canopy, as well as making a place for me to throw plastic over it if need be for hailstorms

 

I like to use wire farm fencing with a 6-8ft T-bar. Then you can make cages to fit the size of tomato. This year Im going to try to stake two cages on top of each other and wire them together.

If you use the standard "tomato cage" you still need to stake the cage, if you grow a large fruiting variety. In the past I have had my Amana orange crush the home depot cages, like a poorly constructed soda can.

In France I saw them growing tomato's in a single leader fashion. By running a wire between two 10-12ft posts then run wires to the ground with small camping style stakes. Then just training a central leader, pruning all sucker shoots. This method is great for colder shorter growing seasons. When frost start to come you throw some clear plastic something like this Agribon AG-50 (14'X 500') Early Buy Special . You could get an extra 20 or 50 days, depending on the severity of the weather.

 

I do what DirtyViperMan said, I make my own out of Farm fencing, way bigger than any you can buy, then stake them to the ground in case it gets really windy.

 

The tomato cages I use.

 

My tomatoes always get to big for those !

They should work well for ya though !

 

^ didn't quite get the whole structure of that sentence, but since they're part of the nightshade family i'd assume there is some credibilty to that
my reason: taste great and fairly easy to grow!

 

I had the same thing happen with an Amana orange and the '1884'. Those plants get taller than 8ft with fruit up to 2lbs. This year, Home depot had heavier duty cages made with 3/16" wire and I super cropped my tomatoes at the top of the cages and put 1x2's from the top of the cages to the ground on a 45 deg and let the stems grow on those downward. It looked as if the tomato plants were pouring out over the cages.

 

Long sticks with strings work for me....