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New England Gardening

Winter Wheelbarrow/Tomato Cage Storage?

10 years ago

We're about to get 10 inches of snow here, so I can no longer put off dealing with the 60 tomato cages and wheelbarrow I have stored underneath my overgrown apple tree.

Unfortunately, I don't have a shed or garage. Would putting a tarp over these these items help stop rust or make it worse?

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Comments (6)

DoGooder
10 years ago
eholmes1, the tarp will definitely help, but plastic tarps frequently tear. To increase the chances that the tarp won't tear I recommend securing it firmly with stakes, rocks, etc.
eholmes1
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks for the tip, I think I'm going to try it, unless I can find some room in the basement. I'm a little worried about trapping moisture inside the tarp i.e. moisture coming up from the ground and not being able to evaporate.

I didn't think about where I would store all of these tomato cages when I bought them!
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I tried the cement reinforcing wire initially, but found a better use for it in training my boysenberry vines. By making a large circle of wire, then placing the hoop over the vines, allowing them to grow up and over the sides, provided air circulation for the vines underneath. As in jimster's posting, I found that I could utilize fresh bamboo poles easily - cutting as needed to provide support for most of my climbing vegetables, including peas, beans, and tomatoes. I wasn't aware of the name "Florida weave" but that is the method used. As my backyard has been under dire threat of being over-run by this giagantic timber bamboo (planted by a predecessor), I felt it ABSOLUTELY necessary to find a use for it. Aside, it also provides oodles, and oodles of leaves (great for composting) and nice shoots (for eating) and a noise barrier (from freeway cars), so I've learned to live with it. But - yes, it makes nice tomato stakes too! Saves money too! Birds buils nest in it too. Great exercise raking up litter too. Just my 2 c's. Bejay
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Yes! When my flimsey storebought wire cages collapsed under such tremendous bounty, I did the smart thing and built the cheap, easy, super-strong trellises detailed in Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Garden website and book: Electrical conduit is simply a metal pipe roughly 3/4 inch in diameter that is cheap at 25 cents per foot. You get two lengths about 8 foot, and one length about 4 foot, and two screw-on conduit elbows. Or else if you have a conduit bender and don't need to take it apart for easy storage, just bend conduit into a 4'X8' rectangle. Then you get two lengths of rebar (also cheap) about 2 to 3 feet long, and drive into the ground where you want your trellis, with either a hammer, or as in my case, just pushing with your hand (I have very soft, deep soil) until it's halfway buried. Then slide the open legs of your conduit onto the rebar, to hold it upright. Then get nylon netting from the garden dept. or a nursery, that has 7 inch square holes. These are easy to reach through. Then it's a matter of cutting it to fit your frame, and tying it on by each pair of cut netting holes. Use a square knot, not a granny knot, so it won't slip, and stretch netting as tight as you can so it will hold weight without sagging. Done! This netting will not rot, and will hold any amount of weight... if you use steel fence posts and have firm enough ground, you can even grow pumpkins or melons up that trellis and the netting will support them, and the pumpkin vine will grow stronger to hold the fruit unassisted, if you let it. This method also cuts down on disease because your tomatoes are more open to the air and light, than they are when you use cages. Just be sure to weave the flexible growing tip of the tomato plant in and out of the trellis where you want it to grow, because if you let it get mature and then try to train it, it can break.
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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
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I like the picture of the 'cut and bend' panels that I linked to, but you would probably really have to watch early in the season and tuck branches into the sides. With some plants you would probably need to also use cord or something to wrap around the front and back on very vigorous plants. Someone on the Forum (Is it you, Marcy?) grows by placing two panels close together forming both of the sides of a cage, then puts the plants closer together in between and has a 16' fence of tomatoes. I would think that would work and look very nice. I haven't been there this year, but I know a lady at Zena that plants under a slanted cattle panel. They go up on one side of it, then through the panel for support and grow on that side. I don't grow sprawlers, and couldn't in my climate because they would all rot, but I think if I wanted to let them fall, I could just mount a panel flat (parallel) to the ground above several plants and let them sprawl on top of the panel. You would need to establish a weed free zone because you couldn't work under the panel. I have thought about this for people in a wheel chair and wondered if it would work if it were 18" off the ground or so. There is another thing we haven't talked about and that is to build a frame and tie cords from the top for each plant and gradually just twist the main branch of the tomato up the cord as it grows. That works also but it has to be strong. Imagine a swing set frame (although you don't have to make angled legs), Tie drop cords from the center bar that goes across, down to each tomato. I have one of those also, but didn't plan to use it this year and didn't get it up until after the plants were bigger. It is working, but doesn't look nice. I use it over my containers. When I lived in southern OK, I had a source for oil field pipe and I could have made some strong frames from that. After it is used in the field tho, it doesn't hold paint so I would be back to the rusty look like the CRW cages again. LOL I'm just rambling, but just some thoughts I have had.
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DoGooder
10 years ago
eholmes1, as long as there are air holes at the bottom of the tarp, I assume there will be enough ventilation to remove excess moisture in the air. However, the ground will probably rust the section of of the cages that touch the earth. A raised floor would avoid that problem but that's a lot of work and the storms have already started here in MA. The basement would definitely be a drier location.
seb99 z 6a
10 years ago
I Have cages that are 30+ years old, never been indoors or under cover. For winter I just nest them and lean 'em against a tree. I have as many as you, and most of them are a rich brown color (rust).

Seb
seb99 z 6a
10 years ago
Re: the wheel barrow, the wooden handles and wheel assembly would benefit from protection indoors. Maybe you could disassemble it to take up less space and that would be a good opportunity put some paint on any exposed metal and an extra of clear on the handles. The bed could be left outside, if plastic, put it in a black garbage bag to minimise uv damage.

Personaly, I prefer a two weel garden cart, barrows too tippy.

Seb
spedigrees z4VT
10 years ago
My vintage 1973 wheelbarrow (all steel except for a wooden brace that the hubby bolted onto it for extra structural integrity when he first bought it) spent a lot of partial winters outdoors leaned up against the side of the barn, until the hay supply indoors had been depleted enough to make room for it. It's still serviceable although it has a hairline crack in the bottom of the bed. I don't imagine they make wheelbarrows to last today as they did then, though.

I think if I were going to cover anything with a tarp, I would place a tarp underneath the items as well as a tarp over the top. It might help keep the moisture from coming up out of the ground. I used to that with my firewood.

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