My dad had always removed the bottom ring and "stepped" them in and that's the way I had always done it until this year. Last year I had a terrible time with the wind and by the end of the season I didn't have but a couple of vines that didn't end up broken because the cage blew over. This year I decided better safe than sorry, so I went this week and bought some 1/2" metal conduit and drove a piece on each side of the cage and zipped tied the cage to the conduit. I thought it would be good and sturdy and last a while. A dear family friend (and my "extra" grandpa), used a setup similar to Diane's. He put a t-post every so often, maybe 10-15', then he would weave a rope through the top opening of the cages and tie it off to the posts. I initially thought about trying this, but my tomatoes are planted in a couple different locations and they don't always line up like I think they would have to for it to work. Michelle

Tara, I did make mine in various sizes so I could nest them. To nest them, you need for the smaller ones to be 6" smaller in diameter so they easily nest inside the larger ones. It has been a long time since I made mine, and I am not sure I remember the exact lengths of the pieces before I formed them into circular cages, but if the largest was 72", then the next one was 66" and the next one 60" and the next one 54". It makes storage a lot easier. I match the larger cages to larger varieties and the smaller cages to smaller varieties. I have them in 4 or 5 diameters so I can nest a bunch of them to store them. I use the smallest size for pepper plants because my pepper plants often are so heavy by midsummer that they just flat fall over on the ground if they aren't caged or staked. I have used everything on earth to stake tomato cages. My favorite stakes are green metal t-posts, but they have gotten a lot more expensive over the last 10 or 12 years. I have some of them that I use that are 8' tall and some that are 6' tall. I sometimes use the little ones that I guess probably are 3' tall, though I only use them with smaller plants. I've also used grade stakes that are 2', 3' or 4' tall, although the ones that are 4' tall have become hard to find. You also can use electrical conduit, sturdy bamboo, or rebar. Rebar is pricey, but I also use it to hold down the edges of floating row cover in winter and spring, so it is multipurpose. I have a friend who makes his own stakes from cedar limbs he cuts from cedar trees when he is clearing them out of his pasture. The cedar limbs last a few years. He cuts a tapered 'v' shape at the bottom so they are easier to hammer into the ground than a limb that is cut flat across the bottom. I've used cedar cut that way for fence posts before and they lasted about 8-10 years and some have lasted 14 years without having to be replaced. Dawn

I can only mention my own experience with CRW cages and I've made my own in the way past and never attributed anything to those cages damaging fruits and when I moved to this new area in 1999 I used some really rusty cages at one of the places I was using up here and again, never saw any damage from those cages. Sometimes fruits would be up against one of the wires and it would cause a physical dent in those fruits, but never any black spots from rubbing against the wires with fruits or stems. At some areas here where I am now I grew most of my tomatoes by sprawling and a lesser number by caging, the rusty ones, actually, that belonged to the person whose garden area I was using. Carolyn

Maybe a month ago, I hauled my roll of CRW out to a section of the yard where I believed I could complete unroll it. I didn't unroll it until last night, by myself with no mishaps (it wasn't nearly as springy as my huband predicted), but 150' is a long way and I was probably 10-15 feet short of getting it completely unrolled. The purpose of which was to count exactly how many squares there were across and divide that evenly so I wouldn't be wasting any fence. I'm over that idea. I'm just going to make them 10 squares. Although if I am closing them with zip ties, I will be wasting one square per cage because I won't need the cut off ends to bend over to close the cage. Also, I had wintersown WAY too many tomatoes, as usual. I have about 100 planted out and growing well (one even has maters on it) and getting big enough they are flopping and need the cages. I have 6 rows of peas on three 16-ft long cattle panels. The peas are done so I'm going to pull them and plant the extra tomatoes in their place and try a Florida weave.