joeyoso, I never thought about the stone as adding nutrients but it makes good sense. That just adds another good reason to use it. Here are my initial reasons for using it: I like how it looks It prevents weeds It deters voles from tunneling near the trunk and roots It evenly dissipates water when poured from the 5-gallon buckets and now... It leaches nutrients into the soil. thanks! Michael357, I think if I could do it over again, I would have planted all the bud 9 trees using a trellis system. I am kind of stubborn, and I often have to learn things on my own but... I had some really good advice during my early planning stages from some very experienced local orchardists here. Most of which was to forget the semi-dwarfs, which I was really keen on, and to plant all dwarfs using espalier. I chose to listen only in part, and I liked more the idea of having most of the dwarfs spaced further apart and individually staked. After watching the trees on the trellis grow that first season (2008) I realized I should have taken the advice. They are so cool and much easier on the trellis. Its not too late, though. I could and very well may, turn that entire row of nine bud-9 trees spaced 9 feet apart and individually staked, to a long 3-post trellis system and plant more bud-9 trees in between, thus turning the nine-tree row into a 18-tree trellis wonderland. The wifey likes the trellis better too. And one day late last year we were out walking around the trees and she said "...and why didn't you grow them all on the trellis?" and I just kind of went, "uh..." As for the 4x6 posts reaching up to 8' tall.. We only wanted the boards to go up to 5' tall due to making it look better since its right by the road. My rope just arrived last night. I bought 600'! So I am going to string two rows of rope, one at 6.5' tall and one at 7.5' tall. So above the top boards will be two rows of manila rope all the way around. Hopefully this will deter the deer from trying to jump in when I have apples. There is also the financial aspect. If I had allowed the fence builder to add the boards all the way up to 8', it would have cost another grand, whereas, 600' of natural manila rope costs $100 drop shipped.

One year I used cattle panels and tied the plants to the panels. That was a pain. The plants were forever over-growing and needing to be tied again. I ran the panel down the center, lengthwise, of the raised bed. There were tomato plants on both sides of the panel. I reasoned that the weight of the tomatoes on the one side would stabilize the panel with the weight of the tomatoes on the other side. This reasoning was somewhat flawed, and we had to add more t-posts as we went along to keep the cattle panel stable. The next year I decided to 'sandwich' my tomatoes between two cattle panels. So for two rows of tomatoes in a raised bed there would be three cattle panels, one down the center and the other two about 16" away from the center, on either side. This worked somewhat better and required less tying. But it was really hard to pull weeds and that was the year before I learned about mulching with grass clippings. If you do this, make sure that the side of the panel where the spaces are larger are nearest to the earth so that you can get your hands in to pick and/or pull weeds. The following year, OkcDan linked the URL on this forum of a website where Tom Matkey was making tomato cages out of PVC pipe. The first thing you need to know is that this is definitely NOT cheap! But if you make just a few a year I think it's worth the effort. I do put a cheap wire tomato cage on the tomato plant first, while it is still small, because the pvc cage will not support a small plant. Then when the plant starts to outgrow the wire cage I just place a pvc pipe cage over it, leaving the small cage inside. It has worked well for me because there's no tying involved, the cage stakes itself so there's no falling over, and at the end of the season you just take them apart and store the pieces in crates. Even though they are initially expensive, you've got them forever. I've linked Tom Matkey's website. In Googling trying to find it, I ran across a more economical version at http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1997-02-01/The-Recycled-Indestructible-Tomato-Cage.aspx There are other versions that turn up when you Google "pvc pipe tomato cages", too. I don't have room to store CRW cages, although I have used a few of them before. I agree with Dawn that they work wonderfully well, except that they are difficult to store. I tried taking them apart and storing them flat, but they are almost impossible to get to lay flat once they have been bent to form a cage. DH got so annoyed at how they were always in his way that he disposed of them when we moved. I use the cheap tomato cages for lots of things. Atwood's puts them on sale for 99 cents about this time of the year. I use them to mark where I have planted something in the yard, to protect small trees or bushes from getting cut down by the lawn mower, to keep the neighbor's cats from laying on top of new seedlings, to support bell pepper plants, and for pole beans to climb on. The cone shape allows them to be stored easily. They certainly have their uses, but not for tomatoes -LOL- once they grow past a certain point. Here is a link that might be useful: Tom Matkey's PVC Tomato Cages

I read all the posts about trying to SPEND LESS MONEY on building tomato cages..even the one that wanted to built them for less than $3.00 each. There are a lot of suggestions...like buying fencing on a roll as a ONE time investment that LAST a life time. Well...to buy tomato cages or even to construct TOMATO cages for LESS than $3.00..........TRY FREE! CONSTRUCTION companies tear down a lot of old buildings, gates, fences. THEY HAVE TO PAY SOME DEBRI COMPANY TO DUMP THEM...so if you approach them for FREE MATERIAL..THEY ARE SO HAPPY to GIVE YOU ANYTHING you want that you can haul away yourself!. I built or use fulton bed Frames or mattress metal frames for trellis for cucumbers and string beans so they can climb up. IT'S FREE! For tomatoes, I found BIG HEAVY DUTY TALL tomato cages that I found in GROCERY OUTLET for $2.99 EACH that would have gone for $10.99 - $15.99 at HOME DEPOT. EVERY CITY HAS A "DUMP" day where tenants and homeowners leave out items on the sideways for pick up. YOU CAN FIND SOME REALLY NICE STUFF in them piles. One homeowner landscaped their house and left out a lot of big black empty planters holders (3 gallon - 5 gallon) which would have costs me $3.00 - $5.00 EACH if I have to buy them ..(FREE, FREE, FREE!!!) so I used them to plant all my herbs. I got fennel, dill, cilentro, parsley, oregano, basil going. AND do I HAVE TO PAY FOR THE HERBS or my VEGGIES? Heck no!. I use ROOT ALL or a ROOT HORMONE powder ($4.00 at WalMart) and CLONE all my veggies off from my friends or neighbor's garden. (Other than the $4 bucks that I have to spend for the rooting hormone).....otherwise it's FREE, FREE, FREE. What? "Buying" STRING to string up trellis? STRING is so FLIMSY!! If you go to HOME DEPOT or OSH...there are those LONG plastic "fastener"s that is WRAPPED around wooden boards. Those are cut and thrown to the ground as the boards are lifted up on to the display area. I picked them off shipping area grounds and use those PLASTIC string and string them across to the stakes for support for the tomato. They are STURDY and they are NOT FLIMSKY. (FREE, FREE, FREE). Got to go.... HOPE THIS ALL HELPS. FROM "FREE IS ME!!!"

Oh, its not. The first batch of plants were cuttings that i brought in from outside. After a couple of days i started noticing little bugs on them. There were webs with little buggers crawling all over them! I think they were spider mites but from my past experience with spider mites, they were only contained to the undersides of leaves. This time they built bridges and skyscrapers! I promptly yanked them all and threw them out. After only 4 days they were already taking root! Oh well. After the holidays i'll have more time to start a second batch with seeds. I'll be reusing the potting soil but i'll zap it in the microwave first! Happy Merry Christmas everyone!!!