Those are great. I love the angel. She would be pretty in my garden all year since I have a lot of angels in it. I might have to go find some tomato cages this week. Thank you for sharing your ideas. ~Micki~

Commercial growers worry about things like ease of harvest and uniformity of fruit size, and they tend to have much more intense disease pressures than hobby growers. People who cage generally just let the plant grow as it will. Pruning is reserved for dying or diseased leaves, aside from aggressive removal of leaves from the bottom of the plant to keep foliage away from the soil. Some people will prune off growing tips once the end of the season gets near in order to try to ripen up the fruits already on the plant before frost. Others don't bother and say it doesn't make much of a difference. Some will cut off the tops once the plant grows as tall as the cage, but others will let the vines flop over the top of the cage and continue to grow and hang down. Regardless, the leaves are where the plant produces the sugars and other nutrients that go into making the fruit, so there's some logic to the idea of keeping as much of the foliage as possible. Disease is what you have to weigh against that, so it's a balancing act. Length of growing season is also a consideration. Is there a point in letting a plant get huge and wild and produce a gazillion flowers and set a ton of fruit if you don't have the time for those fruit to mature before frost? Also, if you want to plant a lot of varieties but have insufficient space to let them all grow into huge, caged plants and are OK with a smaller harvest from each plant, you could prune enthusiastically and grow the plants closer together. It's really a matter of what your goals and needs are.

That's a nice problem to have. Last year I just let them flop over the top of the cage. This year I added some stakes to the top of the cages. Trim them if you want. Since thy are cherries, you'll probably have hundreds anyway, and slowing production might not bother you.

We've actually used the sound emitters for several years with great success! We always used hardware cloth on our raised beds (about 6-8"), but had gopher mounds all around the beds. We started using the SE (sound emitters) and after about 2 weeks, they were gone. At the time we were using battery operated ones, and when the batteries went dead, back they came! We are now in town, and our first spring were noticing some gopher mounds popping up around the neighborhood. We got our first mound and went and bought a couple. Within 2 weeks......gone! New neighbors said heir back yard was full of the buggers, we suggested SEs and within 2 weeks they were gone! Now we have noticed that most of the neighbors have them and are gopher free, where as a few blocks away they are riddled with them! We get the solar ones from Harbour Freight for about $10 and the latest are going on 3 1/2 years! Good luck and happy gardening!