In answer to using old plush toys filled with soil? Why Not? Plants are rather adaptive and you will find something willing to take over and be cut back regularly, returning with a vengeance to cover that toy completely. I make topiary for a living and have used alot of drainage pipe for letters like a billboard I did in SF for garden.com that was completely planted with ficus vine for a years' contract. I secured the black plastic 4" tubing to the billboard forming letters along the way, forty feet up...filled with soil, made plant holes 1 per foot,covered in sphagnum moss secured with fishing line, made a solar powered drip system with 50 gallon drum water reservoir (remote location) pumped it 40' up, another pump for 40' across...The new disney retail headquarters in Pasadena, CA has an 18' Mickey Mouse Archway at the entrance...it has alot of spare space inside and is filled with refuse plastic. the plants dont mind as long as they have soil and water to grow in. The 15' ABSOLUT bottle I did in St Thomas has basically a teddy bear lining inside to hold plants and soils in, come to think of it. 3 months later the ficus vine had fully taken over, no doubt it did not hurt using grey water for conservation methods...dark green plants after that!

Their eventual size depends on the varieties that they are. The "determinate" varieties typically don't grow very high. But the "indeterminate" ones can get to 6, 7 feet tall or more in the right condition. There are a varieties of support options, depending on both the size of the plant and on personal priorities and preferences. Seems the simplest thing for you to do now is to just attach the cages to something more stable like maybe a wooden stake screwed to the side of the wooden planter or driven deeply into the soil/potting mix or maybe attached to a permanent structure like a fence. The thing with the planters and especially the bucket is that if the container itself is pretty light even if a support system is attached firmly to the container, the whole thing might still fall over. It would be preferable to maybe drive a stake deeply into the ground right outside the planter but it may not be possible if the planter sits on concrete. I've put some of my containers next to a metal pool fence like the one linked below and attached my cages to it. Don't know what your yard has that is in a sunny spot. Here is a link that might be useful:

Happy to post pictures when I construct and fill mendopete's "cages". I am slowly - as is 'normal' and appropriate - discerning the wheat from the chaff. And here's the rub - "chaff" is still part of "wheat". By that I mean that in a recent epiphany, I realized that a whole great lot of "experts" (pick ANY field) aren't TECHNICALLY "liars" (telling falsehoods), they are more "deceivers"(intentionally leading people to incorrect conclusions by virtue of carefully crafted "explanations"). Deceivers in that they know that what they are saying is 'technically' "true", but that any reasonable person will interpret their carefully crafted comments in a manner that is inconsistent with reality. So what does all the above actually mean in the context of this thread? WRT "leaves": I am with you on this most of the way. There are two elements that cause me to stick with using worms to compost leaves: 1) The observation of them coming in DROVES to the fermenting leaves in bags, and 2) leaves compost "on their own" in "regular" compost bins. They are a large component of the "browns" of "greens and browns". There is no doubt in my mind that being made up of considerable amounts of celulose, leaves are a bit more difficult to 'digest'. I think the 'solution' to that is to make them 'smaller'. Your willingness to put the extra effort into your prep - be it #2 above, or "blending" your kitchen scraps - is the same level of commitment I have to macerating leaves to accelerate their 'usability' by my worms. Also, I think that mixing in the goat litter while macerating the litter -with it's urine and straw - will inoculate the leaf matter with microbes that will accelerate their conversion to something edible by worms. So to summarize on "leaves": I agree with your assessment of the use of leaves, but am willing to put in the extra effort to try to facilitate their consumption by worms. "Deceivers" are telling the community-at-large that "anything" can be "worm composted" and that leaves are especially "good". Yeah, "true" (with a lower-case "t"), but not really True, because their use requires extra preparation or a LONG time. Both points intentionally excluded from the propaganda that the politically correct want to propagate. Namely, "You can compost anything organic! Huzzah! Let's save the earth." "Density": I'm of two minds here. What I read, and what I know from personal experience from culturing other animals, is that "density matters". The more there are, the more get made in an EXPONENTIAL manner. By the same token, exceed a certain density threshold, and production is actually inhibited. There just "ain't no free lunches". I share your concern with regard to the density in one bin. The current "indoor" bin I am using has a surface area of approximately 1.79 square feet. (19.5" x 13.25"). From what I read (wheat or chaff???) 500 worms per square foot is a "good" density for "maximum" production, with "maximum production" defined as "half a pound of food consumed per day per square foot". Of course I do not assume this is "the law", but it IS a place to start until I can sort REALITY from "technical truth". To summarize on "density": As soon as I see how the worms are doing at this density AND I have another bin set up, I will reduce the number in this bin to something like the 500 per square foot (500 X 1.79 = 897). I don't agree so much with the "desserts". (Although I am not strongly in disagreement. I could still be convinced.) In the "wild", it is my understanding that E. fetida's primary food source is ungulate manure. Do "we" find them coursing through the 'rotten' apples at the base of a wild apple tree? I'm pretty sure not. That said, I certainly found them advancing in droves to fermenting bagged birch leaves. Were they headed for food, or shelter? I don't know. Could have easily been shelter, as it was the fall in Alaska, and it is KNOWN that worms in Alaska seek shelter from the cold in leaf litter. Meaning... maybe it was 'bedding' (your assertion) that they were looking for. One of the 'settling points' I am coming to is that the quickest way for me to "make soil" may be to macerate and mix the goat litter, leaves, and "sawdust" and call that "soil" for large - multiple cubic yard - planters. For the most part, that mixture would have everything except sand - which I can add - that a reasonably good commercial "potting soil" would have. At this stage, no need to spend the time running all of that through a worm's gut, acknowledging the 'value added' by the worms, but also acknowledging the fact that YEARS could be in the waiting. I do NOT make the above comments in 'argument' FOR or AGAINST any comments or postulates that you or anyone else is making. I offer them to give insight into the "methods of my madness". Just MY thoughts on how and WHY I am acting in a certain fashion with regard to how I choose to "raise worms". I have no interest in "converting" anyone to "my way", and I am most certainly NOT seeking prosyletites. I enjoy the discussions of what people THINK, and do not assume that the person 'speaking' is demanding that I follow their lead. (That assumption fails on occasion.) I LIKE hearing other people's ideas, and theories, and concerns, and suggestions. I hope no one thinks I am willing to simply mindlessly follow in lock-step every piece of "instruction" given. That "ain't gonna happen" for several reasons, some of which are: 1) I have a "y" chromosome; therefore I have a genetic predilection to 'rebel' against authority. To aggressively suppress that genetic predisposition seems counter-intuitive. Why would it be genetically 'carried on' if it wasn't 'useful'? 2) I am not a "follower". That has gotten me into trouble occasionally in my life. Still, the occasional pain that ensued by NOT following, has not been sufficient to beat me into mindless adherence to the 'social norm'. 3) NO INNOVATION OCCURS WHEN WE ALL DO THE SAME THING! All of us doing the same thing is "comfortable, and superficially "safe", but it is oppressive and stifling to creativity. Creativity is OFTEN painful! I wandered there a bit, but I wanted you to know that I wasn't being argumentative for argument's sake. I APPRECIATE your comments, thoughts, suggestions, and recommendations. I have taken to heart FAR MORE of the suggestions I have received here at this forum, than I have rejected. Paul

Thanks for the details and followup Grandad and again to everyone who is helping me out here. Sounds like you are driving the conduit in your soil type about 10" to 12" into the ground. I think your last sentence you meant the surface rust is on the conduit pipe. I understand that your plants are in-ground, not above in containers like me, so the difference is I'll need to get 18" - 24" of elevation above ground to the bottom of the remesh cage itself, like on stilts towering above the pot. Soil is very soft and sandy here, so I'm thinking of combining the helpful ideas like this, which requires only one perforation: Plan A: Leg #1: Rebar 5/8", driven 42" below ground level, 6" through "deck" and 24" of stilt, followed by 48" along the supported cage wire wrapped vertically ... making the cage 7 1/2 feet above ground though the pot is also above ground supported by the stilts like Dave suggested. Leg #2 & #3: Conduit 1/2", 5 foot length each resting on top of "deck" by weight only, so it will be 2' of stilt and 3' vertically strapped to the cage with wire klike you do. That is an efficient use of material, each economical 20' rebar length will get just one cut and satisfy two. Each 10' conduit will make two 5' legs for one pot. Plan B: Just bite the bullet and make 8' high cages which come out narrow, using 10 squares of factory remesh height (5 ft) making a cage of 19" diameter, and secure according to one of Dave's suggestions, I need to look at those spikes in person and I need to see if 19" is wide enough sice it seems that is probably the most economical and has some of the benefits ofg Rodney's idea. CMM thanks so much. The rebar bought by the small precut piece is significantly more expensive per foot and both remesh and rebar in bulk are around double what I last paid these days. Conduit is about half the price per foot here. The rebar/conduit combo is about $7-8 per cage plus the remesh cost. Mine are 90% indeterminates too. It sounds like you have the 3.5 foot high remesh if you stack as many as three which would give 10.5 feet which is about as high as I can imagine going for a 6' stepladder. I need about 12-15 cages so cost is a factor, and I wonder if Plan A would support not one but two cages (it would be 12 feet high, so I doubt it could be stable.) I appreciate everyone's thoughts. PC