Vegetable and Fruits

Use Tomato Cages for Healthy Fruits

I started to cage tomatoes a couple of years ago. Why did I wait so long?

Partly, it was money. I didn’t want to spend $5.99 each for 16 sturdy tomato cages. That’s almost $100 for tomato cages that will probably buckle under the weight of the plants in a wind storm anyway.

And, let’s be honest, my big garden dreams got in the way. I had visions of creating sturdy cages from cattle panels or old sheep fence. I even did a bunch of research on putting them together, but rainy daily life got in the way of completing the project.

Reality has finally set in. I’m growing indeterminate tomatoes and they get wild and sprawling when you don’t cage them. I need to get to work right away. I shelled out money for the store bought, however, we pound in a t-post beside each cage to keep them sturdy.

Why Do We Cage Tomatoes Anyway?

All tomatoes except patio varieties benefit from being grown on supports. The traditional tomato cage can be purchased in several height and gauge thicknesses and are suitable for determinate varieties (those that grow and then set their fruit all at once). Indeterminate tomatoes can become a sprawling mess without some kind of support.

  1. Caging helps to keep fruit off the ground and away from bugs and slugs

2. Caged tomatoes are easier to see and therefore harvest

3. Studies have found that caged tomatoes are less susceptible to disease

4. Caging can increase fruit yields

5. Overall, it makes for a tidier garden

I am growing two kinds of tomatoes this year – Mortgage Lifter, an heirloom variety good for slicing and sauces, plus Sweet Sugar, a semi cherry variety that will do double duty in salads and sauces. They are both indeterminate varieties, meaning that they will continue to grow and set fruit until the first frost. Indeterminate tomatoes can get 3 – 4 feet tall and once they are set with fruit, the vines tend to be heavy.

Flowers (annual and perennial)

A Fav for the Flower Bed

Over thousands of years, gardeners and farmers have carefully selected the best specimens of a season’s harvest (say, the sweetest or most frost-hardy carrots) and saved the seeds from those exemplary plants to sow again. Continued across generations, this process of seed saving created an astounding diversity of garden delights. One of my favorite annual flower plants is the Hopi Red Dye amaranth, a variety acquired by from the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. Amaranth is native to the Americas and is believed to have been wild harvested before being domesticated around 4,000 BC in Mexico. From there, it is said to have spread to the Southwestern United States via ancient trading routes.

Highly nutritious, amaranth has edible leaves and tiny seeds that can be popped or eaten as a grain. Known by the Hopi name komo, this red-hued variety is a key ingredient in the traditional Hopi piki bread, a crisp wafer rolled up and cooked on a thin stone slab. The red flower bracts are soaked in water overnight and mixed into cornmeal the following day to add a vibrant pink color to the dough. Also the dye in the seeds are used as a dye in their rugs and clothing.

Hopi Red Dye amaranth grows well in full sun and even drier areas. This trait may prove useful as well for regions around the world facing hotter and drier conditions due to climate change, a powerful example of the importance of traditional crops for the future.