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Have a great invention to help with gardening? Are you the self-reliant type that prefers Building It Yourself vs. buying it? Share and discuss your ideas and projects with other members.

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Old July 6, 2008   #1
tomatoguy
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Default A market for cages

Well, I no longer work in the Mt. Juliet, TN area, having completed that construction project. Boy, do I miss Garr's. They had a great line of organic gardening supplies, they knew their stuff and they would sell me fencing by the foot. Since I expanded my garden a bit this year, I needed some material to make more cages. I couldn't find any business in the tiny town on Murfreesboro (100K people) to sell me fence by the foot. So, I had a look around at the prices for a full roll. This is standard stock fence. It comes on a 330 foot roll. Co-Op priced themselves out of the market entirely at $220 per roll. Home Depot, however, only wanted $129 for a roll of the exact same stuff. My cogs started turning. What if I get the roll, make my cages and sell some more cages to make my money back?

So, I bought the roll, made 8 cages for myself and built a display for the front yard. The display had my standard 39" tall cage and a double 77" cage. I also ran an ad in the farm/garden section of the Nashville Craigslist. The cages started selling almost immediately. I decided to go with $5 for the small cages and $10 for the double ones. To date, I have made all of my money back plus around $150. I still have enough material left to make about 10 more cages.

If you build your own cages, you might be surprised with the results if you attempt to sell some. There is no good alternative to homemade cages here. The dinky three ring commercial cages are $4 each and up here.

I may even hold on to my profits and use them to improve my light system for next year. I am already considering buying another roll of fencing for next year. Here it is July and they are still selling but I think the tomato cage season is on the wane now.

If you try the same thing, I would be interested to know if you have the same type of success.

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Old July 6, 2008   #2
kelleyville
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So what kind of fencing material are you building your cages out of? How about a picture?
Thanks
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Old July 7, 2008   #3
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They call it stock fence or cattle fence around here.

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Old July 8, 2008   #4
kelleyville
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Was trying to wrap my head around what it was! I was looking at buying a roll of concrete reinforcement wire and maybe doing the same thing, but could not figure out how to make them taller without them falling over!

Kewl idea you had there! and that circular garden is awesome!
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Old July 8, 2008   #5
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While the concrete reinforcement wire is sturdier, it is also harder to cut and work with. I recommend staking my tall cages and I would assume that would be necessary with cwr as well. The stakes I am using now are actually de-commissioned roadsign posts. I haven't had a support failure with that system yet.

Also, you should take hand strength into account if you are going to make your own cages. Just using the stock fence, my wife struggles with cutting the end wires, which are thicker, even with a good fence cutting tool. I'm not sure she could cut the crw at all. While my wife isn't large, I would say she is slightly above average strength, especially for her age. I think hand size is also a factor since my larger hands give me better leverage with the fence cutting tool.

To stack the cages, cattle fence is flexible enough that I can just wrap it a couple of times around the adjacent vertical wire and it bonds very nicely. I think a different approach would be needed to stack crw cages. Perhaps someone has already crossed that bridge and will contribute a solution.

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Old July 9, 2008   #6
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Thanks! I usually make my husband do all the cutting, crimping and pinching of wires My only approach to doubled CRW cages would be tall tposts, I found them 12 feet long at Tractor Supply. I also found an idea that kind of combines a couple of different approaches, not cages but very tall 4x4's deep in the ground every three bales of hay with the CRW above the hay bales, and am wondering if I can use that system with rows of tomatoes similarly to Florida Weave. Instead of weaving though I put the posts up so many feet apart and put the CRW up off the ground about two feet then stagger my tomatoes on both sides of the fence. They all get main support that way but of course no stem support.

I did see a web page once that doubled the CRW, however they did not say how they made it sturdy

thanks for your method! I may give it a try!

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Old July 9, 2008   #7
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Kelley,

Rob messaged me that he uses bolt cutters for crw. I knew it wouldn't be easy with just a fencing tool.

I have one approach that would probably work but I haven't tried it yet. I might give it a go in my secondary garden next year. I used nylon string trellis held up by 2x2's for a few years. It worked okay but I had to prune a lot. I wonder what a double trellis would do. I could put one on each side of the row of plants and let them grow up in between. I will have to see how big my plants get in that plot before I try it. Some of my main garden plants are already over 7 feet tall. If the secondary ones get that big, the double trellis idea probably wouldn't be practical as their weight would probably bring the trellis down once they are loaded with fruit.

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Old July 9, 2008   #8
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crw cages require bolt cutters and leather gloves. i like crw but it is nasty stuff and you must be careful. that 50' roll is under tremendous tension so be careful when cutting the links that hold it closed. after that it is just common sense. when cutting the last cut or two, that cut section can move so again i'd recommend long pants NOT shorts, sturdy shirt and i step on both sides to contain it. this may sound like a dangerous task but if you are careful it is not too bad.

i would not stack two 5' sections maybe a 5' and 2.5' and i use 3/8" rebar to anchor them, 2 per cage. my cages are just 5' and when the plants hit 6' i cut the vine. i'm not going to use a step ladder to pick tomatoes besides by the time they get to 6' i don't need more plant i need more growing season to ripen the green ones!

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Old July 9, 2008   #9
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That vege trellis supports a lot of weight, I have used it for beans, cucumbers, and have heard it will hold cantaloupe and small watermelons. While it would support the tomato stems I cant see it being too much help for the stalk and it does sway a lot weight wise though it would not be a problem. If I do hay bales next year, I will use that vege net stuff for beans and cukes for sure! It is cheap, sturdy and almost indestructible unless of course my Hubby gets a hold of it. the description of my husband is that he could destroy a lead statue with a paper hammer, and it is pretty close to true! hehehe
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Old July 9, 2008   #10
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tjg thanks for that info! that stuff is pretty nasty! I wonder does it do any good priming it with spray paint after it is put together? or does it stay to gether indefinitely with the rust?
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Old July 10, 2008   #11
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[painting CRW cages]

You can paint it with DeRusto metal primer, but you
still need to put a top coat on over top of that.

I would try laying one out flat first on plastic, paint it both
sides,then make the cage and touch up any scratches. The
idea is to see how much the paint cracks when you bend the
cage into shape. If there are cracks all over it (if the metal
paint is quite brittle when dry), then there is no advantage
to doing them that way, since one would need to put a second
top coat on after the cage is made.

That's a problem one does not have with galvanized fence wire
(won't rust much). The tradeoff is less rigidity in the cage
itself (smaller gauge metal).
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Old July 10, 2008   #12
tjg911
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i just make the cages and use them. crw is so thick i think it'd take many years before they'd rust to the point of being unusable. i'd never paint them. it's going to have to be done each year and you'd have to scrape the old cracked paint just too much work. besides i don't want chips of paint in my garden. i leave them out all winter and they are 5 years old and look the same as when i made them. i never open them back up tho i did make them too wide so i cut out some to bring them down to a smaller diameter. and yes the bent over pieces can break when you open them but if going smaller you just cut that off anyway. i wrap the prong 2 times so it really locks the cage and holds it tight. love crw cages.

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