Yesterday afternoon I got the rest of the second story cages on the tomatoes down in the garden and today I got both sets of tomatoes secured against blow down. When tomato plants get up into those second cages it they catch a lot of wind during storms, kind of like a big green sail. This is (hopefully) what they'll look like by August:



Securing the cages involves laying poles along the top of each row of cages and tying the cages to the poles with baling twine. Then the poles are tied down to the pallets and to each other. It creates one giant heavy unit that's never blown down yet.





A baling twine tip:
Baling twine is one of my go-to tools in the garden! The twine feeds out from the inside of the ball and eventually the walls of the ball get thin enough that the whole thing kind of falls apart and makes the biggest tangled mess. Ever since I started putting the twine in a plastic grocery bag and carry the twine by the bag, I've had no trouble. :thumb:

Great idea. Nice set up.

So, that gives you about 7 ft above the top of the containers...?

Goodloe, I apologize for missing this question! The cages are each 39" tall and the #15 pot is 15" tall. Since the bottom cage fits over the bucket and sits at ground level, the top of the double cage is 63" above the top edge of the bucket.

Last year I "cinched up" all of the cages so that they would fit inside the buckets which would give an additional 15" of cage height. The overall construction wasn't as stable so this year I "let out" the tomato cages, returning them to their former diameter and allowing them to fit over the buckets again.