How do a Tomato Ring and a Tomato Cage Work?
If you have just begun making tomato trellis, you might have thought about different methods, including basket weaving, tomato cage and tomato ring. This is of course done for tomatoes sprawling or staking by the use of wires to make tomato cages. However, before you start following any of the tomato trellis methods, you need to understand the pros and cons of each method so that you can make the best decision for the betterment of your tomato garden.
Pros of a Tomato Ring and Cage
There are many advantages you can avail if you use a tomato ring or a cage for the growth of your tomato plants. These are:
- Your tomatoes will not get pruned. Moreover, you would not have to worry about training your tomato plants.
- If you have built a proper cage, you would not have to arrange shade cloth for the fruits because there will be enough foliage for your plants.
- Moreover, since your plants and garden area are not under direct sunlight, the soil of the tomato plants will remain moist. This will further keep the plants from rotting and cracking.
- As soon as the spring season starts, you may just wrap the bottom of the cage and the tomato ring with a plastic material. This will help your plants remain warm and keep them safe from excessive wind.
Tomato Rings over Tomato Cages
Here, you will find reasons as to why a tomato ring is a better option than a tomato cage or other tomato trellis support options. These include:
- Tomato cages are prone to falling off. This can be because of the wind as well as the tomatoes themselves when they grow too big for the cage in terms of their weight and width. So, lightweight cages won’t be able to keep up with the growing tomato plants.
- Tomato cages take up a lot of space of any garden. This is because the tomato plant itself requires a wide space to grow properly. The wider your tomato plant is, the more space you will be needing to install the tomato cage. This means that a major portion of your garden will be taken by the tomato plant that will have the same yield that you will get if you use a tomato ring.
How to Use a Tomato Ring?
As you can see, a tomato ring is a combination of tomato stakes as well as tomato cages to provide maximum support to the tomato plants. The best way to use it is to adjust the ring to the base of the plant with screws. You can leave a space of at least 6 inches from the soil to the tomato ring so that the plant gets an ideal amount of support at the right place.
As a matter of fact, a typical tomato ring is about 10 or 10.5 inches wide. As far as the height is concerned, you can always adjust the height as per the growth of your plant. It can easily be modified weekly as your plant grows because it will indeed need adjusted support for its gradually increasing height.
The best part about using a tomato ring over tomato stakes or cages is perhaps the ease and convenience with which you can install it and then remove it when your plant has yielded fruits. This is one of the reasons why traditional tomato growers are now switching their methodology to using tomato rings instead of any other method. It is also to be noted that this is only a one-time investment and can be re-used in every tomato season. On the contrary, other tomato trellis support has to be renewed in each season.
While using a tomato ring, one ring is generally enough for one plant. So if you are growing several tomato plants, you will need a set of tomato rings as per your required number.
During the harvest season, tomato rings are perhaps the most convenient method; as not only it gives you disease-free and big sized tomatoes but it is also easily removable and doesn’t take a large storage space.
Some More Popular Approaches to Tomato Supports
A tomato ring is of course perfect when it comes to holding your tomatoes perfectly. This is not merely for tomatoes but also for other garden vegetables. So, if you are growing tomatoes in your garden, let us help you with some more successful methods that people use for their tomato plants support.
Commercially, the tomato growers use basket weaving method, which they say do not merely help them harvest more tomatoes but also prevent their plants from premature rotting. Another method that commercial growers use is called Stringing. In this approach, a greenhouse is used and tomato plants easily climb up to the roof of the greenhouse.