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My neighbor pointed at my 6 foot tomato cage and asked why I was setting myself up to fail
Two summers ago I built these big 6 foot cages out of concrete wire for my tomatoes out back. Thought I was being smart, you know, let them grow tall. My neighbor Dale, who has been gardening in the same spot since like 1988, walked over, looked at them for a second, and said "You're just building a ladder for the squirrels and shading out everything behind it." I kind of laughed it off at first. Then by August my plants were so tall the top clusters were getting sunburned and the bottom ones were molding because no air moved, and I lost probably 15 pounds of fruit to rot and critters. The next spring I cut the cages down to 4 feet, spaced them 3 feet apart, and put them in the sunniest strip along the south fence. I got more tomatoes off 4 plants than I did off 8 the year before. Has anyone else had somebody call out their setup like that and been weirdly annoyed but also grateful?
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shah.ben19d ago
Dale sounds like the kind of guy who tells you your grill is on wrong and then is somehow right. Six feet of concrete wire is basically a squirrel condo with a salad bar on every floor, so yeah, he earned that one. Cutting to 4 feet and giving them room to breathe is the move, mine stopped rotting once the air could actually move through them. The sunburned top clusters are the worst part, you grow all that fruit just to watch it cook on the vine.
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