Gardener's Blue Ribbon TMC60 1-Pack Ultomato Tomato Plant Cage, Green

I've used these cages for two seasons now and just got around to writing a review. I'll probably use them next season, too, but I think potential buyers should be aware of some things.The "cage" comes as a set of three stakes and nine plastic bars; both ends of the bar snap onto a stake, usually assembled as you see in pictures (three groups of three bars, although you can really space them however you want). I've lost a couple plastic bars over the years, but I notice some local garden centers sell replacement bars, probably for this reason. I suppose you could also get them to add another set of bars to the cage. The stakes are 5 ft tall, but you'll have to put them into the ground a bit, making the effective height a bit less.The stakes are also somewhat thin, and the bars are easily removable. This is good because it makes for easy storage but can be bad because heavy plants--like tomatoes--can easily push the bars off the stakes (probably why I've lost a couple). Together with the thin stakes, this makes the whole cage somewhat light and definitely NOT suitable for indeterminate tomatoes. You may have better luck with determinates, but I've never grown any true determinates in these to test. I've given up on using these for tomatoes and have stuck to using them with bell peppers, jalapenos (probably could have done without any cage on those, but I had some extra), and cucumbers, which I more or less successfully tried to make climb up the cage. The removable--and movable--plastic bars on the cage were very helpful for this. I didn't have an issue with the weight of the cucumber fruit weighing down the cage, toppling it over, or breaking the bars off, but everything was much lighter here than my tomatoes. I suspect other plants like peas would also work well (maybe spread it out instead of putting it like a cage, depending on how you plant them). I'd hate to try it with melons or squash, but if I was desperate for space and had nothing else I might see how it works.In summary, these cages are OK, but you'll need to stick to lighter plants: *maybe* determinate tomatoes, definitely *not* indeterminates, and besides tomatoes otherwise lighter plants like cucumbers or peppers. If they didn't market these for tomatoes (including the name of the cage itself!), I might rate them a little higher. They aren't horrible, but you'll have to be careful how you use them. For tomatoes themselves, after having used a variety of tomato support methods, I decided to make a "Florida weave" last season with not much more than metal T-posts and twine. (There are also a few other "homemade" solutions out there.") Do a Web search for this if you're interested--it worked out well for me and was much less expensive than buying cages. They're also easy to store, and I suspect the metal posts will last me much, much longer than these cages.

Needed something to help stabilize my growing tomato plant earlier this season. Didn't have time to go to the store so just found this on Amazon and it served the purpose. Fairly stable - although in order to use the provided clips to connect the stakes, I realized my pots weren't large enough to handle all 3 stakes. The clips require you to have your stakes 12inches apart, for a 10 gallon smart pot, that wasn't feasible. So I had to make due with just 2 stakes. Making the 3rd stake fairly useless. However, I did get good use out of the 2 stakes/connectors to keep my tomato plant staked and supported.I recently was at my local Lowe's and found an area completely dedicated to Tomato/Plant Stakes and such. Found a plethora of items almost exactly to this - however you could purchase as many stakes and/or connectors as you chose, not being locked into a requirement of 3 in a "set" like this. Also, they were cheaper. So, before you purchase this item, if you have a local Lowe's or HD, I recommend looking there first. You'll likely find what you need with more freedom to purchase ONLY what you truly need and get a better bang for your buck.

I waited too long to cage our tomato plants this year and by the time I got around to it, the round cages we normally use weren't going to go over the plants without damaging them. I ordered these instead because they would snap together over the existing plants.I love the snap in supports that can be customized and arranged to support each plant right where it needs it. Assembly was extremely simple, even around plants that were already several feet tall. The cages won't win any beauty contests but they blend right in to the plants, are light and seem plenty sturdy over all.My only complaint is the packaging this product is shipped in is really insufficient. I ordered two of these cages and both boxes arrived bent and pretty heavily damaged. I didn't care about the cardboard but the cages themselves had taken a beating as well. When I opened the box, the stakes for the cages were barely wrapped up in much of anything and had been bent. I managed to carefully bend them back roughly to where they should be but at least one stake felt like the metal cracked inside it's plastic coating.They work fine despite the bend and if I expand the garden beyond just a balcony set up I'd happily buy this product again, but I might look to get them in town instead of worrying about them being damaged in transit. I hope Amazon addresses the packaging issue.Overall, they're great:- fit over any size plant- expandable. You could put several sets together to support really big plants- simple to put together- easy to store flat!

This is a great product for people who like tinker toys for adults. Seriously, it allows you to change the location of the supports as the plants grow, add on additional length (with the poles cut and put in a 7" length of 1/2 inch CPVC tubing with a little glue on one end and a press fit on the other), make square or pentagon shaped cages, etc. It's just fun. And storable too. I ordered 9 cages and there were a few broken end pieces, but it was too minor a problem to send back. One caveat - if you live in a place with serious winds and thunderstorms, stake the cages with some strong wooden poles sunk solidly to the ground and secure them to the upright supports with electrical ties to keep your tomatoes from blowing over with the wind. Then you can enjoy them without worry!