New Food Porn Flick: Tomatoes in Cages

First of all, the garden is doing quite well. This lent all the more urgency to getting proper cages to support the sprawling tomatoes. I knew I didn't want those cheap, flimsy, and short store-bought wire cages, and I also I wanted something that wasn't a total eyesore, although that last item is of least importance. I am going to grow food in my front yard no matter the aesthetic. However, I happen to like the look of vegetable gardens, especially in my front yard.

So I decided to design and build my own cages. The articles I read recommended cages at least six feet tall, seven foot even better. Seven seemed too tall to me, and from each eight foot 1" x 2" cedar board I could use one 1 ½ foot piece for a cross member. Thus, I arrived at 6 ½ feet, allowing me to make one cage with four 1" x 2" x 8' boards. Since I am going to build 12 cages, I will need 64 1' x 2"s.

To maximize repetitive stress and the aggravation of my carpal tunnel, I set about creating an assembly line of cutting, drilling, and screwing. After a day, I had all 24 frames completed.

The frames were attached to 2' x 2" x 20" hinged pieces thus forming a sort of step ladder, at once flexible as well as easily stored.

Each cage frame will have four cross bars, with 11/16" holes drilled near the outsides. These holes would be for the perpendicular cross pieces made from ½  copper pipe cut to 20 inches. This meant drilling 16 holes per cage, or 192 holes in all. For the ease of drilling 192 holes, I naturally drilled four at a time. 

I placed the 20" cross pieces six inches from the bottom...

...and then at one foot intervals.

About a quarter of the way there.

After I carriage-bolted each pair of frames to the hinged 2 x 2 top pieces, I then used 3" carriage bolts, washers, and wing nuts to attach each cage to eight foot 2 x 2 rails to fit nicely on top of each of my three eight foot raised beds.

Each cage would need eight 20" pieces of ½" copper pipe. That's 96 pieces and 16 10 foot copper pipes.

96 times this. Ow.

Pipe organ to nowhere. And for those of you who are sticklers for accuracy, I'm well aware that there are only 64 pieces here. That's because I already cut 32 pieces for my prototype cages. Ha!

There's probably an ordinance against this in West Des Moines, or any of the other suburbs for that matter. Glad I live in Des Moines.