How to (should I?) work with short square tomato cages?

Our friends picked up ~100 heavy-duty square tomato cages from a market gardener that was going out of business a while back.  They're moving to the area and as we work on establishing shared garden spaces at our farm, their garden gear is on long-term loan, until they get a piece of land and begin establishing their own gardens.   The cages are extremely robust, however, I'm concerned about the height, they're very short.  I am not growing any determinate varieties, but I do have ~75 plants started.  I also have a few dozen peppers started.    In the past, all of my tomato growing efforts have focused on training single leaders vertically, however, it seems that the growth style you'd need to encourage with this type of cage is horizontal.  So far what I'm thinking our options are:

Try to keep the tomatoes compact enough that the cages can contain them (this seems like a lot of work and a loss of tomatoes towards the end of the season)
Flip over a second cage on top of each cage and zip tie to create double-height cages (this might work, however i still don't think the double cage is tall enough)
Use the cages for peppers, and try to use something like cattle panel zip-tied to t posts as a trellis for rows of tomatoes (this seems like the logical choice, but i hate not to experiment with other ways of growing things that I haven't yet tried

I'd love to hear either recommendations for how to handle pruning for cages, or ideas for other solutions.

I'd love it if you could post a picture - maybe there's a web example? Here are my initial thoughts.

Have you considered using the cages to get the plants started, but putting a taller tripod over them for the height you need?

These may have been designed for dwarf or determinant tomatoes - maybe consider that for next year?

Have you considered growing bush beans in them? In my climate, I find that bush beans benefit from some support (lots of dew increasing mold risk - supporting the plants is a cheap, easy way to lower the risk and makes them a little easier to pick as well).

Jay Angler wrote:I'd love it if you could post a picture - maybe there's a web example? Here are my initial thoughts.

Have you considered using the cages to get the plants started, but putting a taller tripod over them for the height you need?

These may have been designed for dwarf or determinant tomatoes - maybe consider that for next year?

Have you considered growing bush beans in them? In my climate, I find that bush beans benefit from some support (lots of dew increasing mold risk - supporting the plants is a cheap, easy way to lower the risk and makes them a little easier to pick as well).

Sorry about that, meant to post a photo and forgot.  This is the only photo that i have of them (leaning against the post on the other side of this trailer)  I can get a better shot in several hours.

Re: starting them with the cages, I don't believe this will be particularly feasible a the scale I'm working with, I just don't have time to harvest branches and build 70+ tripods.

I believe that they were designed for dwarf or determinate tomatoes.  I am still on the high of being able to grow any variety I want after more than a decade of having extremely limited options in the PNW, I'd rather just come up with a trellis system that works better for the plants I want to grow.

I had not considered using them for bush beans, but that sounds like a really good idea, maybe I can use them as cucumber supports too.  

My guess would be if you have no other cages to use then you might let the indeterminant tomatoes vines grow up into the cage and then grow down, like a waterfall or wiping.

Or it might be possible to have poles with a line or string to tie the tomato vine to above the cages.

Or maybe just keep the tomato trimmed to the size of the cage.

That square shape make them much easier to store than the round ones we have.

These tomato cages work well for peppers and eggplant.  Some indeterminate varieties of tomatoes can work well with them. Having free cages is great though, I am sure you'll find many uses in the garden this year for them.

Laurel Jones wrote:

maybe I can use them as cucumber supports too.  

Absolutely - I knew there was another crop I used to use them on, but I've given up on cucumbers because our weather just doesn't grow them that well - I make zucchini pickles instead!

Speaking of zucchini - I saw some pictures of people training their zucchini to grow vertically up a cage last year. The concept seemed to be both better airflow to decrease mildew risks and it was easier to see the fruit before being presented with over-sized ones.

If you have extras that are sitting unused and you grow squash or melons, using the cages to hang the fruit off the ground may be worth it in your climate. I wouldn't start the plants in them, but let the plants sprawl and when you see fruit start, stick a cage up and lay the vine over or through it.

Do you grow eggplant? Same idea as the cucumbers!

Sorry Ralph - I cross posted with you - great minds think alike!

Laurel, are you growing strawberries? If you have spares early in the season, putting them up in you strawberry patch so you can throw bird mesh over the top may be useful. I've put low tunnel hoops up over my strawberry bed for that reason. I lift one side of the mesh and pick, then got to the other side and lift there and I don't have to worry about leaves growing up through the holes.

I think it would depend on space and how many plants you have. They are certainly not tall enough for indeterminate all by themselves as has been pointed out.

However... I had some of those. I had 3 amish paste tomato plants that I did not realize were indeterminate. I added about another 5 cages next tot he plants, jutting out past my garden and just draped the vine on top of the cages... moved over a bit and repeated. It worked... but I probably wouldn't do it again.

They look like they might work for peas as well. How tall are they?

I can't tell for sure without a better picture, but they look like they might stack which allows you to customize the height of the support to the height of the plant.

Thank you guys for all of the recommendations.  I may be able to stack these, however the more that I think about it, the more just using a cattle panel zip tied to tall t posts seems like the simplest option.  I may even start the tomatoes in cages until i get the t-post/cattle panel trellis set up.  While our property is large, the area that I was able to reclaim for this year's garden expansion has not been as large as it seemed when I was weed whacking and tarping it in the heat of summer, so space is at somewhat of a premium, and i believe i can make more efficient use of space with a cattle panel trellis and vertical gardening.

I'll use these cages for summer squash, cucumbers, peppers, and I picked up a packet of bush beans over the weekend.  

Jay Angler wrote:Sorry Ralph - I cross posted with you - great minds think alike!

Laurel, are you growing strawberries? If you have spares early in the season, putting them up in you strawberry patch so you can throw bird mesh over the top may be useful. I've put low tunnel hoops up over my strawberry bed for that reason. I lift one side of the mesh and pick, then got to the other side and lift there and I don't have to worry about leaves growing up through the holes.

this is a great idea.  Next year I expect i may end up obtaining some bird netting/row frost protection fabric and these cages would be perfect supports, however my intention is to first establish strawberries with my asparagus, so i expect we will not be able to use bird netting in that location.