There may be no real solution to trellising tomato plants. I know Mel Bartholomew advocates a trellis structured by weaving netting over conduit frames. I've tried that in the past and for other plants, like cucumber vines, I like it.
Last year I just used wire cages and when a big wind came and the vines were heavy, they all fell over and couldn't be righted. I am trying a different solution this year. I already have conduit hoops over the three raised beds where tomatoes are growing. My idea this year is to anchor the wire cages onto the conduit hoops.
I used cable ties (cheap, strong, and easy to use) to tie each cage to the conduit hoop it was closest to. I made sure a vertical member of the cage was adjacent to the hoop so I could catch it in the tie. I also adjusted the height of each cage so that one of the wire hoops in the cage was also in the cable tie.
As an added measure, I put cable ties around the top wire hoop of the cage where they touched.
I gave it a quick shake test with my hand to see how sturdy this system felt. I suppose there are things that can still go wrong. A strong wind in the right direction can still move the cages by sliding them along the conduit. The ties may break. Who knows? I think it will be better than last year. Time will tell. However, given that the conduit was already in place and the cages were in hand, it seems the logical thing to do.
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