Tomato Cages Vs Tomato Ladders and Conserving Rain Water

We use rain water to water the garden and don't want to waste it by watering everything else. I went to Home Depot and bought a 10 foot piece of 3" rigid PVC and 3 caps to fit. I cut it into 3 foot pieces and then put a cap on one end of each of the pieces and tapped them on the ground to seat the cap tightly. You don't need any PVC glue for this.

I took my 1/8" drill bit and drilled 3 holes in the cap end of the PVC, about 1" from the end of the cap. I drilled them at an upward angle so that the water would come out down instead of up like a little fountain. I then put one tube in each tomato cage and filled the tubes with water. They work great! It's like a drip system in that the water goes right into the ground slowly at the base of the plants, it doesn't spread all over and water the mulch, and it doesn't get the leaves wet so I don't have to worry about fungus on the tomatoes.

In retrospect, I think I could have cut the tubes into 2 foot lengths and saved some money, but this was an experiment. Next year I am going to buy 2" PVC and see how that size works.

I experimented with my tomatoes this year. I have cages that I made and ladders. I made tomato ladders instead of cages for some of the tomatoes. I got the plans from another blog I subscribe to called "Survival Sherpa at SurvivalSherpa (at) gmail (dot) com." I took his ladders one step further and painted them bright colors. You still need to put in a center stake for the tomatoes to stand upright, but otherwise you use the ladders like cages. When the season is done, they fold up like regular ladders and store in the garage for the next year.