This is my favorite question! LOL! It's also the one I get asked the most. I make walls with my tomatoes. It's kind of hard to explain (I swear I will make a tutorial this spring on my blog), but it's 2 10 foot EMT conduits and 2 3/4 inch connecters. One EMT conduit is bent and the other one is cut in half to make 2 5 foot legs. The wall ends up about 8 feet high, but this year I am making longer legs and making them 10 feet tall. Then I used plastic netting to cover the "wall" and weave the tomatoes through the netting as they grow. This year I am using wire fencing insead of the plastic netting, because I think it will be easier to pull the spent tomato plants off of the wire. There are pics on my blog just follow the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: my tomato walls

I've been thinking about using similar fencing (I think it's field fencing) which is a little taller (around 4 feet - it comes in two heights) and which has holes big enough to stick your hand through. This fencing is available at certain Home Depot stores in agricultural areas, in 100 foot rolls which are quite heavy. But I've been thinking about sandwiching my plants between two rows of staked fencing, so I don't have to tie the plants up. The Squarefoot Gardening book recommends something similar to this, but higher, extending tomato cage wire (hard to find now) higher with a second row of wire cut in half lengthwise, to make a "tomato hedge" of tall, indeterminate tomato plants. Fencing is kept 6 inches above the soil line to allow for easy weeding. I might try arching a layer of fencing over the row rather than extending the fencing straight up on each side. Sunburn protection for tomatoes is called for part of the year here. With arched wire above the plants, I could easily throw some shadecloth over the row when the weather started to take a toll on the plants. If you want to do two rows of tomatoes, maybe you could put one row of fencing down the middle and a row of fencing on the outside of each row of tomatoes. You could have a little tomato forest.

I grew 18 tomato plants last year in ground and one in a big pot (for comparison). I was almost sold on making CRW cages, but the mesh around here was not cheap and it was only 5' and ... just didn't appeal to me. I bought 20 seven foot steel stakes that were painted green at around $2 per. Should've bought 8 foot ones, but shipping was much higher and by the time I found a coupon on the internet for a flat shipping fee from that company, they already shipped them. I pounded them in the ground about a foot and a half deep in two rows (row of 11 and a row of 9). I had some 22 gauge steel wire laying around so I cut that up, had enough to make bottom set of rings. Then I bought a roll of 18 or 19 gauge wire and made two more sets of rings. So I ended up with a cross between tomato cages and those flimsy tomato rings on a stick. Only rings were supported by two sticks and they were all connected to the others in that row. Worked out pretty good. I had a few plants that grew about 12 feet tall, folded over and grew all the way back to the ground. And some of the bottom rings got bent a bit by the end of the season.

Cages. Size of cages depends on the variety. I use CRW cages. Check out Bingsters pics here of his container support system not to mention all the pics Raybo has posted of his EarthTainer system and the cages he builds for them. He has posted detailed instructions here numerous times. And if you search 'cage or stake' here you'll find 100's of pics posted of various support systems on this forum and on the Container gardening forum. Dave