Handmade Bamboo Tomato Cages

Debra Redalia

I want to give you an example of what we are talking about when we say we are choosing Life over being industrial consumers.

Here is a corner of our garden where we planted heirloom tomato seedlings from the farmer's market and raspberry canes donated by Larry's sister, which were excess shoots that had come up aroound a single raspberry cane I had given her last year as a gift.

So we could have gone to the store and purchased an industrial-made metal tomato cage, but we didn't. We did purchase some bamboo sticks (which we could have harvested from our own yard had we thought of this in advance enough to grow them) and lashed together our own tomato cages.

Not only are they made from an abundantly renewable material, the material is also biodegradable. And the style goes well in the garden, And we had comradery while building them by hand together as a creative project.

By the way, those half barrels are reclaimed from local wineries, giving the wood another use before it biodegrades.

Many choices like this are not difficult> They are fun to do, inexpensive, and not industrial. The hardest part is making the decision to live lifely, maybe learning some new skills, and getting used to not buying everything at the store.