Tomato Cage As Outdoor Christmas Tree

These "trees" are great for apartment balconies as well. Take a tomato cage, turn it upside down, and bend the legs into the center. Wind one or two strands of Christmas lights around, securing with ordinary twist ties and voila! A Christmas Tree. You can embellish with tinsel, natural tree boughs, grape vine, berries, or whatever else your imagination can dream up. When Christmas season is over, just unwind the lights and you are ready for tomato gardening.

Used in this upside down fashion, tomato cages also make great bases for topiaries or something to put in the center of your outdoor container arrangements when you want height, since giving you something to tie the plants too. Put a sheet over it and you have a ghost for Halloween. The possibilities are endless. The nice thing about this is that you really never end up storing it and it is almost always in use.

By Lou Anne from Belleville, Ontario, Canada