trellises

[brook]

Alan, as many 'maters as you grow, I would investigate the Georgia (some say Florida) weave system of supporting them. Then you wouldn't have to worry so much about stakes etc.

If you make it to the AHSC Fall Conference you can see the method first hand, because that's what Bill Best, at SMAC, uses for his market crops.

I long ago gave up on tipis and the like for beans, and went to string trellises off of PVC frames. The frames stay up permanently, and only the string is replaced each year (I use jute, btw, so it can go in the compost pile).

[Alan]

Thanks Brook, that will give me a couple of things to look into.
-Alan

[hoosierheightsfarm]

One of the easiest things I've found for stakes so far is small cedar trees, they last longer than others. And small sasafrass, these also have some rot resistance. Black locust does too, but it's hard to find those around here much anymore.

Patrick

[bluelacedredhead]

As promised Johno, here's the one section of tower that we used for Red Malabar Spinach. Then the Red Kuri adopted it as well.



Next spring I think I'll paint the rest of the sections up (they are all roughly the same length as the one in this pic) and use them to grow malabar up the outside walls of the henhouse that is visible from the highway. The chickens will think they've gone Uptown

[americangardener]

Wish i would have thought of the bamboo. I used to have a girlfriend who had that growing alongside her house and she hated it. It's so invasive. But now that i think about it .. i should have dug it all up for her.

I myself use tree branches... this serves a double purpose for me. Since i have a small forest bordering my garden, the more branches i can trim off the more sunlight i get, therefore more gardening space. Besides where else could i find 14 ft stakes for my 20 ft tomato plants.

Only downside... gotta keep replacing them every year or two.

For peas, cucumbers and the like.. i use that mesh that they put in concrete to give it strength. Works great for me, i've used the same ones for over twenty years now. And my neighbor gives them to me free since he works in the road construction business... i never ask how he gets them.

Dave

[bluelacedredhead]

Dave, Are you using 6 foot sheets of concrete mesh or cut pieces? And how far do you bury it into the ground? What about supports to hold it up?

[americangardener]

I use lengths anywheres from 50 to 100 feet long and i use the rebar he gives me as stakes about every 15 feet or so. the rebar is only about 6 ft long, but the mesh is only about 5 ft high. So i just weave the rebar thru a couple of the openings and stick it about 2 ft into the ground. Then when i do my digging in the spring i just make a mound at the base of the mesh.. although that's not really necessary. Sometimes just for added height i will slide the mesh up on the rebar about a foot or so... seems to be supported just fine just by the rebar.

If i run low on rebar.. i just use straight tree branches.. works the same. Then the only problem is they rot and you gotta keep replacing them every year or two.

Hope that helps
Dave

[johno]

So, Dave, how do you support those 20' tomato plants, and what the heck do you feed them?

[americangardener]

I use 14 ft tree branches of course!... Gotta stand on an upside down 5 gallon bucket on my tippetoes to tie em off as high as i can. After that... whatever hangs down just makes it easier for me to pick em. They usually hang down a good 6-7 ft which makes a nice shady place to stand and pick the matos from the next row.

Don't feed em anything... for some reason tomatoes just love growing in bricks. I got some rows that's solid clay... during this drought they do get as hard as a brick and get cracking so much it looks like an earthquake came thru. But for some reason the tomatoes just love the stuff. Other rows i have mixed with topsoil, horse manure and compost, just to make the garden workable.. dosen't seem to matter to tomatoes though.. they love the clay just the way it is.

[johno]

I don't have a clear picture in mind about the bricks - maybe I missed something. Are there raised beds made of bricks or something?

I use branches some, too. Cukes do great on them.

[johno]

Cool trellis, blue. Thanks for the pic. Those tower sections work great!

[redbrick]

Johno, I think he meant his soil may as well BE brick, for all of the clay content.

[americangardener]

Sorry to have confused ya Johno.. redbrick is exactly right.

Where i live this entire area used to be Marsh land many many years ago. Hence the soil here is pure gray clay. When it doesn't get water it is as hard as a brick... even when completely soaked it's not much better. I tried using those bulb planter things a few times to dig holes in the completely wet clay.. it was a lost cause.. i went thru 3 of those before i could even get 25 holes done. So now i just use a 2" diameter piece of rebar that's about 8 foot long and weighs about 30 pounds. I just pile drive it into the ground a couple of feet and then wiggle it around till i get a nice size hole that will let my tomato plants roots hang all the way down. Put the plants in up to the top couple sets of leaves and just firm the soil around the tops. Seems to be working pretty good so far. Of couse i work up the entire garden first thing in the spring.. but that dosen't stay that way for long. After a couple weeks it is back to one solid piece of clay. So basically i don't give my tomatoes any real attention... just pop em in the hole, pull the weeds away and leave em till I can get back to check on em in a month or two to see if they're doing ok.

Know what you mean about using the branches for cukes.. i got certain types of tree branches that i use for those when i run out of my regular fencing. These ones have hundreds of small off shoots so they sorta look like a large fern when i stick em in the ground. But they are ideal for cukes, and with the clay soil.. i only have to stick em into the ground about a foot. Course i work the soil for the cukes alot different than maters.. those i actually mix in compost and horse manure and topsoil to make the plants happy. I guess the combination along with the clay works pretty good.. my cukes always outgrow the trellises. Last season i had my trellises rigged with string tied to tree branches that were over 12 feet high. Most of the cukes way outgrew that.. going to the top and back down nearly to the ground again.

These tree branches sure are usefull..

Dave

[bunkie]

dave, wouldn't there be a lot of minerals and nutrients in the ex-marshland soil, even if it was clay when dry? wouldn't that explain the huge, thriving plants?

[americangardener]

There sure is alot of minerals etc... I'm sure that's why i always get huge plants from the varieties of veggies that can actually grow their roots in this hard soil.

I'm so used to having huge plants of things like tomatoes, pole beans and peas that i sometimes forget that not everyone gets em to grow to double the sizes that are listed in the seed catalogs. I just figured it was normal for pole beans and vining peas to grow 20 ft or more.

It's rich soil, for sure.. it just needs more organic matter to make it more readily available for the roots. I try each year to add plenty of leaves, compost and horse manure in the rows where i'm gonna grow things like peppers, cukes, or corn, but there is just so much space and not enough compost to do every square inch of my garden. That's why for some things like tomatoes that i've found can do just as well in the unprepared sections of the garden I may just as well plant em anyways. One of these years i'll get around to improving those areas, but for now... may as well use em.