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Old 03-08-2003, 05:02 PM
Noydb
 
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Default Cucumber support

Pat Meadows wrote:

On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 23:54:39 -0400, Noydb
wrote:

Allan Matthews wrote:

What type of wire fencing is best for supporting cucumbers grown
vertically? Any ideas?


What is 'best' is whatever is available locally that meets your needs of
aesthetics and price.

I, personally, use green plastic coated welded fencing with 2" x 3" holes
in it up a 10' tall trellis (2x4's built into my raised boxes). My cukes
are a little past the 7' mark now.


How do you pick them?

Pat


Once it gets too high for hand picking, I get a 6' step ladder. Once it is
too tall for that, I use a section of lightweight aluminum extension ladder
leaned against the trellis (it's quite sturdy and anchored by the weight of
the soil in the boxes).

Picking up high is not a problem because the supports are every 24" and are
tied together with a 2x4 across the top that spans all nine per box and I
just handle the vine in three of them at a time (dead center, one left, one
right). I take a 2 gallon pail up the ladder with me and have a paint pail
hook hold it on a rung while I do the picking.

It's the cukes growing down low that I miss that are a problem. :-) I've
pulled two National Pickling yellow footballs out of there already and,
since I haven't been able to get to the garden for a couple of days, there
are probably others waiting for me to carry them over to the compost pile.

(My cukes have their roots in a strawberry / herb bed ... although I've
gotten most of that darned Greek Oregano grubbed out of there. I thought
the stuff grew in a slow-spreading clump --like it came to me -- and had no
idea that it is even more invasive than spearmint. Now the strawberries are
claiming the box for their own, too! But it sure looks pretty when they
send their runners over the edge of the box. Very nice effect that breaks
up the straight lines of the boxes.)

Bill
--
Zone 5b (Detroit, MI)
I do not post my address to news groups.