On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:39:00 -0500, Phaedrine Stonebridge
wrote:


About mid-season, I sent away to Pinetree for some netting--- sturdy
netting with holes large enough to put your hand thru in order to pick
stuff. But my husband, as clever and handy as he is, was unable to come
up with a way to use it. He tried wrapping the tripods with it but that
did not work at all. Personally, I think we need horizontals at a
height of at least 6 feet (for the beans anyway) from which to suspend
the netting but I have no idea how to reliably anchor the netting at the
bottom. We'd need something pretty demountable for storage purposes---
though bamboo does not rot, does it? If we made tall bamboo frames, I
suppose we could store them under the deck if neither the netting nor
the bamboo would rot. I am just dying to know how other people do this.

We were able to find 10' fence-poles - these are the metal
fence poles from which people hang welded-wire or woven-wire
fencing. They are very sturdy. They have a flange at the
bottom that goes into the ground and holds them upright.

We pounded these into the ground (we didn't actually do it
ourselves: we had a handyman do it, my husband cannot swing
a sledge hammer without causing himself lots of pain - the
handyman has a fencepost-pounding-tool too which is a big
help).

The fence posts are in a line. Then we ran a heavy wire
across the top of the fence posts. Then we fastened netting
(6" x 6" - from one of the garden suppliers, I forget which
one) to the wire with plastic cable-ties.

This is for beans, peas, cukes. So far it seems to work
pretty well.

We did it at the north end of the garden, to avoid shading
the rest of the garden.

Pat
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