Phaedrine Stonebridge wrote:

In article , EV wrote:

I don't understand the
uber-cage, unfortunately, but maybe my DH will when he sees it.

Sorry. I was hoping a picture would be worth a thousand words. :-)

Basically, the uber-cage consists of 8 ft. bamboo poles that I sink into
the ground as deep as I can, at about 2.5 ft. intervals. Then I 'weave' 6
ft poles horizontally through the uprights and tie seal them to the
uprights just above notches in the bamboo so they don't slip. You can see
the first horizontals in June Ediblbes section. I also add bamboo 3-4 ft.
lengths that go across the enclosure, again tie sealing above notches
wherever possible. These seperate the various plants in the uber-cage.
Then I add horitzontals as the plants grow, to keep them growing up. I
sometimes add sticks on a diagonal to keep major tomato branches seperate
and supported.

Also, just a little X-bracing can add a lot of stability, especially
against wind shear.

Exactly.

You can see the second row of horizontals up in the August
tomato bed shot. It looks flimsy, but it actually holds up really well. I
had no tomato damage during 70 mph gusts we had during the storms on the
weekend. The trees lost branches but, luckily, the cage held. The season
is about a month behind here in southern Ontario. Looks like I'll be
making alot of green tomato relish.

Ah ha! Thanks SO much for taking the time to describe it. It sounds
and looks just awesome. We are always looking for ways to do more
vertical gardening, though my husband is a bit weary of building new
garden structures.

The bamboo is soooo easy to work with you could do it yourself. I love
building the uber-cages. Very satsifying.

We have only been in this house a little over a year
so I keep telling him that the worst of it is already over. Our number
one problem is what to do with peas, cucumbers, pole-type beans, melons
and squash. In a previous fenced garden, we grew many of these up the
fence and netted the larger items.

But we cannot have permanent fencing here (way too much to fence and
some deed restrictions too), though we do have our berries espaliered on
heavy gauge wires on 6x6" posts. The beans have grown just so-so on 8
foot tall tripods wrapped with some horizontal jute twine. The problem
is that they get so bunched at the top and then start flopping all over
the place.

We also grew cukes on tripods. The only ones that did
respectably well were the Divas. We had a huge yield of them before
they finally got some kind of a wilt (yet another problem).

San Marzano tomatoes seem to like to wilt too .... luckily usually after it
doesn't matter anymore. One summer I tried to grow vegetable marrow that all
rotted. It's funny how certain things are precluded. I can grow pretty much
anything but clematis. I've gone through a handful of plants and none of them
lasted. Most everything else grows like gangbusters.

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.

I've anchored stuff like that with rocks or bricks. I've braced plants that
way too.

We'd need something pretty demountable for storage purposes---

I take my uber-cages down for the winter to preserve the bamboo. It's pretty
fast. Less time than it takes to put it up.

though bamboo does not rot, does it?

Yeah, it does eventually if you leave it in the ground.

If we made tall bamboo frames, I
suppose we could store them under the deck if neither the netting nor
the bamboo would rot.

That'd be fine for the bamboo, probably the netting too.

I am just dying to know how other people do this.
I have seen lots of posts that were really general but few that actually
say how to detail such trellises. If we could fashion a sturdy,
practical design, we could construct them over the winter--- IF we can
get bamboo somewhere. Where do you get yours BTW?

The garden centres around here all stock them, even the Home Depot's.

I was also thinking that with bamboo, lashing might work great and would
be highly demountable. It sounds like that is what you are doing with
your uber-cage.

Yup. I buy rolls of green tie seal stuff at the dollar store. I can get tight
above or beside the bamboo notches with just a twist. I cut them extra long,
so that I can keep adding on at the joins.

My husband thought my "lashing" idea was very amusing
for some reason. LOL But he is not familiar with lashing methods as I
have been. Being a former girl scout, we used to build darn near
everything by lashing--- lean-tos, Adirondack platforms, camp stools and
tables, you name it.

I hear ya! My husband leaves all the lashing to me.

Then again, I have never lashed anything as
slippery as bamboo either.

It's not so bad because when you get poles of the same thickness and length,
the notches usually line up fairly well.

I am open to all suggestions.

Phae

I think trial and error is half the fun. Good luck whatever you decide!

:-)

Ether