26-09-2003, 11:02 PM
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Need Vertical Gardening Ideas (was: Stake or no stake tomato)
In article ,
(Pat Kiewicz) wrote:
Phaedrine Stonebridge said:
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.
If you are willing to invest some money, a frame can be made of
threaded pipe (the kind that is used for natural gas). You need two
elbows, two 'tees' and a coupler, plus two 6' uprights, one cross-bar
the width that you want the frame to be, two crossbars each about
half that width, and two 'legs' about 2-1/2 feet long. All pieces
must be threaded at both ends, except the 'leg' pieces which are
threaded on one end only. Also get some plastic piping which is big
enough in diameter to fit the pipe into. Cut that into 2-3/4 foot
lengths.
The pieces are put together in rectangular panel using the elbows at
the top and the tees and coupler at the bottom. The 'legs' are then
threaded into the tees.
Put the plastic pipe into the ground at the proper spacing and drop
into them. The way I do this is to pound some closed-end pipe of
about the same diameter into the ground using an 8 pound sledge
hammer.
This results in a very sturdy frame which can be taken down at the
end of the season. It won't rot, or blow over, or bend.
Lighter and more temporary frames can be made with electrical conduit
and fittings constructed in roughly the same form and dropped into
pipe in the ground. These are usually sturdy enough for peas but the
thinner pipe can be bent and the frames collapsed if you've got a
thick growth of beans and a strong storm blowing across them.
These frames can be wired with tomato-cage wire (permanently) or
threaded each year with jute twine, which allows you to cut down the
vines and support and compost the whole shebang.
Thanks so much for the detail! I'm gonna have my husband read this and
I bet he will have some questions later. I know he went looking for
pipe once but had a lot of trouble finding the right connectors.
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