Monday, April 12, 2010

If you know this won't work...


...just tell me now.

First I thought we might make tomato cages out of leftover metal fencing. Then I attended a gardening workshop and learned that such cages can stunt tomato production because they don't allow enough sunlight to reach the plants' leaves. The presenter recommended tall stakes. While chatting with my neighbor about her stakes, I learned that the store bought kind are not cheap. That bothered me.

When David and I were discussing the construction of our compost container (using scrap lumber and scrap chicken wire, probably), I discovered a pile of trimmed branches behind our shed. I removed all the twigs and trimmed them further. Then I artfully arranged them (ha ha) over the spots where I'll put my tomato plants. They're plunged deep into the soil - we'll see if they can bear the weight of my incredibly productive tomato plants (I hope!).

5 comments:

Robina said...

a grower's garden (i think that's the name) on south blvd. near hwy 51 has big bamboo aged stakes for $1 each. They are great quality. i would call first before though. your garden looks great.

Katherine T. Lauer said...

I don't think the sticks will be able to bear the weight, but I'm curious to see how it turns out!

Diane said...

I agree with Katherine that those sticks seem too flimsy to support a full tomato plant, but if they do fall, they will still grow tomatoes! Try it, you might like it ;)

KATEDDY said...

Your garden looks great so far! I am not sure about the sticks, but let me know how it turns out. Eddy used some left over pieces of wood for ours, I think. I also wanted to let you know our experience with the compost pile! We had our own, but found one at Sam's for only $40!!! Just wanted to let you know, we think it is working better than our own man-made one with wood and chicken wire! Happy Gardening!!!!!

Katherine T. Lauer said...

Hey, what about Freecycle? I haven't worked with Freecycle ever, but I've heard great things about it.