I put 8' bamboo poles two feet apart in my garden to hold up my tomatoes. Was hoping to get them 1-2 feet into the ground but only could pound them about 6"-8".
Anyone have any clever ideas how to secure these or get them deeper in the ground?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Any ideas for securing trellis poles in the ground?
Kineta, I use 8' bamboo poles for my tomatoes, too, but I place my poles in tripods and plant a tomato at the base of each one. The poles in the tripod are about 18" apart and the tripods are maybe 2' apart. I put the tripods in the ground about 8 - 10", but what gives them the stability is that I tie them off at the top with twine, and then I tie poles along the tops of the tripods to stabilize them even further. Here's a photo:
Here's the view from the side - the single high horizontal pole in the background is from my bean fencing:
This message was edited Jul 13, 2009 7:08 AM
i use thin rebar and put 1/2 inch pvc over it to make my greenhouses, perhaps you could pound in rebar and slide bamboo over it or ty wrap the bamboo to it.
-joe-
I have bamboo growing in the corner of my backyard and used the teepee method the first year I gardened here. After that, I decided it was too much trouble, and purchased pea fences from Burpee. You just stick them in the ground in a zig-zag fashion, add another pea fence beside the first one, and plant tomatoes, beans, or anything else that grows about four feet tall between the two fences, and the fences stop them from falling over without having to tie them up.
honeybee
I think about that every year, for 20 years now, I am still out there with my zipties, rebar and 7 foot wood slats tying up 30 tomato plants that should have been tied weeks a go.. trying not to squish a cuke or my cat who hangs out for the comedy i think..
maybe this year..
-joe-
Here is my process...I cut the bottom end of the bamboo at a 45 degree angle so it is more like a stake. I grasp the pole about 2' from the bottom and use my body weight to drive the pole into the ground (unless my hubby is around and then he does it.) I then place a flat piece of wood at the top of the stake and hammer the wood which drives the pole in deeper. The wood helps diffuse the impact and prevents the splintering of the bamboo (though I have been known to use the broad side of the hammer without a wooden board.) I use floral tape to lanyard the poles together at each intersection. See pic of the bean vines at the bottom right. I did this for the tomatoes today as they were too tall for the arched bamboo pieces I started with. Hope this makes sense. Good luck!!
Sujo, my bamboo poles are 8' tall, so I can't get on top of them as you can. Also our soil is fairly light and sandy, even with all the amendments, so I don't need to pound a whole lot to insert the poles in the ground. If worse comes to worse there's always the post hole digger.
I think the tripod design would be more supportive without having to sink the bamboo that deep. I also found it was easier when the ground was saturated. I built bamboo racks for the tomatoes, beans and other vines to climb on. The tomatoes are 8' tall now and coming back down the other side.
Podster, mine did that last year, and I'm wondering now if I should have trimmed them before they got that tall and just let them be bushier lower down. It wasn't very stable when they were coming back down!
Actually, I've had more trouble getting them to the top. They were loaded with the weight of tomatoes so I had to keep weaving them thru tomato webbing and tying them to the bamboo.
Kineta ~ in this photo, you can see the ladder rung cross braces I added for the tomatoes to weave thru. These braces also added stability.
These lower leaves yellowed from water deprivation as we were away on vacation for 10 days. With this summers' heat, I was glad they weren't dead.
Greenhouse_gal and Potagere' were kind enough to do a bamboo trellis thread last winter to inspire me to harvest bamboo and experiment. Sorry I haven't put my hand on that thread yet but will try to find it and link it for you Kineta.
On this trellis the back risers were placed in the ground standing upright and the bamboo rack was angled and tied off to the risers. I found this to be the least successful as the angle was too prounounced. It would lean too heavily with the wind blowing the weight of the foliage. I've had to redo the wiring on this one quite a few times. Not a design I'll use again!
That's funny, Podster! This year I'm having trouble with my pole bean fencing. I use bamboo poles for the uprights and for crosspieces top and bottom, and then weave string up and down. For some reason my whole setup keeps wanting to lean way to the left. I've wrestled it back into shape several times but this never happened before. At least it hasn't fallen down - yet. I have my Fortex beans on there; the rest are bush beans and don't need support. But I really love the Fortex flavor.
I'm wondering if you can screw a small piece of wood (1" wide cut about 6"-8" long) to the end of the bamboo poles and use the 1" piece as the stake?? Another idea would be to attach cross pieces to each leg, forming either a square or triangle bottom that would sit on the ground (the bamboo would serve as the "corners"). Then, you could make some staple like stakes ("U" shaped out of wire) to go over the cross pieces and hold the structure in place.
Just some different ideas...
kineta, I no longer use bamboo stakes because they rot in humid houston. Isn't WA rainy? if you plan to replace poles yearly, then OK but if you wanted something permanent, I'm not sure bamboo is the best option.
I'm on my second year with the bamboo tripods and so far they still look perfect - and southern NJ is very humid. I don't expect them to last more than a few years, but I do think they'll be around for that long.
I also make sure to take them down as soon as I'm finished with them and store them on pallets in the barn.
I used 1 inch pvc conduit (it resist degrading in the sun) for supports with 1/2 inch pvc conduit used for laterals to tie the plants to. It comes in 10 foot lengths. I cut the 1 inch down to 7 feet and used the other 3 feet across the top. I used 1 1/4 inch thinwall metal conduit cut to 12 inch length with one end flattened to drive in the ground and insert the 1 inch conduit into. nothing is glued, just a friction fit. These are my late tomatoes, hopefully this will allow me to use plant covers over them for the first few light frosts and let them produce for an extra month. If it works this fall, I plan on using it to get an early start next spring.
1 1/4 inch x 12 inch conduit that goes in the ground.
Uprights in place and first lateral course tied in place.
Cherokee purple tied to the lateral with drip irrigation in place.
Saltmarsh, that looks great!!! Do you leave them up all year? Is this difficult? I'm thinking next year this could be the thing. Thanks for the idea.
DDDAL
I plan on taking them down and storing them for the winter. If it works like I think it will, I'll cover a different area with plastic this fall (to warm the ground) and reuse it in the spring. The two rows are 40 feet long and on 3 foot centers. The rows were freshly tilled and installation was very easy with a helper. I fastened the laterals loosely, then backed off and looked at them and adjusted them slightly before I tightened the ties on the uprights. igcusa.com had a closeout on fabric plant covers this spring and i bought 4 - 10 foot x 20 foot covers for $10 apiece. If it gets too hot in August and September, I'll use them for shading as well. Total cost for every thing but the plant covers was about $100. With the uv resistant conduit I hope they'll last about 4 years. If you notice the laterals are on opposite sides of the uprights. This is working better than I had planned to train the tomatoes. It's kind of like the Florida weave, but using conduit instead of string.
Very attractive and efficient-looking, Saltmarsh! It looks like it's easy to put up, too.