A year ago, I wrote about using bamboo canes for staking tomatoes (here). In my corner of the world, in fact, all supports and trellises, including those for climbing and vining plants, are built with natural materials that come from the immediate area. Even the strings used to tie the grape vines to their chestnut trellis are made with fibers from broom and other shrubs.
Some of the most clever natural supports, though, are the stakes used for climbing peas and pole beans. Over here, we sow peas and beans in winter at the beginning of the year, and the plants are big enough to need support by springtime, when the fruit trees have blossomed, and are pruned before they leaf.
These fruit tree prunings are saved - especially from the peach and apricot trees - and people use them to stake the climbing varieties of beans and peas.
This way there's no need to build or buy trellises at all!
It's a simple way of life where nothing is wasted, and everything is re-used - even the prunings - in the cycling of seasons that determines the rhythm of the traditional agricultural cycle.
5 comments:
What a great idea! It seems so simple, yet I would have never thought about doing this. Thank you for sharing this with us!
We are in Oregon. We have, over the years, firewooded a number of maple, ash, and cottonwood trees, all of which resprout many saplings from each stump, a form of "coppicing." These supply a good many beanpoles. We've also been surprised to discover that Japanese knotweed, a pernicious and nearly ineradicable invasive, redeems itself somewhat by supplying usable poles and supports, as well as fast-lighting kindling, somewhat like sunflower stalks.
Oh, I'm so glad you posted this. I was just started to worry about what to use for my peas, I hate spending money on that stuff. I never would have thought to use branches! That is so clever :)
And so much more aesthetic than using bought supports. Great post!
Thank you. Perfect timing. I'd been wondering what I was going to do when my beans/peas outgrew their stick posts. Felt obliged to visit the nursery to buy something. Darn consumerism. Thanks for the gentle reminder that what I have actually already does work.
I shared this post on my blog this weekend for other gardeners (http://rosiedreams.com/favorites-for-the-week/).
Cheers!
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