Support Your Local Veggie

I'm a fan and loyal reader of the blog,
Old World Garden Farms.
The folks on that website have so many great ideas
about building, growing, and innovating
that every week there is something new to learn.



After recently purchasing their second book,
I was inspired to create some tomato and pepper supports for the veggie garden.

This idea can be found on their website here,
or in their new book called, Raised Row Gardening.

How much do I LOVE this Sawz-all?
It's a workhorse in the garden when there are big limbs to be felled.
It came in mighty handy on this lil' project.

It was used to cut these pieces of wood to the correct size.
Four 2X8 strips were purchased from our local hardware store.
This is my makeshift workshop.

The pieces were cut in half,
giving me eight 4-foot stakes to be used for tomato and pepper plants.

The ends were trimmed to a point with a jigsaw.
This should make them easier to pound into the clay.

Not perfect, 

but I think Carole at Garden Up Green,

(a power tool maven),

 would be proud.

No one will see this end anyway,

as these will be buried beneath the soil.

This wire had been acquired (for free) on Next Door,

a local online listing site.

It's a bit rusty, but it doesn't bother me.

Isn't the rustic look all the rage these days?

The important thing is that the spaces are 2 X 4 inches,
which happens to be what Jim and Mary suggested for this use.
This is supposed to make it easier to harvest your goodies.

I rolled out the wire and cut pieces 18 inches wide with wire cutters.

Then I measured 14 inches from the point of the stake,

where the wire will be attached,

and marked it with a pencil.

The bottom of the wire will sit here,

allowing a good portion of the stake to be buried.

 At first, I used regular staples and an electric staple gun to attach the wire,
because that was what I had on hand.
They didn't hold, so I purchased these fencing nails (3/4").

I attached these every couple of rows with the swing of my hammer.
Isn't making stuff yourself the best?
Channel your inner pioneer!

Here's what the finished project looks like.
It'll be fun to see how these rate compared to standard tomato cages.
I've used those in the past and they are sometimes
cumbersome to deal with and make harvesting tomatoes rather a chore.
This design allows for good support AND accessibility to the fruit.
I think it might be a big improvement.
The best part is that they were very inexpensive to make,
as I had the wire already.

I'm hoping to get my tomato transplants in this week.
We've had rain galore,
so that should make the installation a bit easier.
Perhaps we'll have an update on this week's Garden Friday.
 Until then, I hope this was helpful.

Be sure to visit Jim and Mary's blog,
and tell 'em daisy sent ya!