Garden progress

 Garden progress

Posted on Jan 11, 2021 11:51 AM

Last Thursday was a very beautiful day for winter. The sun was out and the temps were going to be in the low 50's. As I gazed out my back room, I was immediately reminded that I had a bunch of bamboo poles that needed to be cut for the construction of my fence. Knowing I needed at least 44 six and half foot poles, I began to cut the poles with my hacksaw.
Having already sorted them, I began to cut the longer poles that I had determined would give me 2 supports each. Those gave me 28 supports. Then I turned my efforts to the bamboo that would give me 1 pole each being shorter than the other set. At that point, I combined the cut poles and was very happy that I had a total of 58 poles. And, as a bonus, after looking at the remants from the cuttings, I was able to save many more than I originally thought for plant supports. I estimate that I will get probably 15-20 total. They probably couldn't be used for heavier types of plants like tomatoes and cucumbers, but they definitely could be put into service on pepper plants and such. Below is a split picture showing the fence posts along side the plant supports.

The bamboo was free as they were being pulled out of a backyard and the person just wanted to get rid of them. I researched the use of bamboo and found out if you let them age from a green color to brown, they will become more rigid. These have aged in my backyard for about 8 months if memory serves and they are pretty rigid. I couldn't be happier with the outcome.
The cutting took about 2 hours all in all. Now the project can move to actual assembly of the fence when I purchase the fencing. I can't wait as I need to defend the plants from all of the pesky squirrels in our area.
That's all I have at this time. There is still much to do and I will be relating as much as I can. Spring is fast approaching so the pressure will start to mount. Good thing I love gardening so much. Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!