Post setter for staking tomatoes
It’s been a busy week, with the garden and other work around the house and yard.
We have picked lots of cukes for pickles. We grow eureka for bread and butter pickles and regal for the dills. They get washed and stored in the frig until we have enough to run a batch.
Finding the dill was a bit of a challenge.
Trying to call the grocery stores is an exercise in futility. After numerous hang ups, and goof ups, no we are not looking for dill pickles, we abandoned that approach.
We should have grown it but for some reason it was overlooked. It was a hectic spring with numerous emergencies and life happens but we will not forget next year!
We finally found some dill on Wesley Island at Cross Island Farms.
Dani, one of the owners, gave us a tour of the farm and a great deal on the dill. They sell organic vegetables, eggs, and more.
It looks like we will have enough for this batch but we will have to find some more.
The tomatoes were reaching a point where they needed some support. Many of our tomatoes like the super sweet 100s are indeterminate and tend to grow very tall. As a matter of fact a neighbor had one that was around 7 feet tall. These plants yield a lot of cherry tomatoes and especially if they are kept off the ground. In our case, where we plant 3 foot rows separated by a 3 foot grass access row, it is important to keep the plants where they are suppose to be so that we can mow between the rows. This way we can easily pick from both sides.
While looking through a garden catalog I saw a post driver that is made from a length of steel pipe with one end sealed and handles on the sides. The idea is to slide the driver over the post and use the weight to drive the post. If driving a bamboo stake seems dangerous think about swinging a sledge hammer trying to hit a post. I have done it and it is not as easy as it looks.
Why not make a smaller version or the post driver for garden stakes? No reason why not so that’s what I did.
A one and a half inch piece of pipe would be wide enough so I checked with the metal supply and they had a piece that was about 2 feed long. The weight was good, not too heavy to use but enough oomph to drive the stakes. The metal supply company spun some threads on one end and I think they charged me something like $12.00 for the whole thing.
I bought a one and a half inch pipe cap for around 2 dollars from the plumbing section of a hardware store.
The cap gets threaded on the pipe. Hand tight is good enough.
The pipe is slid over the end of the stake. It’s nice to have someone handing the stakes because this method works fast.
Having a helper means there is no bending or stooping to pick up supplies.
Slide the pipe up and down to drive the stake, using the weight of the pipe to do the work.
If a stake should split the splinters are held safely inside the pipe.
The job went quick and easy compared to driving with a hammer. Now all the tomatoes are tied up with pieces of old t-shirts, just tight enough to hold them up and out of the way of the lawnmower.
Other than that we have just been busy trying to get things in order to move the “storage” greenhouse to the back of the property. That meant moving one of the boats up and putting it undercover for restoration. As a matter of fact we started a blog to document the progress. It is Collecting Fire Wood.
When fiberglass boats became popular the dealers would burn the wooden boats taken in trade thinking there was no value in these old relics.
They would strip the hardware and power then burn them in a pile.
The weather had turned more seasonal with 70’s and low 80’s and that makes working outside easier, and more fun.
